And of course we shouldn't confuse Dukat's grandiose plans (whether he truly had a long-term vision or not) with the general Cardassian perspective, which was informed by Dukat's leadership but was, I think, definitely focused on short-term goals. The Cardassians knew that they were on the decline - no longer a major power, burning out resource-wise, withdrawing from Bajor and other exhausted systems, further expansion blocked by the Federation, the Maquis challenging their rule in the regions the Federation did give them, the Klingons knocking them down to second-rate (third-rate?) status...To the proud Cardassians, whose worldview is defined by the need for strength, collective discipline and unapologetic acquisition of resources whatever the cost, all this must have been enough for most of them to accept Dukat's agenda for war despite misgivings.
As Damar and Russol discuss in season seven, the average Cardassian soldier apparently got the message that "we would be rulers of the entire Alpha Quadrant", which I imagine translates best into Cardassian-think as "we would once again be secure in our strength, we'd have access to all the resources we could want, no enemy will threaten us...things can be, at very least, like they were prior to this decay and decline". I don't think too much thought was put into the actual details (Cardassian culture is authoritarian, disciplined and dependent on a tight chain of command - why would the average member of society be engaging in abstract pondering on the future? I doubt it's encouraged - what matters is that the leadership has a goal in mind, and you have your part to play in carrying it out. So do it, because if you don't, the structure of society will fall apart, and as all good Cardassians know, the state and its dictatorial powers are the only things keeping Cardassia functional (supposedly). I imagine too that the recent foray into civilian leadership helped the "old guard" accept Dukat's vision of renewed militiarism - after Cardassia's strength was sapped further by (I imagine they'd think) the nonsense of civilians in charge (how very Federation of them!), Dukat's coup must have seemed a step in the right direction. Perhaps the division between those Cardassian citizens wanting greater freedoms and those insistant on support for the traditional model worked in Dukat's favour - the military, so eager to resume supremacy in the minds of the people, might have been focusing more on the civilian-supporters and not on the actual man who was now leading them? A fatal mistake...
Even if that's not the case, I think the (apparent) general acceptance of Dukat's war agenda among the military without any (apparent) long-term vision beyond a vague sense of ascendancy demonstrates one of the biggest weaknesses of the Cardassians' hierarchial mindset - once someone without a rational or sensible vision gets into the leadership role, the structure of their culture makes it extremely hard to pry them out; the interia of 500 years of dictatorship based on a twisted sense of necessity and service to the people is too strong to resist. I imagine the Cardassian people - the engineers, the soldiers, the minor functionaries - are usually completely content with short-term goals: get this resource to here, do that as ordered, etc, trusting in the commanders to plot the course and see the "big picture" of what must be done and why. In my opinion, we can see the pain and even confusion in people like Damar and Russol as they come to the conclusion that the path they're on is not the right one - and even then, in Russol's case, he still can't make the transition to understanding that Cardassia itself was on the wrong path, he can only fight against the Dominion. Damar is wiser, and as we see in Tacking Into the Wind, he comes to understand that it's not just the Dominion he's rebelling against but his own people's conventions.
