Cardasian Federation war

[Captain Seafort]

The problems caused by the loss of Praxis seem to indicate excessive industrial centralisation even during the 23rd century. Not surprising given that UP was pretty much the construction facility of the Federation, and the alliance was worried about the Dominion rebuilding their fleet with the resources of Cardassia Prime alone in "What You Leave Behind".

[Deepcrush]

Such things would only compound the matters of cost with maintance of a large fleet. As seafort said, "Excessive industrial centralisation" but it doesnt' seem limited to anyone race but grapples them all. The UFP, Klingon Empire, Romulan and Cardassian fleets were affraid of what a single planet could do against their combined forces. Seems silly but we must take it as cannon proof that the AQ suffers from mass stupidity.

[Sionnach Glic]

Seems silly but we must take it as cannon proof that the AQ suffers from mass stupidity.

It took that for you to realise the galaxy is populated by idiots?
Hell, I've known it since the first TNG episode...

[Deepcrush]

I was just reconfirming a valid point. That's all.

[Captain Seafort]

It isn't nearly as stupid as some of the other thing we've seen - simply a decision to concentrate on a few difficult-to-attack locations rather than many separate locations under a mentality of making it difficult to destroy all of them. For comparison, if Norfolk Navy Yard were destroyed it would have a serious impact of the US Navy's construction capacity.

[Deepcrush]

That would only be a very short term loss as there are several other ports nearby that could easily take the load if needed. But I think I understand your point as a whole. I wonder if that end result was intention or just how it ended up.

[Captain Seafort]

That would only be a very short term loss as there are several other ports nearby that could easily take the load if needed. But I think I understand your point as a whole. I wonder if that end result was intention or just how it ended up.

I'm not talking about the port facility, I'm talking about construction (although a bit of research reminds me that it's nearby Newport News that does most of the important stuff). A major nuclear attack there would destroy the US Navy's ability to construct and refuel the carriers - it would take years at minium to restore that capability, and probably much longer given the loss of institutional experience that would also occur.

[Deepcrush]

It would be my thought that they would just use Bethlehem Yards as a stand in. The experience loss would be harsh but the port itself could be easily replaced. Norfolk was built to allow the USN to build and maintain its own fleet rather then having contract companies do so. I would be shocked if it took more then a year to get a replacement up and running.

[Duskofdead]

Were it an all out war, the federation would have ripped them to pieces. I would think that only the UFPs willingness to avoid war saved the cardassians.

This was evidently not true given that the Admiral stressed to Picard in The Wounded that the Federation could not afford a conflict with the Cardassians at that time. I know that the common consensus is that the Galor is an older, rugged, less sophisticated design than the newer Federation ships, and that even in small groups it's not a match for say a Galaxy class. But let's remember that once upon a time there were only six Galaxy class ships in all of Starfleet (and one was destroyed fairly early on in TNG.)

Part of the problem is that people are reverse-engineering their mental picture of Starfleet from the Dominion War. During TNG and even all of DS9 right up until the war, it had felt like Starfleet had ships far flung across its territory with rarely more than a couple in the same sector. And this may very well be an accurate picture even after the Dominion War, where presumably Starfleet just concentrated most of its ships on one front. If there are hundreds of ships in every direction you look then you lose a sense of space being vast and you lose a sense of going out and exploring something new and strange. After DS9, if you picture dozens or hundreds of modern, state of the art Starfleet ships sitting around ready to smack down some Cardassian insolence, then yes, the Cardassians were no threat. If you picture Starfleet's most advanced ships out doing important research and exploration duties in unknown space, with aging Mirandas and Excelsiors patrolling the Federation's internal borders, then the idea of a war with the Cardassians during the TNG era seems much shakier.

There are two main reasons the Cardassians are viewed as hopelessly weak; the Enterprise-D easily disabled one in the Wounded, and the Defiant shredded several apart when Tom Riker stole it. And neither of these were exactly fair comparisons--- it's a bit like saying the Federation is hopelessly weak after watching the Scimitar against the Ent-E, or because Ransom's Nova class ship had to run away from a Romulan Warbird.

Remember "Dreadnought", the Cardassian built missile that had adaptability like a Borg ship? And the ODP's were Cardassian built as well. I wouldn't gauge their entire military strength by the fact that the Defiant (possibly the most overpowered and ridiculously overclocked ship for its size ever shown in Trek) ripped some up and because the Klingons were able to tear up the Cardassians after the Obsidian Order was destroyed and the government was overthrown in an uprising. Almost any basis upon which I can guess people are basing the idea that the Cardassians were no credible military threat pre-Dominion War is a really unfair or highly situational comparison.

[Sionnach Glic]

This was evidently not true given that the Admiral stressed to Picard in The Wounded that the Federation could not afford a conflict with the Cardassians at that time.

That doesn't indicate that the Cardassians could hold off a full scale Fed attack, however. It merely indicated that a war would be costly, which is quite true, and that getting involved in an all out war wouldn't be to their best interests. Whether these intrests are militarily or politicaly based is unknown.

There are two main reasons the Cardassians are viewed as hopelessly weak; the Enterprise-D easily disabled one in the Wounded, and the Defiant shredded several apart when Tom Riker stole it. And neither of these were exactly fair comparisons--- it's a bit like saying the Federation is hopelessly weak after watching the Scimitar against the Ent-E, or because Ransom's Nova class ship had to run away from a Romulan Warbird.

While I can't speak for the other members, that certainly is not how I reached the conclusion that the Cardassians are one of the weaker powers in the AQ. Whether ship X can beat ship Y is one type of strength, but there are others. Technology, territory, resources, industrial strength, population, political stability, alliances with other powers, economic strenght and a whole host of other factors come into play here. From what we've seen, the Cardassians come nowhere near matching the Federation in most of these catagories. This is where I get my conclusion that the Cardassians would be soundly beaten in a war with the Cardassians.

After DS9, if you picture dozens or hundreds of modern, state of the art Starfleet ships sitting around ready to smack down some Cardassian insolence, then yes, the Cardassians were no threat. If you picture Starfleet's most advanced ships out doing important research and exploration duties in unknown space, with aging Mirandas and Excelsiors patrolling the Federation's internal borders, then the idea of a war with the Cardassians during the TNG era seems much shakier.

Quite true, but how long would the Federation's most powerful ships remain away from the war? If the Cardassians launched an attack on Federation space, the UFP would quickly respond with as much force as they could muster. The Cardassians would likely make some good progress into Federation space initialy, but once the UFP can bring up it's more powerful ships, expect the Cardassians to be sent fleeing back home with their tails between their legs.

Remember "Dreadnought", the Cardassian built missile that had adaptability like a Borg ship?

All factors indicate that that was a once-off superweapon. If the Cardassians had had the capacity to manufacture more of these, then they would have been deployed during the war. No such weapons were sighted during the war, thus the likely conclusion is that they do not have the capacity to build these devices in any useful amount.

And the ODP's were Cardassian built as well.

Point. But how long would they have been able to hold out against a determined aggresor? Also, there's the fact that any attacker wouldn't even need to engage the platforms. Simply blockade the system and wait till the populace either starve or surrender, or stand off at long range and lob torpedoes at the platforms.

[Duskofdead]

I think a lot of it is disconnect between TNG and DS9. DS9 really "militarized" the Federation. First Contact (the movie) took place during DS9, presumably further accelerating Starfleet's emphasis on churning out state of the art ships with a combat bias. Newer designs were coming off the lines in this period (first seen in First Contact but probably had been "really" around for a bit longer in the Trek world) and the Federation was gearing up for a war with the Dominion. These are all possible "in character" explanations.

Really, though, TNG was just a different era. TNG is an era where the Klingons brought the Federation to the verge of defeat in a slightly altered timeline. It's the era where the Romulans were a major threat and their standard starship dwarfed the Federation's most advanced ship. A "large fleet" was 40 ships, and even these had to spend several days at fast travel to gather a group that size in one spot. When (not having seen DS9 yet obviously) the admiral in The Wounded said that the Federation could not afford another conflict with the Cardassians, I believed him. I didn't take it as "well yes but only until the Federation swings around its super pew pew ship designs back to the war zone!", I took it as the Federation stood to gain little and lose much in an open conflict.

I agree with you that the Cardassians have been portrayed, compared to the Federation, as a "broken people." Poor, stretched thin, surrounded by enemies, that sort of thing. I'm not saying they were equal to the Federation, but when the Federation was not on any sort of war footing, they were focused mostly on exploration, and most of their ships were in the vicinity of 50-80 years old, yes, I believe they would not have been able to swat aside any determined offensive with ease. DS9 made the Federation starfleet seem much bigger, newer, and more numerous than it had ever seemed during TNG, but I think a lot of that was ramped up production of new ship classes due to a) the Borg encounter b) The Romulan D'Deridex c) The 2nd borg attack d) the general age of the fleet.

[Sionnach Glic]

I think a lot of it is disconnect between TNG and DS9. DS9 really "militarized" the Federation.
*snip*

Agreed. The Federation of TNG was a ridiculously naive organisation, with virtualy no pure warships. Since encountering the Borg, that seems to have changed slightly. With the lead up to the Dominion War, the Federation realised that war was inevitable, and began gearing up.

TNG is an era where the Klingons brought the Federation to the verge of defeat in a slightly altered timeline.

Well, in fairness that conflict didn't really stary in the TNG era, it was in the lead up to it. I suppose you could say that it began in the era that would eventualy spawn the TNG Federation, though despite this they were still able to continue the fight for quite a long time.

It's the era where the Romulans were a major threat

I don't think the Romulans were ever made out to be this major power that could crush the Federation. From what we've seen, they control less planets, have a far worse naval power and their only real advantage is in cloaking technology, which the Federation idioticaly let them have.

their standard starship dwarfed the Federation's most advanced ship.

Size matters not. We've seen the E-D take on D'Derix type ships before, and they don't seem to be particularly impresive. Most likely they're built to intimidate enemies with their sheer size. All flash and no substance.

A "large fleet" was 40 shipsand even these had to spend several days at fast travel to gather a group that size in one spot

Did they actualy call that a 'large' fleet? Just a few years later in-universe, they were able to field fleets numbering in the hundreds, and likely had as much as thousands of ships engaging in full-scale war. Unless the Federation's industrial strength is ridiculously high, then it stands to reason that they already had quite a lot of ships by TNG, though they were probably dispersed all over the place on pointless research missions.

When (not having seen DS9 yet obviously) the admiral in The Wounded said that the Federation could not afford another conflict with the Cardassians, I believed him. I didn't take it as "well yes but only until the Federation swings around its super pew pew ship designs back to the war zone!", I took it as the Federation stood to gain little and lose much in an open conflict.

The US military as of now can't afford a war with Iran. Does that mean that the US military would be unable to defeat Iran in combat, or would suffer so many losses as to make their victory Pyhricc? No, it just means that a war with Iran as of now would be seriously against their intrests.

The same with the Federation. They could likely beat the Cardasian military, but that would have a whole host of other effects. They'd have to move warships away from their borders. Ships on research missions elsewhere would have to be pulled back to help the war effort. Their border strength would be seriously weakened. They'd lose a lot of troops in ground combat. They'd lose a fair few ships, which would all have to be replaced. They'd need to deploy quite a significant force on a permanent basis to keep control of a hostile populace and their territories. They'd have to spend vast amounts of money and resources to win the war and replace losses. Whoever the president is may lose public support if the war claims too many lives, thus making him quite unpopular. Also, the whole war would likely go against the Federation's whole "we're all peaceful" image they try so hard to maintain.

The Federation may stand to gain little and lose a lot in a war, but not militarily.

DS9 made the Federation starfleet seem much bigger, newer, and more numerous than it had ever seemed during TNG,

And it would have been nigh-on impossible for the Federation to increase their fleet size by many times it's starting strength in just a few years.

a) the Borg encounter b) The Romulan D'Deridex c) The 2nd borg attack d) the general age of the fleet.

The Borg attacks; agreed. The D'Derix didn't appear to be a brand new ship by TNG. Although many ships in the fleet were quite old, they appeared to hold their own quite well during the war, I seem to recall a few Excellsiors getting a number of kills.

[Duskofdead]

Agreed. The Federation of TNG was a ridiculously naive organisation, with virtualy no pure warships. Since encountering the Borg, that seems to have changed slightly. With the lead up to the Dominion War, the Federation realised that war was inevitable, and began gearing up.

Eh, a little unfair. The Excelsiors and Ambassadors were cutting edge heavy cruisers in their time. The Federation didn't need to have mass amounts of dedicated warships sitting around because it hadn't been in many real wars between the time of TOS and TNG. The focus had gone apparently more towards ever-more-capable exploratory/scientific ships while for defensive purposes the existing (and aging) classes were apparently considered acceptable. Did it leave them a little prepared? Yeah, but it's not exactly like anyone else saw the Borg coming either. I think ridiculously naive is very much on the harsh side though and a judgment made entirely from retrospect (after seeing "the future" from TNG's point of view.)

It's the era where the Romulans were a major threat

I don't think the Romulans were ever made out to be this major power that could crush the Federation. From what we've seen, they control less planets, have a far worse naval power and their only real advantage is in cloaking technology, which the Federation idioticaly let them have.

Size matters not. We've seen the E-D take on D'Derix type ships before, and they don't seem to be particularly impresive. Most likely they're built to intimidate enemies with their sheer size. All flash and no substance.

That's one take on it, but I would submit that the show itself built up (prior to the introduction of the Borg) that the big rivals to contend with were going to be the Romulans. And I don't think anyone ever shrugged off the combat prowess of the Warbirds (not knowing much about them or what they were capable of was part of why Starfleet was wary about them) until maybe late in the Dominion War or Voyager's "Message in a Bottle."

Did they actualy call that a 'large' fleet? Just a few years later in-universe, they were able to field fleets numbering in the hundreds, and likely had as much as thousands of ships engaging in full-scale war. Unless the Federation's industrial strength is ridiculously high, then it stands to reason that they already had quite a lot of ships by TNG, though they were probably dispersed all over the place on pointless research missions.

See that's exactly what I was talking about, you are reverse-thinking it from DS9. Which is fine. But at the time TNG was written none of those things you assume were true, I think. After the fact, we can say okay... DS9 showed us MANY Galaxy class ships, MANY newer designs, huge numbers of starships. So we assume many of those were around and had been around for years, because we have to assume that. That doesn't really change the fact that we never saw or heard of 40 starships getting together for ANYTHING in TNG except for Wolf 359. I am not saying your assessment is incorrect I am just saying that you are imposing into TNG knowledge about how the writers were going to change the Trek world later, which isn't really fair for the purposes of looking at TNG by itself. It's like saying "well, hmph, we know the Akira class must have been around since before First Contact because of the registry numbers, why didn't the stupid writers show them to us in TNG season four?!" Well, the real answer is because they didn't exist yet.

The US military as of now can't afford a war with Iran. Does that mean that the US military would be unable to defeat Iran in combat, or would suffer so many losses as to make their victory Pyhricc? No, it just means that a war with Iran as of now would be seriously against their intrests.

The same with the Federation. They could likely beat the Cardasian military, but that would have a whole host of other effects. They'd have to move warships away from their borders. Ships on research missions elsewhere would have to be pulled back to help the war effort. Their border strength would be seriously weakened. They'd lose a lot of troops in ground combat. They'd lose a fair few ships, which would all have to be replaced. They'd need to deploy quite a significant force on a permanent basis to keep control of a hostile populace and their territories. They'd have to spend vast amounts of money and resources to win the war and replace losses. Whoever the president is may lose public support if the war claims too many lives, thus making him quite unpopular. Also, the whole war would likely go against the Federation's whole "we're all peaceful" image they try so hard to maintain.

Wait isn't this precisely what I said? That they would gain little and lose a lot? I never implied the Cardassian military would steamroll through the Federation and plant the flag over Earth--- ship to ship, the Federation may have easily defeated the Cardassians. But nothing in TNG implied that the Federation had thousands upon thousands of starships to throw along the border if needed. We only "assume" those ships "must have been there all along" from the point of view of DS9. I don't think they existed in the writer's minds at the time of those episodes.

The Federation may stand to gain little and lose a lot in a war, but not militarily.

If we are just nitpicking that then no need, I agree with you. Ship to ship the Federation would win, but like you said, war is more than counting how many tanks each side has.

And it would have been nigh-on impossible for the Federation to increase their fleet size by many times it's starting strength in just a few years.

I agree with you but at the same time you have to just manually suspend your disbelief a little bit and realize that the stories earlier on in TNG were set in a setting where it was assumed the fleet, regardless of size, was spread out fairly thin over Federation space. Otherwise, if the Federation looked anything like DS9's Federation, why didn't the Ent-D just call for a couple of Nebula and Akira class starships to come help everytime they faced any combat situation? Why not? There are thousands of ships all over. There had to be, becuase they coudln't have been suddenly mass produced overnight. But for story purposes they weren't there pre-DS9. Maybe it seems like I'm nitpicking on that point but it reminds me of the making of Jaws, where Steven Spielberg was careful not to show any land anywhere on the horizon while they were hutning the shark. Because then the audience would just say, "Why don't they just head for land and get help?!"

[kostmayer]

Maybe it seems like I'm nitpicking on that point but it reminds me of the making of Jaws, where Steven Spielberg was careful not to show any land anywhere on the horizon while they were hutning the shark. Because then the audience would just say, "Why don't they just head for land and get help?!"

Bit of a tangent, but didn't Chief Brody as that very question? As I understood it, they could have gone back for help any time, but Quint was spoiling for a fight.

[Sionnach Glic]

The Excelsiors and Ambassadors were cutting edge heavy cruisers in their time.

Yes, in their time. Thing is, for the backbone of the Federation fleet, "their time" was almost a century ago. There's only so long you can keep refitting ships until they become nigh-on useless in any real combat role. A perfect example of this is the Miranda class, once a powerful ship in the Federation, going down like flies to the Dominion fleets. This lack of realisation that there's only so long that those ships will be effective for is a serious problem with the Federation, and they didn't seem to realise the seriousness of the problem until they had ships going down in flames left and right.

The Federation didn't need to have mass amounts of dedicated warships sitting around because it hadn't been in many real wars between the time of TOS and TNG.

True, but a military isn't there purely to fight wars. The Republic of Ireland has never since it's creation been in a war. Does that mean it had no need of a military? Of course not. Militaries do all sorts of things. From escorting important people, guarding convoys, hunting down pirates and smugglers, patroling borders, providing security, ensuring the government has the biggest guns in the Federation and deterring hostile powers from attacking.
That last one in particular is something the Federation seriously needs. They are surrounded on all sides by hostile and aggresive powers who would love nothing more than to conquer the UFP. If the Federation hadn't geared up for combat and replenished it's fleets, I'd place a good bet on the Klingons making a move against Earth, and I'm not so sure I'd be betting on the humans at that point.

I think ridiculously naive is very much on the harsh side though and a judgment made entirely from retrospect (after seeing "the future" from TNG's point of view.)

Oh, I know well that they could hardly expect to prepare for the Borg or the Dominion before they were even aware of their existance.
However, that's not what I'm basing my accusations of naivette on. The Federation quite simply seems to place no real priority on their military. Take a look at TNG. We see the Federation's most powerful ships searching for gaseous anomalies. We routinely see the Federation's flagship wandering around the middle of nowhere. Even more serious is Picard's claim that tactics are considered unimportant for a starship captain. And this came from the commanding officer of the fleet flagship! Also note the pathetic response against the first Borg incursion, a mere forty ships as you have already pointed out. Quite likely, this is due to the Federation fleet being mostly spread out across the territory they occupy, and not being well trained in responding to a crisis.

In summary, the Federation seems to have disregareded it's military, stretched it out across too much territory, failed to teach them military tactics, and failed to build up to date warships. Hence why I consider them to be naive.

That's one take on it, but I would submit that the show itself built up (prior to the introduction of the Borg) that the big rivals to contend with were going to be the Romulans.

Hmm, well, personally I never really got that impression. They were deffinitely a major power in the Alpha Quadrant. But I never got the impression that they had any real hope of taking the Federation on alone.

And I don't think anyone ever shrugged off the combat prowess of the Warbirds (not knowing much about them or what they were capable of was part of why Starfleet was wary about them) until maybe late in the Dominion War or Voyager's "Message in a Bottle."

Well, I don't mean to imply that I'm expecting the Enterprise-D to plow through a whole fleet of them!
Thing is, we've seen Warbirds being beaten by the much smaller E-D, which is primarily a scientific and research ship, with little military facilities on board. Contrast this with the much larger and, more importantly, combat-orientated D'Derix, and we come to the conclusion that the Warbirds, while powerful, have little punch in them. I dread to think what an Akira or, gods forbid, a Sovereign would do to one!

See that's exactly what I was talking about, you are reverse-thinking it from DS9. *massive snippage*

Ah, right. I think I've realised the problem we're encountering here.
We seem to be reaching our conclusions via seperate ways here. While you are placing emphasis with the writers, I am disregarding them entirely and just going by what we see "in-universe".

During TNG, the writers never really implied the Federation had any major fleet numbers, agreed. However, during DS9, it was quite apparent the Federation did have such numbers. So, how do we rectify this apparent contradiction in-universe? Well, there's two ways of rationalising this:
1) We say that the Federation didn't have any major numbers during the TNG era, but quickly built them up during the DS9 era.
or
2) We say that the Federation did have numbers close to the DS9 era during the TNG era, but were unable to deploy them for whatever reasons.

Now, a summarary glance would make it seem like option 1 is the most likely.
But, taking option 1 as the in-universe truth would mean that the Federation would have had to have built hundreds, if not thousands, of ships in the space of a few years. Seeing as how it took them years to build a handful of Galaxy-class starships, we're forced to either say that the Federation's industrial capacity similarly sky-rocketed, or disregard this option.

So, let's scrutinize option 2, and see if that's more reasonable. 2 would require no major build up between the time frames of the two shows, at least, nothing that doesn't already fit in with the Federation's assumed industrial capacity. The only major contradiction we have with this one is the one you have brought up yourself: where were these ships when Picard needed them?
This 'contradiction' is a lot easier to rationalise. We can simply say that the Federation had foolishly dispersed them throughout their territory, or kept large portions of the fleet in reserve. Coupled with the apparent lack of proper military and tactical training among the crews, we can also see why so few ships were able to get their acts together and respond quickly to threats.

So, from that we can conclude that option 2 is the most likely. Meaning that the Federation did have these fleets in-universe, but were lurking somewhere far away as they were not written in by the writers.

Wait isn't this precisely what I said? That they would gain little and lose a lot?

Ah, my apologies.
I think this does highlight the "getting the same conclusion from different ways" theory I put forth above.

But nothing in TNG implied that the Federation had thousands upon thousands of starships to throw along the border if needed. We only "assume" those ships "must have been there all along" from the point of view of DS9. I don't think they existed in the writer's minds at the time of those episodes.

Agreed. The writers who wrote in the "we can't afford a war with them" quote were likely writing that from the sense that a war would be seriously costly with the Cardassians, due to the Federation's small fleet.
However, roll on to DS9 a few years later, and we see massive Federation fleets. To rationalise this 'contradiction' we can take his quote to mean that while the Federation could easily beat the Cardassians in open warfare, they would be seriously weakened by the aftermath.

If I may go back to my Middle-East analogy again, take a look at the US and Iraq. In barely any time at all, the US military had crushed the Iraqi armies and seized control of the country.
However, a few years later and the aftermath of the war has crippled the US army, weakened their hold on other territories (Afghanistan), drasticaly reduced their capability to sustain a serious war against oponents that could give them a run for their money (Russia, China, the European countries, etc), and sent their leader's popular support crashing to the ground like a plane with no engines.
It's quite possible that the occupation of Cardassian territores could have just the same effect on the Federation.