Just a few thoughts.

Much of your article can be summed up in the old saying ~"Never get involved in a land war in Asia."

Invasion is a poor substitute for subversion. As Sun Tzu remarked "the laying out of a few ounces of silver in honours and emoluments" often achieves far more than military might. That's how Britain 'conquered' India.

Any highly-centralised dictatorship is vulnerable to a surgical strike at the leadership. Such countries tend to have a docile population who will accept 'the new boss -same as the old boss' with minimal resistance or resentment.

However large your army of conscripts is, it will never be as effective as either a professional force or a smaller force who know and care about what they're fighting for.

As for the USA, the corporations who run that country would happily sell it off to anyone who offered them enough money!