While initially moth-balled due to diminished Borg presence (pre First Contact), the Defiant project spearheaded by Sisko was a much earlier jump toward militaristic thinking within Starfleet’s leadership. The appearance of the Dominion, of course, ratcheted up that mindset. Picard’s ardent claim that the main function of the Federation was exploration/peace was hardly reflected by its actions in that time period. Borg, Breen, and badmirals set a dark path going forward for a while.
Not to mention, the enemy gets a vote too, and the Dominion had decided around the inception of the Dominion War that they wanted to bring the savage and myopic Federation under the enlightened rule of the Founders, and diplomatic efforts were outright refused.
As much it was a divergence from UFoP non-confrontational/staunchly diplomacy-first standard doctrine at the time, I feel like this can actually be explained in a very rational fashion, in a way that parallels reasonable and prudent geopolitical calculus in the real world today: you should consider and devise contingencies for any number of unlikely situations so you’re not caught entirely flat-footed by unlikely or unexpected events.
But, sometimes your best guess is way off. The Federation had no idea what the real strength of the Dominion was up to the point they sent an absolute shitload of 100% military capital and tactical strike ships through the space anüs, and then it somewhat quickly became clear that they were in conflict with an adversary that could actually go toe to toe with the combined might of most of the alpha and beta quadrants, and said adversary was genuinely strong enough to stand a real chance of winning outright.
Edit: also not to mention:
S6E6 is more than a bit deus ex machina in regard to that last bit
considering the Prophets just wished an absolute shitload of Dominion ships into a cornfield. In terms of modern day analogies, it’s actually a similar strategic bottleneck to the Kerch bridge from Russia to Crimea.
Picard’s ardent claim that the main function of the Federation was exploration/peace was hardly reflected by its actions in that time period. Borg, Breen, and badmirals set a dark path going forward for a while.
The main function of the Federation is to explore and expand equality among its members during peace times, defend itself when other threaten to prevent this, and with the guiding hand of Section 31, do more of the former than the latter.
While initially moth-balled due to diminished Borg presence (pre First Contact), the Defiant project spearheaded by Sisko was a much earlier jump toward militaristic thinking within Starfleet’s leadership. The appearance of the Dominion, of course, ratcheted up that mindset. Picard’s ardent claim that the main function of the Federation was exploration/peace was hardly reflected by its actions in that time period. Borg, Breen, and badmirals set a dark path going forward for a while.
To be fair, we don’t know how many ships were on voyages of exploration at the same time as all of that.
Not to mention, the enemy gets a vote too, and the Dominion had decided around the inception of the Dominion War that they wanted to bring the savage and myopic Federation under the enlightened rule of the Founders, and diplomatic efforts were outright refused.
As much it was a divergence from UFoP non-confrontational/staunchly diplomacy-first standard doctrine at the time, I feel like this can actually be explained in a very rational fashion, in a way that parallels reasonable and prudent geopolitical calculus in the real world today: you should consider and devise contingencies for any number of unlikely situations so you’re not caught entirely flat-footed by unlikely or unexpected events.
But, sometimes your best guess is way off. The Federation had no idea what the real strength of the Dominion was up to the point they sent an absolute shitload of 100% military capital and tactical strike ships through the space anüs, and then it somewhat quickly became clear that they were in conflict with an adversary that could actually go toe to toe with the combined might of most of the alpha and beta quadrants, and said adversary was genuinely strong enough to stand a real chance of winning outright.
Edit: also not to mention:
S6E6 is more than a bit deus ex machina in regard to that last bit
considering the Prophets just wished an absolute shitload of Dominion ships into a cornfield. In terms of modern day analogies, it’s actually a similar strategic bottleneck to the Kerch bridge from Russia to Crimea.
The main function of the Federation is to explore and expand equality among its members during peace times, defend itself when other threaten to prevent this, and with the guiding hand of Section 31, do more of the former than the latter.
Makes me wonder if we’ll see Section 31 intervening in the background of some established canon events in the upcoming movie.