He could have spinned the truth a bit to get the E-C to go back and sacrifice itself if it meant that 20 years of grinding warfare was averted.I said in the OP its hard to take that seriously because the Federation was ill-prepared for any extended military conflict before contact with the Borg and later the Dominion. We didn't see Akira, Defiant, Sovereign, Steamrunner, Sabre, and Prometheus class vessels, which were all combat orientated. So given that timeline, I would expect the Klingons to win. But after the Federation finally realized there were things out there that could steamroll its fleet it made serious enhancements.And yet, in Yesterday's Enterprise, the Klingons had the Federation on the edge of defeat after twenty years of war. Granted it was an alternate timeline, but there was no indication that the Klingons of that timeline were any different than the Klingons of this timeline. Let us not forget the Klingon's success against the Cardassians. In a few months, the Cardassians were nearly conquered by the Klingons while all the Federation could manage was a poorly-constructed cease-fire.
And, the Cardassians are pretty much a joke militarily. Their technology was stifled by their lack of resources.
Mind you, the only Federation ships we saw in that episode were the Galaxy-class and Ambassador-class. For all we know, those other classes were all out there fighting the good fight but were never mentioned by Picard or the others because they had more important things on their mind than discussing what classes of starships they had. Also, Picard is not one to tell out and out falsehoods, if he says the Federation is months away from defeat, it's safe to take him at his word.
If anything, the Federation should have more military-oriented ships than the main timeline because the Federation has been in a state of war for over 20 years. Despite all this, the Federation was still about to loose the war.
Just a guess.