@ponypony221
Problem is, people loving you might not win you battles but it makes MAINTAINING any occupation much easier. If people hates you, then you might win a battle but then people will still try to piss you off. By contrast, while people might not necessarily like you, it’s easier to maintain an occupation if you don’t go all over the place annoying the heck out of the people there.
Second, nukes, like any other ammo, have expiration date. Is not that they have bombs, they have, but would that material still work if they cannot keep a top notch production like they did in the past? Their economy is crap, which means even taxes have pretty low revenue to even fund weaponry.