I always figured them for : Federation and Klingons - In equal first place for the major powers that we know of. Romulans - A fairly distant second. Still a significant military power, but not capable of taking on either the Federation or Klingons alone, and certainly not together. Cardassians - Always seemed to be the weakest of the major powers. The Klingons sent one third of their fleet and that was almost enough to conquer Cardassian space completely. And one on one, Cardassian ships seemed weaker than the Federation ones by far. However, it's worth noting that there's a fundamental difference between the Federation and the others. The Klingons practically dedicate their society to warfare. The Romulans seem to be a heavily martial society, as do the Cardassians. All probably spend a far larger share of resources on their fleet than the Federation do, AND all of them build dedicated warships whilst the Federation builds science vessels with some guns on them. That the Federation can do this and still come out as at least equal to the Klingons, says to me that they have considerably more military potential than any of the other powers, perhaps even more than all of them combined. You only have to look at how the Defiant could cut through Cardassian ships with ease, could take on Vor'Chas and the like without breaking a sweat, and it's clear that if the Federation dedicated most of their resources to building a true military fleet, it would be an order of magnitude beyond any of the others.
Both the Romulans and Cardassians intelligence services did have their own fleet of ships before those ships were ambushed and destoryed by the Dominion. As for the Klingon Empire, i am not sure if they were strong as the Federation or stronger.
Romulans had Warbirds that could apparently knock out a Galaxy class with relative ease. I dunno how you can construe that to be a weaker power. There's three basic things here. Size of territory that needed to be defended. The potency/advanced nature of the ships. The size of the fleet and the ability to manufacture replacements. My own theory is that there was some kind of leap forward in ship building/replicator technology between TNG & the DW given the size of the fleets in the DW.
I think they all were preparing for a Borg invasion, and the Dominion just came at a bad time (for them). Ten years earlier, they probably would've wiped the floor with all three.
One telling thing for me is the alternative timeline from Yesterday's Enterprise. This is a version of history where "But For Want Of A Nail..." the Klingons and Federation are at war, and the Klingons in full war mode are giving Starfleet a pasting. So even in *our* reality, where they are uneasy allies, I wouldn't underplay their strength... and once conflicts begun to escalate on DS9, we see them being quite powerful in our timeline too (years of that and they could definitely have worn Starfleet down)
It hard to say who had the more advanced ships, the Federation ships were faster than a Romulan Warbird (TNG "Tin Man"), the Federation could build a superior cloaking device to the Romulans (TNG "Pegasus") a Warbird and a Galaxy Class ship appeared to be fairly matched in terms of combat, sure a Warbird is larger than a Galaxy Class but there is a lot of hollow space. Perhaps but it is amazing how many ships can be built when you go on a war footing just look at WWII and if you are expecting war to happen you might have started to ramp up production sure those ships might not be online for the start of the war but they wouldn't be far off. Besides you might be able to shave time production by only outfitting the ships with the minimum need to fight i.e. minimal science laps, some unfinished decks etc...
I always have the feeling that Klingon relative power has been steadily deteriorating over the centuries. In ENT: fearful enemies the Vulcans (probably the most powerful proto-Federation member) advise the earthling newcomers not to meddle with, and probably aren't very keen on confronting themselves. In TOS: Klingons and Federation roughly seem equally matched . Praxis incident however forces them to demilitarise to some extent after that time period. In TNG and later: In my eyes, the Federation clearly is more powerful, even though they are friends. Klingons seem to go to some length not to antagonise the Federation (with the exception of some arcs in DS9). Feels a bit like the Federation is advancing faster, but not putting many resources in militarisation. At the TNG era, the Ent-D is a match for any Klingon warship, without being a warship itself. If the Federation went all the way, they'd leave the Klingons in the dust, probably. This doesn't mesh with what we see in Yesterday's Enterprise, but AFAIK that is the only TNG-era episode indicating the Klingons could bring the Federation to its knees singlehandedly, so as the odd one out, I'm tending to ignore it and go with the majority of the 'feel' I get from the different series. Romulans are a bit of an enigma, and have been throughout all the series. I never could get a feel of how powerful they are supposed to be, exactly. We know for certain they were defeated during the Romulan Wars but that is a hundred years before TOS - no saying how the situation is in the 24th century. They could be as powerful as the Federation itself, or they could perhaps be defeated at a cost in lives the Federation is not willing to consider. All I know for certain is that the Federation sees them as a force to be reckoned with. Other Alpha Quadrant powers are on a lower tier, in my perception. But we don't know for certain, it could also be they are simply farther removed from the theatre the Federation usually faces (the Breen for example, whom are seen rarely but have formidable weaponry).
And not to mention, in an alternative timeline where powers might have developed differently. I'm currently watching All Good Things, and one thing I'd completely forgotten about that was the Klingons had overthrown the Romulan Empire in the future timeline and occupied their territory. Perhaps that is the suggestion we need to suggest the Romulans were weaker than they liked to pretend. Maybe the Klingons also did this in the Yesterday's Enterprise timeline, and only with access to Romulan tech and resources would they be a match for the Federation.
Wasn't there also some dissent between the Federation and the Klingons over their conquest of Romulus with the Feds trying to help with assistance to the Romulan people with medical aid and food and the Klingons being quite angry at this? JB
A Warbird can apparently inflict significant damage on a Galaxy ship with relative ease on a one to one basis. I can't just recall which encounter it was presently but in one of the TNG episodes a Warbird inflicts heavy damage on the Enterprise and Picard addresses that as a "tap on the shoulder". Top of the range Starfleet vessels seem to have the edge or enjoy parity with every normal power bar the Romulans. At least during the course of TNG. Again, the Feds *might* have the edge on the Romulans on fleet qua fleet terms due to numerical superiority and that *perhaps* Romulan ships with their quantum singularity engines are tougher to build. That's the reading I take from it anyway.
I think TUC illustrates what the Klingons are like. They are incorrigibly warlike but their overall punch waxes and wanes by a reckless boom & bust economy that just finally gave out when Praxis blew up.
The Romulans were defending a smaller area of space for their empire while the Federation seemed to be colonizing any planet that was habitable, wherever and in whose space it appeared to be! The Klingons are supposed to rule a large percentage of the Beta quadrant but we haven't really seen that much of that area of interstellar space! Cardassia would be in the Beta quadrant too I take it? JB
Not quite. The dialogue start stated that Klingons and Federation were no longer on good terms in general. However, due to some kind of outbreak on Romulus, they were allowing Federation medical ships through. That's why they ended up taking the Pasteur into the neutral zone.
The Prometheus destroyed a warbird in two or three shots while only being crewed by two medical holograms who didn't know what they were doing. Imagine if that ship had a full complement of a trained crew.
Post-Dominion War ships might have been far effective. Jem Hadar took out a Galaxy class ship like it was a hot air balloon a few years before. Starfleet seems to adapt quickly when it has to.
With her shields down, heavily attacking and ramming the ship to cause antimatter explosions before the defenses could be raised. At the Battle of Chintoka, every Galaxy class ship survived with cosmetic damage, even the Galaxy herself (the oldest and most heavily damaged) was fully operational and blowing up Dominion hardware easily. The Prometheus wiped the floor with ships the Enterprise D could do little more than just hang alongside and nicely talk them into not destroying her outright. Then again, whoever has enough RAM for a sporedrive can just drop waterballoons into a planet that can kill it, apparently.
Since the Klingons have long argued that they are a resource poor empire and need resources and "breathing room" to survive I think this sums up their expansionist tendencies quite well.
Yeah....I kinda attribute that to Voyager staff wanting to progress the plot more than some all-encompassing considered point about warbird effectiveness. The Federation urgently needed Romulan intervention during the DW. If the Warbirds were that soft, they'd hardly be needed that much. All that being said, it may also be said that the Romulans totally outgunned Starfleet when the Romulans first came out of their isolation but within ten years of experience against them, the Feds had the kit to handle them. Of course, there was high level defections and the underground movement was well embedded within the military meaning sensitive specs probably got into the hands of Starfleet from which they could update their fleet.
About the Romulans stealing the Prometheus... HOW did that even happen? I suppose Starfleet was so busy worrying about Changeling infiltrators and the Dominion that they didn't see it coming from the Romulans. But honestly, that is a stretch.