Mobilisation capacity of the Federation?

[open_sketchbook]

The idea that three thousand people could conquer a planet of 6 billion plus is so absolutely absurd it doesn't even warrant discussion. They COULD cause some major havok, transported in to make surgical strikes on power plants, government facilities, and spaceports, but they could not conquer the place. I doubt you could hold the city of Ottawa with 3000 troops if we didn't want you to be here.

Think for a moment the number of troops we needed to take Iraq, remembering that Iraq was sporting mid-20th Century equipment against the most modern force in the world. Now multiply that for the entire world population, account for the additional casualties of an opposed orbital landing and the increased timeframe to take the whole planet, and we can start talking about occupational forces.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah. A contested ground battle would be extremely difficult in Star Trek; the logistics are very bad.

Broadly speaking, conquest would be practical in only two situations. If the people on the ground are unable to put up an efficient fight against an enemy who can put a few thousand troops on the ground and back them with starship support, the occupier can win- but that's really only true when attacking isolated colonies or primitive pre-industrial societies. Not only will the primitives lack the physical tools to match phasers and tricorders' capabilities, but they'll have many of the same conceptual weaknesses as the Star Trek ground forces- a lot of the strategies Star Trek armies lack are industrial-age concepts.
______

The other possibility is the sort of formalistic war we've discussed before- the ships fight, the winner takes up orbital positions around the planet, and the planet surrenders "to avoid a needless effusion of blood." Any Star Trek ship can do about as much damage to a planet as a mid- to large-sized nuclear war if they think it's important, after all.

On the other hand, the winner knows quite well that they can't impose any truly disagreeable terms on the loser unless they're willing to destroy entire civilizations and ecosystems- which would have the effect of turning other powers against them. So if you lose a war, you may have to pay some tribute or agree to pull out of a contested border region. You might even have to agree to disarmament- some very successful empires have secured their interior by forbidding local rulers from building defenses.

But the nature of the war would be limited, and the odds are that the loser won't take any lasting damage. Trying to impose lasting damage, or to force the loser to continue submission long after the actual war ends, is a recipe for rebellions.

[Big Phil]

I suppose one could wonder why different species would behave so nobly toward one another (i.e., no genocidal wars) when humans behave remarkably unkindly toward each other over minor differences in skin pigmentation, religious belief, etc. Of course, Star Trek is highly inconsistent, as the example of Human-Vulcan-Romulan-Klingon-Cardassian interbreeding demonstrates.

[Uraniun235]

Here's an interesting question: assuming the defenders put up a solid, competent defense, how many troops would it take to effectively conquer a developed, unified planet with a population of a few billion?

[Samuel]

Here's an interesting question: assuming the defenders put up a solid, competent defense, how many troops would it take to effectively conquer a developed, unified planet with a population of a few billion?

They would breed troopers faster than you could bring in reinforcements.

[Batman]

Here's an interesting question: assuming the defenders put up a solid, competent defense, how many troops would it take to effectively conquer a developed, unified planet with a population of a few billion?

Unanswerable question. If the attackers have space superiority, a lot of the defenders' support infrastructure can be killed from orbit and all the warm bodies in the field won't help you much without resupply. If the attackers DON'T have space superiority little if any of the invasion force is going to make it to the surface to begin with. Either way, infinitely more than the AQ powers can come up with leave alone get there in any reasonable timeframe.

[Stark]

I suppose one could wonder why different species would behave so nobly toward one another (i.e., no genocidal wars) when humans behave remarkably unkindly toward each other over minor differences in skin pigmentation, religious belief, etc. Of course, Star Trek is highly inconsistent, as the example of Human-Vulcan-Romulan-Klingon-Cardassian interbreeding demonstrates.

What Wilkins is talking about isn't nesssrily a formal agreement - it could jus as easily br a result of tech or econ limits. The war they wanted to start in ST6 may have been a 'proper' war, and perhaps 'total war' is how the carries could beat the Fed.

[Junghalli]

The other possibility is the sort of formalistic war we've discussed before- the ships fight, the winner takes up orbital positions around the planet, and the planet surrenders "to avoid a needless effusion of blood." Any Star Trek ship can do about as much damage to a planet as a mid- to large-sized nuclear war if they think it's important, after all.

I think that's probably the explanation that fits best with canon. As I remember the Dominion War involved planets like Betazed changing hands without any mention of the populations being totally massacred.

As I remember, in the Middle Ages there was a somewhat similar rule where a castle was supposed to surrender once its walls were breached and it was no longer defensible, the other side of the equation being if it didn't surrender the attackers would take it as permission to basically kill everyone. Trek might have a similar informal rule where a planet that's no longer defensible from space is supposed to surrender, and refusing to do so is considered permission for the enemy to bombard it from orbit until the ground glows in the dark. Most beseiged commanders would probably prefer surrender, for obvious reasons.

[CaptHawkeye]

That's how I looked at it too. Most guys in the AQ just think "well if our space fleets have been fucked we've already lost". War Treaties and Agreements are not uncommon in Star Trek. It's really not out of the way to think Trek is simply like Medieval/Imperial Europe. Everybody just fights "honor" battles that are lexically refereed by Conventions and War Codes. A serious war would do too much damage to everyone.

Anybody really serious about strategy might just skip most well defended planets anyway. Similar to US Island Hopping of the Pacific War. Why attack Rabaul when you can attack Guam and achieve the same goal of getting one step closer to your enemy's home?

[Uraniun235]

Here's an interesting question: assuming the defenders put up a solid, competent defense, how many troops would it take to effectively conquer a developed, unified planet with a population of a few billion?

They would breed troopers faster than you could bring in reinforcements.

I'm not asking for a versus scenario based on what the Federation etc. has available. I want to know how big a fleet and army they would have to build, assuming they could build it, to successfully conquer such a planet.

Here's an interesting question: assuming the defenders put up a solid, competent defense, how many troops would it take to effectively conquer a developed, unified planet with a population of a few billion?

Unanswerable question. If the attackers have space superiority, a lot of the defenders' support infrastructure can be killed from orbit and all the warm bodies in the field won't help you much without resupply. If the attackers DON'T have space superiority little if any of the invasion force is going to make it to the surface to begin with. Either way, infinitely more than the AQ powers can come up with leave alone get there in any reasonable timeframe.

First, I don't give a shit about how much the Federation etc. can deliver as presented; I want to know how much they would have to deliver, assuming they could deliver it.

Second, how the fuck does the immense advantage of space superiority make it an "unanswerable" question? We know it has to be more than "a couple thousand" because that number could be trivially picked off by insurgent forces, unless they all bunched up in one spot, in which case it doesn't sound like they successfully conquered the place. We know it's probably somewhat less than "double the planet population" because then you could just have each person being individually monitored with room to spare for reinforcements. But no, you don't know and it sounds like a really tough question to tackle, so you just dismiss it as "unanswerable" for the bullshit reason that it would never have happened on film, despite the fact that answering this question sheds light on just how far they would have to go (in terms of fleet procurement and army recruitment) in order to be able to carry out a successful planetary invasion.

Fucking come on, dude.

[Junghalli]

Couldn't we extrapolate from real life campaigns like Iraq?

Let's see, as I remember we had something like 120,000 troops in Iraq and the population of the country was around 22 million (I'm going from memory here so these may be a little off), which indicates a ratio of around 1 invader to 180 natives.

So to conquer and pacify a planet like Earth (6 billion people) with modern technology and techniques you'd need a little over 30 million troops.

Of course, a lot of people say we really should have gone into Iraq with 400,000 men, so that would be 1 invader per 55 natives and would give you an invasion force of around 110 million men.

Advanced technology may be able to reduce this through heavy automation and use of robot weapons.

[Stark]

You mean robot weapons like Starfleet doesn't use?

It's more likely to think about how conditioned and passive the Federation population appears to be (even moreso the Vulcans) and how this would REDUCE the requirements for conquest.

[Junghalli]

You mean robot weapons like Starfleet doesn't use?

Yeah, true, Star Trek doesn't seem to have much in the way of autonomous robots, so it's probably safe to assume they'd be using humans in most of the direct combat roles that we do.

[Batman]

Here's an interesting question: assuming the defenders put up a solid, competent defense, how many troops would it take to effectively conquer a developed, unified planet with a population of a few billion?

Unanswerable question. If the attackers have space superiority, a lot of the defenders' support infrastructure can be killed from orbit and all the warm bodies in the field won't help you much without resupply. If the attackers DON'T have space superiority little if any of the invasion force is going to make it to the surface to begin with. Either way, infinitely more than the AQ powers can come up with leave alone get there in any reasonable timeframe.

First, I don't give a shit about how much the Federation etc. can deliver as presented; I want to know how much they would have to deliver, assuming they could deliver it.
Second, how the fuck does the immense advantage of space superiority make it an "unanswerable" question? We know it has to be more than "a couple thousand" because that number could be trivially picked off by insurgent forces, unless they all bunched up in one spot, in which case it doesn't sound like they successfully conquered the place. We know it's probably somewhat less than "double the planet population" because then you could just have each person being individually monitored with room to spare for reinforcements. But no, you don't know and it sounds like a really tough question to tackle, so you just dismiss it as "unanswerable" for the bullshit reason that it would never have happened on film, despite the fact that answering this question sheds light on just how far they would have to go (in terms of fleet procurement and army recruitment) in order to be able to carry out a successful planetary invasion.
Fucking come on, dude.

I'm not dismissing it for the bullshit reason that it never happened on film, I'm dismissing it for the reason that we don't have anywhere near enough information to answer it, what with no Trek force HAVING a planetary army that needed defeating the hard way leave alone one that actually incorporated what MODERN day militaries would consider essential elements, like armour, artillery, and close air support, a lot of which CAN be nixed by orbital superiority. You CAN'T determine the number of troops you have to throw at a planet to take it without knowing how many of them are going to make it through to begin with, and what kind of opposition they're going to face. So what, pray tell, kind of opposition ARE they going to face? Since we're already talking about taking a planet the real-world way opposition as actually EXISTS in the Trekverse is obviously not it, as that can be pathetically easily be destroyed from orbit.

[Darth Wong]

The question of what kind of occupying force you need actually depends on just how benevolent an occupier you are, and how you took control in the first place. Let's take the following scenarios:

1. The Benevolent Absentee Ruler Option: you possess local space superiority, so you force a surrender from the planetary government by threatening orbital bombardment. You beam down a small contingent of troops to act as token "tripwire" force. They do not perform any real occupation duties, nor do they forcibly conquer anything. They merely occupy the capital building and are required to regularly report in. If they fail to report in, then dire consequences will befall the planet's population. Otherwise, the planet's population lives pretty much as before, with no mass starvation or other suffering. Their government even contains all of the same bureaucrats, dignitaries, and other personnel that it had before.
2. The Benevolent Active Ruler Option: same as option #1, but you attempt to improve their existing government by actively managing it and interfering in its operation. You appoint regional governors whose job it is to achieve a number of stipulated economic, social, and political reforms.
3. The Donald Rumsfeld Option: you decide that their existing planetary government is too corrupt, immoral, or otherwise unsuitable to work with, so instead of trying to bargain, you demolish the government and its military forces from top to bottom by using orbital strikes and conventional air/sea/ground assaults to destroy all major government buildings, logistical targets, and military forces. Von Clausewitz would be proud. Now you install a military governor and deploy a military force whose mission is to occupy all of the major population centres, suppress any civil unrest, and keep any opportunistic parties from taking advantage of the situation.
4. The George W. Bush Wet Dream Option: same as option #3, but you also attempt to restructure their culture so that it resembles your own.
5. The Failed Benevolent Ruler Option: you tried to use option #1 or #2 but the government refused to surrender, or numerous competing factions began squabbling and eliminated the possibility of a clean negotiated surrender. You are now left with the unpleasant option of having your bluff called. If you go ahead and bombard the planet's surface, you will cause mass destruction with unpredictable consequences for your political relations in future. If you do not, then your credibility is lost. Either way, your decision would have to be followed up with a massive conventional invasion.
6. The Imperfect Benevolent Ruler Option: you tried to use option #1 or #2 but the high costs of your interstellar war campaign force you to raise funds. Your own population refuses to tolerate any more tax increases, particularly when you have plenty of conquered populations which you could be taxing instead. So you are forced to heavily tax your conquered territories. This causes widespread economic chaos, which in turn leads to civil uprisings.

Needless to say, the personnel requirements differ vastly between these options, and there are plenty other scenarios one could imagine.

[Simon_Jester]

For the "failed benevolent" types of occupation, I'd guesstimate that you need a troop-to-population ratio of 1:50 or better unless you can count on the support of a large and competent fifth column. You need to be able to garrison every town of noticeable size with a force that can look after itself well enough to hang on until reinforcements (or orbital fire support) arrive. In addition, you need to be able to patrol the countryside without drawing down town garrisons to the point where they wind up in serious danger.

1:180 clearly doesn't work well, nor did the higher ratio the US used in Vietnam. In Vietnam, there were about 40 million people in the country with roughly 500 thousand troops, which gives a ratio of about 1:80. Of course, in Vietnam, the US had the disadvantage of not being able to push across the border and occupy the north as they occupied the south. But that also served to compress the US forces into a smaller territory that they still couldn't control very well.
_______

I suppose one could wonder why different species would behave so nobly toward one another (i.e., no genocidal wars) when humans behave remarkably unkindly toward each other over minor differences in skin pigmentation, religious belief, etc.

I'd chalk it up to practical concerns. You can never be sure you got all the enemy's ships, and there are no planetary shields. If you nuke the Klingon homeworld there's really not much stopping a few surviving Klingon warbirds from warping over to your homeworld and launching a suicide run with photon torpedoes aimed at your greatest cities.

Moreover, all those powers are separated by wide areas of space- no major Star Trek power has had time to fully settle its own sphere of influence. Therefore, given how difficult it is to maintain large operations (either colonies or invasions) at long distances, there really isn't much point in nosing around in the other side's sphere of influence.
________

That's how I looked at it too. Most guys in the AQ just think "well if our space fleets have been fucked we've already lost". War Treaties and Agreements are not uncommon in Star Trek. It's really not out of the way to think Trek is simply like Medieval/Imperial Europe. Everybody just fights "honor" battles that are lexically refereed by Conventions and War Codes. A serious war would do too much damage to everyone.

Thing is, they're right about that, because everyone has nukes and the means to put them wherever they please. Anyone dumb enough to keep fighting after losing in space is doomed if they ever lose a war, because the only defense against a space attack in Star Trek is to have your own fleet.

Also, most of the time most nations don't really want to massacre everyone. There are exceptions, but most of history's massacres came about because two people in close contact wound up in a conflict that one side was strong enough to end by mass murder.* Very rarely does someone just up and decide to invade a foreign country two weeks' travel away and slaughter the inhabitants for the sheer evilness of it.

Since most of the major Star Trek nations do occupy well defined spheres of influence, you don't get the intense hatreds that flare up when rivals are stuck next to each other.

*Often engineered conflict, but still conflict. Group A is far more likely to try to kill Group B that is intermixed with it (and can thus be blamed for all Group A's problems) than to go after remote group Z and try to kill it without at least trying peaceful coexistence.

Anybody really serious about strategy might just skip most well defended planets anyway. Similar to US Island Hopping of the Pacific War. Why attack Rabaul when you can attack Guam and achieve the same goal of getting one step closer to your enemy's home?

This only worked in the Pacific because the island garrisons were not self-supporting and could be cut off from supply easily. When the "islands" you hop over are inhabited worlds with at least some industrial base, things get trickier.

[Darth Wong]

Anyone dumb enough to keep fighting after losing in space is doomed if they ever lose a war, because the only defense against a space attack in Star Trek is to have your own fleet.

Incorrect. This logic assumes that the attacker is willing to use WMD to wipe out civilian populations. Even the Soviets in Afghanistan didn't do that. Why do so many people assume such an action is so easily taken?

Bereft of that assumption, we are left with the inescapable logic that if a defender can make occupation tedious, expensive, and difficult enough, then he can drive off the attacker through sheer fatigue.

[Stark]

We even have an example, don't we - Bajor. I never watched much DS9, but the conquest, occupation and abandonment of Bajor should be a major datapoint here. I dimly recall their use of DS9, various secret police nonsense, etc, and that they eventually pulled out due to treaty and claimed it wasn't worth it anyway. If we figure they captured it in the earlier war (I have no idea if this is true) it's arguable that their government couldn't be seen to abandon it without losing support regardless of it's economic value.

[The Romulan Republic]

Its also interesting to note that despite all the problems with the resistance, the Cardassians didn't opt to use orbital bombardment to win in that case (despite all the other attrocities they were willing to commit).

Pretty compelling example of a ruthless power faced with a determined and somewhat successful insurgency, which still did not resort to a massive orbital bombardment to win the day. Bajor sounds like a canon example of almost exactly the scenario Darth Wong reffered to.

[Stark]

And the salient fact that they NEVER BEAT THE INSURGENCY. Didn't they hold it for decades? There must be numbers on how many Cardie troops that planet sucked into a black hole (like Iraq) and they never won. They were militant and relatively 'new' on the galactic stage so may not have wanted to be seen to lose face, but it could be taken as an example of why nobody does this.

[CaptHawkeye]

Anybody really serious about strategy might just skip most well defended planets anyway. Similar to US Island Hopping of the Pacific War. Why attack Rabaul when you can attack Guam and achieve the same goal of getting one step closer to your enemy's home?

This only worked in the Pacific because the island garrisons were not self-supporting and could be cut off from supply easily. When the "islands" you hop over are inhabited worlds with at least some industrial base, things get trickier.

Allow me to clarify that. I was more displaying the inherint problem with trying to make every territory you own an unassailable bastion. IE: You can't. I doubt the Federation would ever have the resources to turn every useless rock they owned into Space Iwo Jima. Even if they did have Armies numbering into hundreds of billions.

If you spread your Armies on every planet, then what you have is lots of tiny, thin garrisons barely capable of holding a continent. If you mass all of your garrisons one location, your enemy will probably just skip that planet and go for another one.

Because of this, a Federation Army is left with a secondary development priority. Their is no way for them to cover all of their space, and no point in holding a single planet. If Starfleet has been beaten they're fucked. The only locations that would justify immense force deployment would be the heavily industrialized worlds of the Federation. Earth, Vulcan, Andoria. Many of which have been demilitarized probably as a result of again, treaties and public perception. I have to say the task of preparing the Federation for dealing with an invasion of say...Space Napoleon proportions would be a nightmare.

Of course, this is only from a defensive standpoint. In fact this logic supports the idea of Army used for offensive purposes. The difficulty with offensive ground operations might go right back to Starfleet/the Klingons/etc having to unify their forces into a single Fleet during a war a la Mahan. This would leave little protection for Merchant convoys or amphibious landings. So obviously, Naval Supremacy would have to be obtained first, but if the attitude towards Star Navies is anything like how it was in World War 1, then that might very well be why nothing would happen anyway.

[Darth Wong]

Allow me to clarify that. I was more displaying the inherint problem with trying to make every territory you own an unassailable bastion. IE: You can't. I doubt the Federation would ever have the resources to turn every useless rock they owned into Space Iwo Jima. Even if they did have Armies numbering into hundreds of billions.

Why wouldn't each planet have something akin to a National Guard?

If you spread your Armies on every planet, then what you have is lots of tiny, thin garrisons barely capable of holding a continent. If you mass all of your garrisons one location, your enemy will probably just skip that planet and go for another one.

Oh for fuck's sake, since when is an entire planet incapable of supporting its own military force or defense installations? It doesn't have to be absolutely impregnable, but it should be able to hold off a handful of ships: something that Fed defenses have so far been incapable of doing. A major planet will have billions of people living on it. Even its police forces should vastly outnumber the kind of assault forces we typically see in Star Trek.

Hell, New York City alone has something like fifty thousand cops, all armed well enough to take down a Klingon "warrior". How the hell do they occupy worlds with a few transports of Klingons in Star Trek? I know a lot of people think it's some kind of cop-out or intellectual cheat to simply say that AQ powers are idiots and shit on the ground, but that itself is intellectually cheap: they are ignoring the only viable conclusion from the evidence at hand, simply because they don't like it.

[CaptHawkeye]

Why wouldn't each planet have something akin to a National Guard?

The probably do, I think we've seen gaurds. Even if they were a bunch of guys in pajamas. These garrisons would most obviously be local forces though. Equipped with whatever gun-of-the-week said planet featured. This would pose a problem, the Federation probably doesn't manage these "National Gaurds" so their would be no unified equipment standards. In fact that seems to be the case. Haven't Federation "members" like the Son'a and Andorians always been shown using their own weapon designs?

As for why they wouldn't have them, I think it again extends from the overwhelmingly pacifistic public opinion of the Federation's citizens in combination with rampant overconfidence in Starfleet. After all, Starfleet has been at the front of every major event in Galactic History. They've seen plenty of fighting, but in hundreds of years never a serious invasion. Usually just godlike beings using some planet as a urinal and telling Picard to butt out.

Finally, the aforementioned treaties and "honor duels" that these space navies fight. Invasions have happened, but they usually end up being very local events. Ulimately made or broken by Naval Forces in the long run anyway. All of these factors in combination might be enough to deter the build up of a Planetary Militia. Police forces we do see however. But have we ever seen an invasion of a really important Federation world?

Oh for fuck's sake, since when is an entire planet incapable of supporting its own military force or defense installations? It doesn't have to be absolutely impregnable, but it should be able to hold off a handful of ships: something that Fed defenses have so far been incapable of doing. A major planet will have billions of people living on it. Even its police forces should vastly outnumber the kind of assault forces we typically see in Star Trek.

Oh absolutely. That might be just why we don't see major invasion forces. The "typical" Trek invasion force is a bunch of ships beaming down butter knife armed thugs in bulky leotards. Why suddenly bring up a full size Army if that's been the precedent for hundreds of years?

Admittedly that's not a very good reason, but hey, i'd rather another thread in this forum didn't become 'dur dur feds suck' one liners? Even if we know it's the case.

[Simon_Jester]

Anyone dumb enough to keep fighting after losing in space is doomed if they ever lose a war, because the only defense against a space attack in Star Trek is to have your own fleet.

Incorrect. This logic assumes that the attacker is willing to use WMD to wipe out civilian populations. Even the Soviets in Afghanistan didn't do that. Why do so many people assume such an action is so easily taken?

You're right. I got too wrapped up in the formal war concept and overextended my argument.

On the other hand, someone who controls space and has Trek-level technology can do a lot of damage even without causing mass civilian casualties. Yes, transporters and scanners can be jammed easily enough. But once the ships can operate freely above, blocking their efforts from below won't work forever.

So if you'll permit me to revise my argument to make it less full of holes:

In Star Trek, having space supremacy over an inhabited world is a powerful force multiplier for ground forces on that world. Even without landing troops, Trek ships can cause serious damage below. At the upper limit they can drop enough megatons to kill billions; in a more restricted setting they can use precision phaser strikes against infrastructure, wide-angle stun strikes against troops or civilians, malicious use of transporters (sometimes), and so forth.

Therefore, if I have lost the battle for my planet's orbital space in Star Trek, and I refuse to comply with the winner's demands, I'm probably going to take a beating of some sort. How serious it is depends almost entirely on how ruthless the people who destroyed my fleet are; it could be anything from "economic disaster" to "end of civilization as we know it."

If I'm very confident that the beating will be survivable, and the enemy's demands are extreme (such as my own death), then it does make sense for me to continue to resist. However, in this context the Trek ships can do quite a bit of damage without causing mass civilian casualties or landing troops. So if the demands are reasonable, it is in my interests to surrender rather than continuing to fight in hopes that the enemy will just go away and leave me alone. Better to sign over a few lightly populated border mining colonies than to suffer an economic disaster on the homeworld that makes me so unpopular I get overthrown.
________

Conversely, if I am the victorious attacker, it is in my interests to make reasonable demands that my enemy can accept honorably. I should not make any demands that will be worse for the enemy than the damage I am already prepared to inflict.

If I act foolishly as the attacker and make demands the defender will not meet without total defeat and occupation, then I'm in trouble, because I can't deliver enough troops and I probably (as you say) won't be willing to massacre the whole population. In the modern era, this has been a common problem, because so many wars seem to take the form of one state trying to invade and completely overthrow another. This is tricky, because the attacker have far less interest in overthrowing my enemy than the defender has in not being overthrown.
_________

There are two responses to the problem. One is to become delusional and assert the power to reshape states as one pleases. In that case, I make extreme demands (overthrowing governments, massive tribute, total and permanent disarmament). Then the demands are refused, forcing me to occupy the enemy (and win the occupation) or retreat and be humiliated. Usually, I wind up humiliated.

The other is to not be delusional and limit my demands. This is the older response, the one that explained the old custom of formalized war. Custom dictated that the loser accept reasonable demands from the winner, for certain values of "reasonable."
_________

Since we don't see constant efforts by all the Alpha Quadrant nations to invade and occupy heavily populated foreign planets (which typically fail), it seems likely that they prefer the second route. In which case wars will be fought until one side cannot win, except in the sense of outwaiting the enemy. At this point, the loser no longer has power to stop the winner from doing as they please. The winner makes demands which (by custom) are limited and are considered in light of "what will the enemy accept?" The loser accepts, grumbles, and starts preparing for the next round of wars.

Only rarely will some power be megalomaniacal enough to think it can get away with going beyond the customary demands. At that point, you either see mass atrocities or someone suffer a humiliating failed occupation after making demands the enemy would rather fight than accept.
________

Hell, New York City alone has something like fifty thousand cops, all armed well enough to take down a Klingon "warrior". How the hell do they occupy worlds with a few transports of Klingons in Star Trek? I know a lot of people think it's some kind of cop-out or intellectual cheat to simply say that AQ powers are idiots and shit on the ground, but that itself is intellectually cheap: they are ignoring the only viable conclusion from the evidence at hand, simply because they don't like it.

Given that Klingons have a reputation as homicidal savages, I'd expect them to go for the "tripwire" route you described. Those Klingon warriors sit in your capital living like kings; if your fifty thousand cops decide they don't like it and throw all the Klingons in jail, the Klingons send a bunch of warbirds to rescue their people (in theory) and nuke your capital (in practice).

After you've lost a capital or two this way, trying to kill your Klingon overlords no longer seems like such a good idea. More Klingons start moving onto your planet, appropriating areas to their control as a sort of "Danelaw." You can fight them on the ground, you can almost certainly kill them individually because you outnumber them, but as long as you can't stop them from sending a punitive expedition from the homeworld it's likely to be more trouble than it's worth.

Now, that's not to say they actually do that. But they certainly could, and it would make sense. Which proves very little about whether we should expect to see it in Star Trek, I freely admit.

Also, that method only works when the Klingons are ruthless, homicidal, and savage enough that they can credibly threaten to nuke you just for killing a few of their troopers. For the Federation, it doesn't work so well.

[tezunegari]

Haven't Federation "members" like the Son'a and Andorians always been shown using their own weapon designs?

The Son'a weren't members of the Federation. They were working with the Federation because they had to (Baku lies in Fed territory) and they sold key elements of ketracel white to the Dominion during the war and used forbidden weapons(both stated in Insurrection I think).

And the only Andorian weapons we have ever seen on-screen were pre-Federation during ENT.
The only Andorian in Federation times I remember being shown was during the TOS episode Babel (the one with the diplomats and Sarek aboard the Enterprise).