In anything less than a world war certain compromises must be made with surrounding nations that are 'allies'. Since they too must deal with their neighbors and internal antagonists there is a limit to what we may effectively do and maintain regional peace at the same time. Its' one of those situations where size doesn't matter as much as one might hope for. Needless to say attacking the wrong country doesn't help much either. In an all out war, thanks that we don't have one of those, we no doubt have the means to do horrendous and virtually instantaneous harm to anyone. The trick is to avoid that one at nearly any cost.
