The whole arc where the US invades a generic middle eastern nation is pretty unambiguously a commentary on the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. The first mission of the arc involves an amphibious assault on a coastal city where it is assumed that Big Bad #1 is hiding out. After high casualties on both sides it is revealed the US intelligence was duped via very unsophisticated means. The next two missions are completely forgettable but the final mission of the US arc has the player character assaulting the capitol city with the intent of capturing Big Bad #1. Along the way they take great effort to rescue a downed helicopter pilot, shortly after which a nuclear weapon goes off. This kills everyone, rendering the rescue pointless. The player character dies in first person after their helicopter crashes in a scene that looks incredible to this day.

The other arc has the player fighting breakaway russian “ultranationalists” as british special forces. There really isn’t all that much commentary in that one and its mostly “cool good guys shoot cringe bad guys and save the day”. It should be mentioned that the russian enemies are arguably NazBols given their fascistic description and soviet aesthetics.

In the sequel its revealed that the bad guys won in russia and the US has spent half a decade in a counterinsurgency quagmire so that basically made the whole first game futile. The rest of the game is pretty much what you would expect from a game of its era, genre, and budget.