Federation stupidity/naivete

I was watching DS9 episode The Circle, and i’m just wondering how stupid the Federation truly is. When Sisko tells his superior that the Cardassians are arming the ‘Circle’ rebels (yet keeping said info away from the Bajorans), the admiral tells Sisko to pack up shop and leave, citing the prime directive, since it’s a bajoran problem. He even says they’ll deal with the aftermath later.



Later? Here’s what will happen later. Had Sisko and his officers followed orders and managed to evacuate the station in time, the Cardassian’s would just walk right in and take Bajor back, and most likely fortify their new gains to prevent the Federation from taking it back. And with access to the wormhole and all the economic and political advantages that come with it, Cardassia soon becomes much stronger than before. They may even align themselves with the Dominion sooner than what happened.



Since this is before the Dominion war that hardened the federation, I seriously doubt the Federation would put much effort into retaking Bajor from a much stronger Cardassia. They handed a bunch of territory to the Cardassians after their border wars, and when they arrive at Bajor and discover the wormhole, they don’t even put a fleet of ships to act as a deterrent to Cardassian aggression.



This reminds me of during the Klingon civil war, when Worf asks Picard for federation aid against the Duras sisters, knowing that if they win, the Klingons will ally themselves with the Romulans, and the Federation will be at a huge disadvantage in the quadrant. Sure, Picard convinced the brass to help him expose the Romulan connection, but their immediate response was to put their heads in the sand and ignore an ugly outcome that would only spell disaster for the federation. With such a head in the sands management, it’s a miracle the Federation wasn’t conquered already.