DS9 got so close to the horrors of a Trek tech war.
Cardassian had autonomous platforms and Federation self-replicating mines, they just need to be combined.
There was even a weapon the transported bullets at their velocity, so you could yeet massive items with high kinetic energy.
Imagine an autonomous replicating fleet that sends waves of drones at you at warp 9, the industrial replicators churn out more and more ships.
There are a lot of things that block transporters that could be deployed to reduce shenanigans, but you can still replicate/transport 1 ton tungsten rods into space above your enemies to fuck them up.
Nobody has droids so to create a stalemate you just have to create enough chaos enemy ground troops can’t advance while you block their transporters.