It's light character narrative-justified propaganda at worst, at least to me anyway. I haven't seen too many ads or promo pieces that are as gung-ho about its militaristic aspect as something like
Top Gun was obviously meant to be (even though it is a period piece meant to evoke
Top Gun vibes among other things, or at least that's the vibe I've been getting from the advertisements), but yeah, she's an Air Force pilot and they wanted to be authentic. Now, the amount that the U.S. military has actually used pop culture at large to propagandize is problematic, but again, I don't think it's a real problem in this specific case.
I initially thought much the same thing about Captain America (not that I saw his film series themselves as being openly pro-U.S. military industrial complex) but then I watched the movies and considering how much the character has changed over the course of his arc (and he was never really ra ra U-S-A to begin with), I'm expecting something similar-ish with Carol.
Wouldn't it be weirder if a movie about an air force pilot was all "the U.S. is a problematic military-industrial imperialist presence!!!1!!! Raah rabble rabble rabble!". Especially given Carol's not one of those types of people anyway, character-wise she's pretty straight down the line, snark aside she's probably way more with pre-TWS Cap on this stuff. Certainly Tony, even with concerns over how his weapons were being sold illegally (he never had a problem with the military having his stuff in general - pre-Civil War Stark's about as George Bush/Reagan as it gets, politically) wouldn't see it this way either.
Especially given this is 90s, pre-9/11, the western nations are basically at peace and there's no real controversy at play. Nobody (serious people, anyway) saw Iraq '91 or the Balkans stuff as unjustified, not sure why that outlook would play into this movie. Why wouldn't the military be portrayed positively in a movie set in the mid-90s about a...military woman?
Basically, 10 years in to the MCU they're not going to start with this "we're as bad as the bad guys!" schtick now. All of this stuff is covered in The Winter Soldier anyway, the overreach stuff, that's about as far as Feige'll take it. Even Black Panther, Killmonger's pretty clearly depicted as being in the wrong with all his "the west = bad guy!" stuff, much as certain segments of the population didn't really seem to grasp that and prefer to hold him up as semi-justified.
As an aside, I've thought the MCU movies that largely deal with the U.S. military industrial complex come out as relatively neutral on it, which both works and doesn't work depending on the story. Stark's origin story of a legal weapons dealer being taken out by his own toys was a nice bit of karma and a nod to how much American-made weapons end up in the hands of the "wrong" people either through poor official foreign policy decisions or shady underhanded dealings.
On the other hand, as much as I liked
The Winter Soldier, I thought the "Hydra was behind everything!" reveal was such a copout. I mean, sure, Western governments that were formerly on the Allied powers did ultimately take in some Nazi researchers -- and Nazi sympathizers have always existed in the U.S. since the party originated in Germany -- so I appreciated that nod, but still, building up all of this tension over government overreach only to have the threat just being foreign enemy infiltrators took so much wind out of the sails thematically, at least for me.
Black Panther had some nods (Shuri's "Colonizer" jab at a CIA agent was resonantly funny if you know 20th century African history; it was more than just a racial reference) and was generally ambivalent about how it approached critiquing the current real world powers-that-be, but it didn't go as far as it could've in the "These white men are dangerous!" direction. Ross explaining Killmonger's military black ops history was I think one of the best parts in that regard, at least of the ones that stayed; two of the deleted scenes are more direct (W'Kabi and Okoye's conversation and Ross' warning to T'Challa before his UN speech) and I refuse to believe they were just cut for time/pacing. On that last point on Killmonger, his methods and aspects of his ends are clearly depicted as being in the wrong, but considering how much the film also indicts Wakanda's historical inaction to actually offer support to the rest of Africa and the diaspora (which would inevitably entail taking military actions against Western colonization of Africa at large), it's hard if not impossible to say that it wants us to write off Killmonger as unjustified, so if that's what you came away with then I feel like we weren't watching the same film. (Hell, even Chadwick Boseman has said that he identifies more with Killmonger and felt like he could've easily been the unambiguous tragic hero of the story with a few personality and script tweaks.)
This thread. 
