Especially in dictatorships like China and Russia, indeed.

> Viewing competing governments as competition between their countries

I don't understand this comment. So if a foreign government is opposed to you, it's OK because it does not represent its people and therefore you should not do anything about it? As far as I know the government controls the use of violence force so in the end of the day governments matter over people when it comes to foreign relations.

> 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.

This hardly happened in a vacuum. In case you missed an episode the whole of Europe and several parts of Asia were threatened to be taken over by communist rule, in a violent fashion - the US acted as a counter power to that.

So I guess Cuba does not count? Sending missiles right at the doorstep of the US and constant financial aid seems to counter your point.

> The US has fomented violent coups and interfered with legitimate elections all around the world in service of exporting capitalism and free market imperialism (e.g., in Italy, Indonesia, Iran, any number of countries in Central and South America).

Every major power does that, but they are not all equal. The British empire was in comparison a lot more violent that the US has ever been. And people who lived under Soviet Rule (even outside of Russia) also know very well it was far from a peace-loving, people-respecting regime.