It depends what adversary I guess. It seems like several middle eastern countries of very different religious bent are quite happy with our military activity. Though they are not usually named as adversaries they certainly are by any rational metric.

I don't think so if they are a nuclear armed nation. If the end result of a nuclear armed conflict is mutual destruction and collapse, the only path towards dominance is economic. And in a pure economic fight a massive overpowered military is just an economic anchor.

If you reduce all those other things you don’t need to reduce their military. You already won, without a battle or any casualties on your side. The decay and rot from the inside will take care of the rest.

In which case turn the military on the people and expedite the process. /s

It will come, eventually. That usually doesn't need any outside tinkering, it follows naturally in dictatorships.