The first one was, uh... less than perfectly peaceful, even if no shots were fired.
Also, hm. Given the state of Cardassian shipyard infrastructure I doubt they can duplicate the Silence-class, which it sounds like is built to the same scale as our explorers. The largest capital ship design we've ever seen them build were the Lorgots at 1.8 megatons, and I strongly suspect their largest berths are two-megaton rather than three-megaton facilities. This would make sense given that all their existing designs and all likely upgrades on same* are almost certainly going to be 1.8 megatons or less.
That restricts them from throwing battleships at us, sure- but arguably that isn't good news. It means the Cardassians' heaviest combat units take only three years to build instead of four, and they can afford to build more berths, and they can still perform well in a fight except in the very specific circumstances of a one-on-one duel between one of their line combatants and one of ours.
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*Say, a notional 1.5-megaton cruiser built with modern tech instead of 2280s/90s tech, which would almost certainly outperform the Renaissance-class and beat the stock Excelsior design, which is what I expect the Cardassians to build next.