Vulcan, Andoria, and Tellar founded the Federation of Planets before Earth reached FTL in 1536.
Even in 24th century, Earth still has warring hostile countries and has imperialistic desire to expand. Earth has long history of conflict with the Federation like with the Romulan Empire. The West are church attending zealot catholic like in Medieval Spain with the inquisition. The East countries are Islamic fundamentalist Shiite. The Federation set a neutral zone border with Earth's Sol System