People are not their governments. Viewing competing governments as competition between their countries - I think that is propaganda. The US government violates the privacy of US people through mass surveillance. Now it is competing for control over social media. Yet the goal of mass surveillance of US people, which harms US people, is justified in terms of US interests.

During the cold war all sorts of things were justified because they made sense from the perspective of US (governmental) interests. The Vietnam war, the Mujahideen, the toppling of free and democratic governments. In a "realist" framework, the ends justify the means. The "ends" and "means" here are considered from the point of view of the statesman.

When the world is viewed as a chessboard between competing nations, human beings outside the decision making centers suffer - we are reduced to being expendable resources, collateral damage, in the pursuit of "national" interests.