The continue hyping making it appear that the study was done by any agency within the US government can be null and void just by looking at this disclaimer within the report:

The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy
or position of the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

The report was done by the US Army War College, no one would expect any less from a report that basically amounts to a term paper. It's a college that exist to, in their own words: The purpose of the United States Army War College is to produce graduates who are skilled critical
thinkers and complex problem solvers.
Most of the study is based on the influences or lack there of a Obama Presidency which sought to downplay the US military's standing in the world, therefore weakening the military's standing by not having strong leadership who would speak out. This is what led to Russia going into Ukraine and North Korea flinging missiles over it's neighbors heads. Yes you can and should question why that would even be important or their job in the first place. If you can't see the consequences from such a short amount of time of weak leadership in the case of Ukraine and NK just imagine what would happen if we had gotten another president soft on speaking out or taking a strong stance. Yes we can argue that it's not the US governments job or the US government does similar things by occupying/occupancy in foreign lands....but in the overall picture you can either be free or you can let countries who do not allow their citizens to be free spread and sprawl across country after country until they also occupy your land, determine what you can or cannot write literally but also tell you that this is your leader forever through policy made at the top level or force coercion or intimidation tactics. We may not like the propaganda or the war machines but the plain fact of the matter is that without them the world would easily be dominated by whoever choose to be the most ruthless to get there. That's why it's important who really does own the oil in the ME because it's the sale of that much needed domestic product that produces the wealth to put into weaponry. You want to talk about the growth of the military industrial machine within the US but China isn't doing any less then the US is doing by going into the South China Sea, Russia isn't doing any less invading into Ukraine, surely you can't assume that Russia's backing Assad would be happening if Assad didn't have something of value that Russia wanted. Right? They wouldn't care otherwise and they definitely wouldn't care who they would have to genocide to keep things complacent against those who have no voice. Personally I would rather face media propaganda in my face everyday then to have myself or family genocide to bring the sheeple under control. I don't have to believe the propaganda and I am free to choose so, that would never happen under Russian or Chinese control. Dialogue was also a focal point for new structure, those dialogues would include countries coming together to decide to use non forceful measure to get other countries under control, such as sanctions. So far this seems to be working with NK whose has decided to come to the table and join the dialogue. NK leadership had to have been convinced there is no underlying plot to take him out and reunite the Korean peninsula. There will be no unification because China won't allow it, they do not want a free republic or democracy living along their borders which could propaganda and influence their citizenry into revolts, that's why China backs its communist next door neighbor. That's why it's so important to convince NK the war is over, it's been over for decades, it's time to come out onto the world stage and participate with the rest of the world without fear regardless if your a communist country or not, China isn't going to allow any less. The constant barrage of hate towards towards US policy is stinging at times when they are no less guilty then other power structures whom most seem to want to make them look like they stand on a pedestal. We may not like it but just where would a whole lot of these smaller countries be without a superpower who would have their backs in order to help them maintain their freedom?