Are you happy that America is a friend of Saudi Arabia?
I have no problem with the US being an ally of Saudi Arabia so long as Saudi Arabia stamps out Islamic fundamentalists. When Saudi Arabia sponsors trouble then we need to get on top of them but you have more influence as an ally in trying to change their policy than you do as an enemy.
The only way you can effectively confront enemies is by force and that only goes so far as well. Whether force can be of use depends on the circumstances and the nature of the problem.
The situation in Ukraine is a good example. No one has the balls to actual help Ukraine by arming them better so they can defeat the Russian sponsored insurgency and to deter further Russian aggression by making Ukraine a NATO member. No one wants to risk a war over Ukraine. That is the same attitude of course that Hitler thrived on. Of course Russia would not go to war with the West over Ukraine though so the fears or a war by helping are unwarranted and Russia would be deterred from invading if Ukraine did become part of NATO because insane is one thing Putin is not.
Invading Saudi Arabia to establish a democracy where we impose western values on them would be unjustifiable. You try to lobby them to change and put pressure that you can in terms of an allied relationship you don't take over unless someone is a major threat to other countries. That is both because the public won't tolerate such interventions but also because that is International Law. That is why Russia trying to take over a country doing nothing to it or any other country is not justifiable under International law. Putin made it clear he wanted to make sure Crimea was taken over before Ukraine could join NATO because he didn't want a NATO naval base there. Putin has a colonial mentality instead of a 21st Century mentality. People like him only understand force and threat of force and it must thus be used to challenge him. It is sheer hypocrisy to kill tens of thousands in Chechnya then claim Ukriane has no right to preserve its borders.
China is a horrible regime and yet the US is still friendly with China for economic reasons. The interwoven world economies actually helps discourage war. Russia could not afford to stop selling petrol and oil to Europe its economy could collapse which just makes the lack of guts even more pathetic.
Most countries are not willing to aid others out of principle they do so when there is some economic threat of not acting. The threat to Middle Eastern Oil is why the World acted against Saddam. What oil is in Syria? Syria was a major supporter of terrorism and threat in terms of WMDs so there was a reason to aid the rebels but no one did and now look at the mess.
The best solution is one that would be hard. Forming a government in exile and helping such government take over every inch of Syria so expelling Assad as well as the extremeists. How do you pick the government in exile and to make sure extremists are not part of their orignaization? You would have to make them form a constitution or something of that sort befor earming them so that if successful you have a system you can trust. We didn't do that in Iraq or Afghainsitan and it was a mistake.
People don't want to put the effort in though instead they want to just bomb and hope somebody will defeat ISIS somehow without knowing what those people will then do. It's a freaking joke. Military force is a continuation of politics by other means. The current political leaders of the US and most other countries are all grossly incompetent fools who have no real understanding of politics including the polical art of military power. They neither understand its limits nor how to effectively use it in those instances where it is actually valuable.
