United Federation of Planets and the EU

A reply to a comment in a YouTube thread.

I never wrote, that the Federation was weak by any means, but that Starfleet had many weak points, including the use of legacy hardware. It's okay to use older equipment during peacetime, when there is little to no incentive for accelerated defensive development.

In many of the Dominion battles, a single Cardassian phaser shot easily disabled a Miranda-cass vessel to the point of almost destroying it. The later Cardassian orbital weapons were even more deadly.

Recalling an earlier Federation-Cardassian War, then this was the state of ships between the powers: mostly Galor-class vessels vs. Miranda-class fleet, peppered with Excelsior-class and Constellation-class ships, and maybe an Ambassador-class vessel for stronger flavour.

That conflict ended up in a stalemate, because the Cardassian Union was exhausted, and neither did the Federation think it viable to keep it going like that.

The formation of the Federation was rather based on the idea of peaceful exploration and strength in numbers, which provided the basis for a strong defense.

Offense would have meant an intentional incursion into Klingon or Romulan territory.

The Federation works like the EU, but with a difference, that the Starfleet is as capable as the U.S. military now.

Each U.S. state is not as independent as each EU country, and seceding from the U.S. is almost impossible; whereas each Federation member world does maintain their independence to such an extent, that leaving the Federation is as "easy" as Brexit, with and without the quotes.