Frankly, I think it's amazing how quickly a couple of well-placed nuclear weapons will change someone's mind on that whole "we're gonna dominate the entire eastern hemisphere" thing.
We went from the Japanese emperial command saying "fuck you" to "please God, make it stop" in 5 quick days. Game over...we win.
Personally, I'm a fan of nukes. Kept the commies at bay (well, from doing anything REALLY stupid) for over 50 years and they could solve a whole range of other problems, too, if we weren't a bunch of politcal pussies.