>>13730661
That's not really the point if you're going for societal control. Sure the real fight is much different, and someone who's been "desensitized" by games will recognize it as crap, but someone who never goes into a fight in the first place and has a warped view of violence won't really sympathize with others when violence comes around. At least that's the idea.
By romanticizing violence, you can have support from your people to brutalize neighboring countries. Presumably this is why the whole arena gladiatorial combat spectator sport thing was in existence during the old days.
You're not gearing people up for a fight, you're dulling their reactions so you can get away with whatever you want in regards to force without your country pulling an anti-war protest like what happened with Vietnam.
Note that most citizens today are just plain unaware of the US's involvement in "peacekeeping" most likely because this strategy has either failed and they're being tightlipped or resorting to he-said-she-said distractions like all the shit they're piling in the news all the time or it worked well.
Frankly I don't think it's the latter, the internet has opened up a lot of inter-country contact and it's damned impossible to get people to not care because bonds have been made and can't be unmade.