Starfleet Jedi

Let face UFP something like 8,000 light years across. A Starship at warp 9 require would need something like 7 years to cross the distance and that does not even go into idea they have to make stops. Then of there course would ships carry out missions of exportation beyond the 8,000 light year area. Then of course one has to take into account the less advance starships would take even longer. It even possible that reason good Doctor in DS9 thought the UFP was going to lose in DS9 Statistical Probabilities is that good part fleet would not arrive in time. Last but not least Dominion war want on for 2 years even if one take into account first contact with the Dominion we talk about 3 years. UFP would have been unlikely able get entire fleet into the war in 3 years time.

Yes, that's a large-scale problem of logistics, to move assets from point A to point B. Still, the Dominion wouldn't attack worlds of minor importance. So somehow, one could at least increase the defenses of certains key locations and planets and start to pile up more ships in that region. However, as it happened with Bajor, some mistakes were made. Mind you, the Dominion couldn't spread its fleet either or it would be too weak.
They had the initial chance of facing a vast Federation with several planets that could be attacked and not all of them could be equally defended.
Plus the Dominion really had a lot of resources, of which a considerable amount was lost in the wormhole.

This whole topic of lag reminds me, iirc, that in early TOS' plans, even FTL communications were supposed to suffer massive lag, right?