How Powerful is Cardassia?

[Bad Thoughts]

And it must have been quite a long crossing, since the Klingons wouldn't have lightly decided to rest and replenish at DS9, exposing their intent...

Given that the Klingons suspected that Cardassia had a Dominion puppet government, they hoped to establish a presence at DS9 to better control traffic through the wormhole. Besides, the two entities could have been close without being adjacent, especially in three dimensional space.

 

[jmampilly]

I got the impression that the DMZ was created after CU and UFP signed a peace treaty to end the border wars.

I believe you are correct.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

DS9 really isn't that impressive, as far as stations go. It's basically a glorified government office building, or trade center. It's not really that big even, compared to Federation stations. It probably packs a punch above its weight class, considering the typical Cardassian paranoia and militarism, and then Starfleet realizing its strategic importance - and vulnerability!

Space stations are only shown in major combat on a few occassions. Mostly it's DS9 doing severe damage to Klingon or Cardassian fleets, even though they lacked support from major UFP combat ships. The only Federation built space station shown in major combat that I can think of was easily disabled by galactic whalewatchers.

Now, I never claimed that the stations were definitive proof of Cardassian military might, only that they must be considered in the equation based on how they are shown to perform. Moreover, I did previously suggest that they were more for prestige and added less in terms of strategic strength.

 

[Timo]

Given that the Klingons suspected that Cardassia had a Dominion puppet government, they hoped to establish a presence at DS9 to better control traffic through the wormhole.

Plus, the risk of losing the element of surprise might be outweighed by the advantage of convincing Starfleet to look the other way. If Gowron negotiated for the right to conquer Cardassia before launching his fleet, he might be turned down and alert his enemies. If he didn't negotiate at all before striking, he would risk losing the support or at least indifference of the Federation when it counted the most. But by making a half-hearted effort at negotiating at DS9, Gowron might hope to delay a negative UFP reaction the crucial few days...

I got the impression that the DMZ was created after CU and UFP signed a peace treaty to end the border wars.

Yes, this seems to be the case - it's described in "Journey's End". A CU/UFP border is finally agreed upon (involving both sides ceding worlds to the other side) and it gets immersed in a DMZ, possibly along its entire length. And then some UFP worlds inside the DMZ (but supposedly only on the UFP side, as any on the CU side would quickly have been silenced) get this Maquis thing going, and eventually you have "Maquis worlds" that no longer really belong to the UFP.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Belz...]

It is also possible that neither side committed any real forces to the fight.

That is, the fight was always just a series of scuffles about who controls this so far unused space route or that uncharted asteroid swarm, or who gets the right of way in a space crossing - and Cardassians always used weapons rather than words so as not to appear weak, but never escalated the fight, and always backed down if it looked like the Federation would send more than one ship.

Why would they call that a war, then ?

 

[MacLeod]

DS9 really isn't that impressive, as far as stations go. It's basically a glorified government office building, or trade center. It's not really that big even, compared to Federation stations. It probably packs a punch above its weight class, considering the typical Cardassian paranoia and militarism, and then Starfleet realizing its strategic importance - and vulnerability!

We've only really seen a handful f Federation/Starfleet space stations.

The K-7 type (TOS)

For lack of a better term The Regula type

TMP
TWOK
TNG
DSN

Jupiter Station type (VOY)

And of course the mammoth Spacedock Type

 

[TheSubCommander]

It is also possible that neither side committed any real forces to the fight.

That is very possible too. More a skirmish or cold war than a hot one could have occurred. Truth is we don't know. I was offering a possible explanation. I was speculating that the Cardassians were once an expanding empire until they ran up against the UFP, a level of power they had not encountered before. After fighting a long, bloody, and costly war, this could account for Cardassia's power waning, after the Border Wars, and as mentioned before, the reason Cardassia had to withdraw from certain holdings, like Bajor, because they simply couldn't afford to do it any more. That is what tells me that they may have had a strong military, but no industrial or economic means to sustain it. Once the military was depleted, they became a second rate power because they couldn't supply that military to pre-war status.

Didn't the Cardassians also have a border with the Klingons? If that's the case, than they probably would have been mellowed out before fighting the Federation.

I don't know. The only Klingon-Cardassian War I am aware of is the one that took place in DS9.

 

[MacLeod]

Maybe not a war but there was the 18 year long Betreka Nebula Incident between the Cardassians and the Klingons. Garak characterised it as a minor skirmish.

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Betreka_Nebula_Incident

 

[Shawnster]

It is also possible that neither side committed any real forces to the fight.

That is, the fight was always just a series of scuffles about who controls this so far unused space route or that uncharted asteroid swarm, or who gets the right of way in a space crossing - and Cardassians always used weapons rather than words so as not to appear weak, but never escalated the fight, and always backed down if it looked like the Federation would send more than one ship.

Why would they call that a war, then ?

The same reason the Korean War and the Vietnam War are called wars, at least by the general public. The US mainland (or any other territorial possessions) were never threatened by Vietnamese or Korean forces. Still, since both involved the use of military personnel and equipment, and many US citizens had family involved in the combat, these military actions were viewed as wars.

Likewise, I would imagine, a 24th Century border skirmish between Cardassia and the Federation would be viewed as a war to many beings, especially if they knew people involved in the conflict.

 

[TheSubCommander]

Maybe not a war but there was the 18 year long Betreka Nebula Incident between the Cardassians and the Klingons. Garak characterised it as a minor skirmish.

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Betreka_Nebula_Incident

Then again, everything Garek says is suspect, isn't it?

 

[R. Star]

Maybe not a war but there was the 18 year long Betreka Nebula Incident between the Cardassians and the Klingons. Garak characterised it as a minor skirmish.

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Betreka_Nebula_Incident

Then again, everything Garek says is suspect, isn't it?

Well the novelization of the event in one of the Lost Era books, managed to capture both viewpoints. Two small battles over a fairly honest misunderstanding between two overly aggressive and hostile races, culminated with an 18 year long build up and cold war over a single planet.

 

[Belz...]

The same reason the Korean War and the Vietnam War are called wars, at least by the general public.

Point taken.

 

[matthunter]

As for the Cardassian ability to confront the Federation, Starfleet may simply have been overextended. Given the timelines involved, the Federation was also engaged in military actions against the Tzenkethi. But even then I see the Cardassians as akin to North Korea - a powerful force if engaged locally, but not yet able to project significant capability outside its sphere.

 

[Pavonis]

I imagine that Starfleet often fights with one hand tied behind its back, either for political reasons, or because the admiralty just doesn't see the need to commit major resources to a local skirmish. If a couple of starships can fend of a Cardassian invasion force, then why commit more than that to the fight? It's not as though the UFP wanted to conquer Cardassia. At best, the Federation just wanted to hold what it already had possession of.

 

[JoPierce]

DS9 really isn't that impressive, as far as stations go. It's basically a glorified government office building, or trade center. It's not really that big even, compared to Federation stations. It probably packs a punch above its weight class, considering the typical Cardassian paranoia and militarism, and then Starfleet realizing its strategic importance - and vulnerability!

And, of course, Terok Nor wasn't supposed to be a big, impressive station. It wasn't built to be a major station. It's main function was an ore processing facility.