United States: imposes sanctions on political enemies, solely for being political enemies
the states being sanctioned: shortages of resources, because they can’t import the things they need to have a functioning economy, which leads to famines and poverty
The United States: “See! Communism doesn’t work! they should have used western democracy and let the capitalists gain a monopoly over their resources for our benefit”
The West: “Hmm yeah, USA makes a point, Communism is bad!”
United States: tries to assassinate and coup enemy governments, and tries to sow discontent in enemy states
The targeted governments: tighten up security, keep western influences out and strengthen bonds with other anti-American governments
the United States: “See look! They’re evil authoritarians who are evil and bad, and since their news has to be translated to English we’re going to editorialize it to a point that it’s unrecognisable to push our propagandist biases! If they didn’t wanna be called authoritarians they should have let us kill thousands of their citizens to force a regime change!! evil commie authoritarians!!”