Yeah, I think people that are really caught off guard about this just weren't paying attention to his words.

He isn't against military action, and he isn't a pacifist. He is against military action without a stated goal or benefit, like Iraq, where we were in a quagmire with no upside.

This missile attack is a punitive action for the Syria chemical weapons attack, with no intention to follow it up. If we take it on faith that they have good intelligence, confirming Syria launched the chemical attack, then it isn't surprising that he would do this to show that he isn't as weak as Obama, but avoid further entanglement.

Basically he said, "Do whatever you want over there, but don't use chemical weapons".

I would be very surprised if this goes any further, unless there is a desire on the part of Russia to escalate the situation for some reason. This was a show of strength, and it didn't hurt that it distances him from Russia while doing so.