system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Star Trek: All] Considering all the wars the Federation has been in, why haven't they built a fleet of dedicated warships?

I understand that Starfleet's main goals/ mission is science based, but how can you not justify at least a small "taskforce" of dedicated warships? Or better yet, have the Federation create a branch of Starfleet not dedicated to science... Am I missing something?
gpt
Starfleet has built some dedicated warships, like the *Defiant*.  But as to why they haven't built an entire fleet of warships?  It's probably because Starfleet ships are already exceptionally well-designed for combat as well as exploration.  The newer ship classes, like the Galaxy- and Intrepid-class ships, have been found to be more than a match for the warships of other alpha-quadrant species, like Klingon Birds of Prey.

Now, Starfleet certainly could have used a fleet of dedicated warships during the Dominion War.  But this was more a case of Dominion shipyards being more efficient than Starfleet's, and the Dominion being able to breed enough Jem'Hadar to man them, while Starfleet was experiencing a manpower shortage.  The problem wasn't the design of Starfleet's ships, it was just that there weren't enough spaceworthy ships out there to match the Dominion's numbers.