Lack of Will or Lack of Skill?

[Photon]

Cardassia vs The Maquis

Why did the Carddies not end the never-ending Maquis threat? Did they lack the political will to do it (fear of Feds intervening)?
Did they simply not have a capable military to deal w/these type of threats

The Jem'Hadar, w/the Carddies help I'm sure, wiped the floor w/the Maquis.

I for one, was glad to see the Maquis vanquished

[Bones]

Yeah, because of the possible political ramifications with the Federation I think.

[DGCatAniSiri]

The Maquis used hit and run tactics, making swift, calculated strikes, getting in and out without taking too much damage, and they hid out in the Badlands, where the larger Cardassian vessels couldn't maneuver fast enough to avoid the plasma flares (see 'Caretaker' for an example).

And there probably was some concerns at Central Command that the Federation wouldn't take kindly to just wiping them off the face of the galaxy. After all, Cardassian 'justice' is well known, as opposed to the Federation's desire to rehabilitate any criminal element, and these were once Federation citizens. The Cardassian government would probably be worried that wiping out the Maquis would strain their relations, if not get the Federation lined up against them, supporting the Maquis.

And yes, the Jem'Hadar DID effectively wipe out the Maquis. Dukat practically says as much - he swears the Maquis would be wiped out in five days. At that point, the Cardassians weren't looking to keep the peace with the Federation - with their new Dominion allies, they could risk war without concern.

[PorthosShadow]

It's kind of like in the real world, The Cardassians would have paid a heavy political price for litterally wipeing out The Maquis. The Dominion on the other hand cares very little for such political games and does what they want.

[TiberiusMaximus]

^I agree. Once the Cardassians had the Dominion's help, the ramifications weren't such a big deal because the Union had allied itself with a Federation rival anyways.

[-Brett-]

They lacked the skill to think of a way to do it short of wiping out the entire non-Cardassian population of the DMZ. They lacked the will to do that.

The Jem'hadar weren't so nice.

[Timo]

This.

It would have been difficult to do anything about the menace without systematically killing or imprisoning everybody in the DMZ - because anybody could be Maquis, or become Maquis. Confiscating of weapons would also have been an immense effort, because handguns in Trek are by no means rare or difficult to obtain, and an individual Trek handgun may amount to an artillery piece when used correctly.

The one possible way to stop the Maquis would have been suggested by "Ensign Ro" already: deprive everybody in the DMZ of interstellar transportation. Spacecraft, while common, would still be in shorter supply than guerillas or disruptor rifles. And it might be possible to confiscate every spacecraft and still appear halfway humane to the rest of the galaxy. However, something like that was no doubt explicitly forbidden in the DMZ treaty, because the very idea of that treaty was to allow the colonies in the Zone to continue to eke out a living. And the UFP idea of a living would no doubt involve interstellar travel, as the Feds wouldn't consider the colonies self-sufficient even if by Cardassian standards an isolated colony might still be a viable place to live in.

Once the treaty was out of the way, though, it should have been an easy thing to confiscate or destroy 95% of the spacecraft in the area, and to let the remaining 5% that were hiding in various Maquis holes to fight the futile fight and quickly perish. No need to massacre the population or anything - although the Dominion or the Cardassians might also have gone for that just for the hell of it.

Timo Saloniemi

[SpyOne]

I just re-watched The Maquis, so I have one important part of the puzzle: crushing the Maquis risked war with the Federation. Or, more accurately, it would involve breaking a treaty which had been very favorable to Cardassia. Compared to what they gained through the treaty, the damage the Maquis did was tolerable.
The Maquis used the Badlands to their advantage, certainly, but the main geography working in their favor was the DMZ, a large area that the Federation and Cardassia had mutually agreed to keep military forces out of. Cardassia could not just go in and crush the Maquis, because sending warships into that area would break the treaty. If they found a Maquis base, they could tell the Federation and negotiate going in to destroy it, but by the time they did all that, it was gone, having moved to some other planet.

Once the Dominion entered the picture, the Cardassians no longer needed the treaty with the Federation to keep what they had, so they broke the treaty and sent in the warfleets and killed the Maquis pretty quickly.

[Kira Nerys]

I thought the cardies had less military might than what they claimed .All hot air and talk.

[G2309]

The Maquis were more of a threat after the Klingons invaded Cardassia as they got bold. With the Klingons to deal with Cardassia was too weak to deal with Maquis as well.