American popular culture one of the most effective tools used for criticism of american politics, especially during the Cold War. As Sarantakes describes in his article, Star Trek: The Original Series is perhaps the most famous TV show that addressed american foreign policy through a critical lens. “A Private Little War” aired in 1968, and questioned the morality of the ongoing Vietnam War, something that was extremely controversial during the period. The story takes place on a primitive planet where the Federation (representing the USA) is forced to arm a group of natives when the Klingon Empire (representing the USSR) arms another group first. Despite the planet and its inhabitants having no “intrinsic worth” to the Federation, they have to prevent the addition of the planet to the Klingon sphere of influence in order to stop their spread, an interstellar attempt at containment.
Writer Dan Ingalls also critiqued the military itself through the episode, “blaming the troops for the destruction in Vietnam even when they were simply carrying out a mission devised by their civilian leaders.” Kirk laments the fact that he doesn’t have the moral high ground over his Klingon counterpart, and is essentially doing the exact same thing as him: arming the natives and spurring war between the two, just like the US Military did in Vietnam.
Science Fiction and Fantasy have the ability to be allegorical in a way many other genres do not. Not only can you have fictional or fantastical elements stand in for real world problems, you can do so in a way that prevents censure when a more direct critique would be suppressed. An example would be Battlestar Galactica (2004), where in the second season, the villainous robotic Cylons occupied a human colony called New Caprica. Their oppressive rule and fight against a human resistance was seen as a critique of American Foreign policy during the Iraq War. The Cylons weren’t trying to destroy the humans, just rule over them using a puppet government. Battlestar Galactica helped show Americans that from the Iraqi point of view, American soldiers were seen as the villains, and collaborators with them were almost as bad.