From a discussion with my retired General father. From a life spend around military men, I have always thought Sisko was the most true to life as military leaders go. My father OTH states that it Picard, since according to him, Picard actually trusts his subordinates to get their job done.
What do Dopers think…especially former military types.
I trust Janeway and Archer can be safely disregarded.
Archer also trusted his subs, but he had too much “vision.” Hey, it was fiction…
Janeway was so sanctimonious it made me cringe. Chacotay seemed more real just as a person than she did.
Picard was what first came to mind for me.
Sisko was playing too many roles to be realistic, tho it was entertaining.
Kirk was like a couple of ex-SEALS I knew. Reckless and always sure he was right.
I’m not military, but my Dad was earlier in life. I am a Trekker/Trekkie since the original airing of TOS
They may have all had their moments, but the writing within each series was so wildly inconsistent that I’m not sure anything definite can be claimed. Sisko had the most military premise to deal with, in the sense of a multi-season story arc about an actual war, with Archer being the closest second I guess, but the others had episodic adventures in which they might act military one week and determinedly non-military the next.
I personally respect Kirk the most.
Kirk reminds me of every Israeli battalion or brigade commander I’ve known. The swagger, the arrogance, the tendency to lead from the front, the I-don’t-stand-on-ceremony-but-I’m-still-the-alpha-dog attitude - it’s all there.
Picard’s character was created from the start to be seen as a seasoned veteran commander who understood tactics and politics and a cool customer who would deliberately be different from Kirk’s hard-charging *macho *gambler’s style. As the OP’s father observed, a major point in the TNG writers’ guidelines was that the new CO would delegate a lot – beginning with NOT being in the landing parties. So Picard would not be getting his [del]shirt ripped[/del] hands dirty all the time: he’d be a decisionmaker, not an action hero.
As mentioned, we got to see Sisko in a wider variety of command situations from garrison routine to theatre operations in wartime. That’s more of a writers’ problem, needing to place the hero in every key role even as you expand the universe. Picard being on his one specific ship made for a better focus. Of course DS9 is post-Rodenberry Trek so it was relieved from the late-life-Gene dictates of utopianism and conflict avoidance that the first years of TNG were under, so the scenarios put before Sisko changed significantly.
James T Kirk as per TOS was a hot above-the-line high-achiever – what little we do get in canonical backstory shows him to be highly decorated in what sounds like many high-profile missions. However he seems the sort of officer who in peacetime would be stuck in a rut smothered by the rules, and only gets his chance to shine when the Big Crisis comes and results count more than The Book. So he appeasrs to have gone about being promoted whenever he solved some headline-making crisis; they finally sent him out for 5 years on the sort of mission where crises are a recurrent situation far away from the home worlds (BTW: I believe the whole franchise was weakened when it became a common storyline that our crew has to save Earth itself from getting whomped).
Reboot Kirk, he’s pure fantasy.
The brooding of Kirk as well?
Not in front of the troops, that’s for sure.
Is it fair to think of them in military terms? The Enterprise (at least in TOS) was on an exploratory mission, not a military one.
This has been discussed here and a lot of other places over several decades. “Is Starfleet Military?” will bring up dozens of threads and other websites.
Enterprise also focused on a military storyline during the third season with the Xindi attack arc and the Enterprise carrying a complement of MACOs (Military Assault Command Operations), Starfleet’s equivalent of Space Marines.
I was a Lieutenant/Captain when TNG was on. Picard always struck me as a true senior officer. Confident without being cocky, reserved edging toward formal (lots of Sr officers have a tough time balancing command with the natural tendency to want to be friends with subordinates they respect), methodical in decision making, willing to hear everyone, but realizing he is the one responsible. I think he was the most realistic by far.
Well they sure did (and endured) a whole damn lot of torpedoing for an exploratory mission, y’know.
…I was surprised on rewatch of TOS how by the book military Kirk actually was. And this contrasted majorly with the brash hot head of the reboot. I hate the new Kirk with a passion. Old Kirk is a leader: and along with the counsel of his two oldest and wisest friends I would follow and trust him into battle…even if it meant risking or loosing my life. I’d frag New Kirk at the first opportunity.
So my vote, obviously, is for Old Kirk.
If I must choose, it is Picard who is most “realistic.” Back during the original run, everyone complained about how unrealistic it was for the CO to go on every away mission. So they decided to split Kirk into two characters: Picard and Riker. Even still, sending any bridge crew down seems reckless.
But must it be military? If it’s truly a mission of exploration I would love to see an SF, if not Star Trek, series modeled after Lewis & Clark and the Corps of Discovery.
Another vote for Picard. When I was in the Navy, the best senior officers maintained a slight distance from the crew, while still trusting and delegating to his officers and chiefs. Picard had massive gravitas, which is extremely important for commanding officers.
Picard definitely. In particular his staff meetings where the staff officers present several CoAs and he decides on the best one. I’ve seen it hundreds of times in real life. But there is not enough staff work going on. How can they survive without MDMP? Where is the PowerPoint!?
Well, Picard definitely fit the bill in terms of Roddenberry’s vision of the future always being one of increasing optimism. Picard was a diplomat first and a soldier second. And that’s what that job in that time required. Kirk was a soldier first, (a horndog second :D) and a diplomat third. But he was still a more than competent diplomat.
I loved Patrick Stewart’s Picard, but there was always the occasional episode where he finds himself & his ship getting deeper & deeper into danger, and I would literally be screaming at the TV,* “Jesus Jean-Luc, now is the time to summon your inner Kirk for Christ’s sake!!”*
Hello. Final FRONTIER.
Did Captain Cook just sit in his boat? Military or exploratory, Kirk was a long ways from help or home.
No, he went ashore and was killed by the locals while Bligh commanded the guard boat. 
Kirk held staff meetings too. I remember one in* Balance of Terror*, for instance.