Take a look at the bombing of Serbia in 1999. The US was quite open about the reasons for the bombing. A main reason was to preserve stability and credibility. Serbia was interfering with stability, meaning that it was the one part of the Balkans that was not integrated into the Western-dominated (mostly US-dominated) system.

Armed attack has a definition in international law. It means sudden, overwhelming, instantaneous ongoing attack.

Anything feasible and potentially effective should be explored.

If commissars in Soviet Russia agreed to subordinate themselves to state power, they could at least plead fear in extenuation. Their counterparts in more free and open societies can plead only cowardice.

When Reagan left office, he was the most unpopular living president, apart from Nixon, even below Carter. If you look at his years in office, he was not particularly popular. He was more or less average. He severely harmed the American economy.

Latin America wants to decriminalize at least marijuana (maybe more or course;) the US wants to maintain it. An interesting story. There seems to me no easy way out of this.

I don't really think there have been transitional periods to socialism. There have been efforts, but they have usually been destroyed by a combination of external force and internal corruption.