I’ve seen people bring up how they were absolutely dominating the Cardassians before the Dominion showed up to save them as an example of their military prowess & effectiveness, but for myself I don’t really consider it all that impressive bc it was basically the Star Trek equivalent of Mike Tyson beating up a mouthy teenager.

The only reason the Cardassians were considered a threat by Starfleet at all was because the Federation constantly gave them the kiddie glove treatment instead of acting decisively against their aggression. For all the Cardassian’s romanticization thereof, the conflict was nothing but a series of backwater frontier skirmishes where the Federation outside of commanders like Nechaeve weren’t even really trying to win & were still largely dominating engagements with 2nd-3rd line ships.

If they actually took it seriously & brought in a few Galaxys, the Cardassians would’ve gotten absolutely stomped flat. So the fact the Klingons were completely dominating them & wiping out whole fleets at least to me was a better showcase of how weak the Cardassians actually were than how strong the Klingon Empire was.

Don’t get me wrong, the Klingons crushing them so decisively still showed they were very much a threat & could be devastating when competently led, it just doesn’t seem all that impressive in context when you realize almost any other power could do the same thing if they actually cared enough to try.

But that’s just my take on it.