My hot take is that there is no way in hell an entire planet of people could be armed with planet destroying weapons and not immediately go around blowing up other planets.
You're telling me that there's never been a single rogue captain in Starfleets history that has just not started unloading photon torpedoes and plasma blasters and all kinds of crazy shit on a random planet just to see what the fuck happened?
Think of the mining potentials if nothing else? You can just sift through the wreckage rather than digging.