"James Kirk"? That sounds Scottish, but even if he were German-American he'd still be 100% American.
The Federation is the UN, just look at the flag.
Sure, but Kirk was definitely American. US liberals back then assumed that the UN was on our side and we were the natural leaders. Of course, the earth being unified, Russians and Chinese would be on the same side as Kirk, but Roddenbury could us aspects of them to create the foreign rivals of the Federation.
The format is western but it is NOT a cold war drama. It’s biggest message is that we can move past all of that.
Well, the earth does, and that's part of the message, but Roddenbury was too much a part of his time to be wholly unaffected by Cold War thinking.
Except he wasn’t 100% American. He was just a white guy.
And no this was post Korea and quagmire Vietnam, plenty of people didn’t think the UN was on our side, or that we were natural leaders. Remember in Trek the eugenics wars had happened, an near apocalypse that left a lot of earth a wasteland. It was very much POST America.
Oh he was effected all right. He thought it was stupid and if we didn’t get past the cold war we’d blow up the damn world. It wasn’t about the cold war, it was about what we could accomplish if we ended the cold war.