Are you asking if deliberately dialing up collateral damage to make politically supporting proxy wars more difficult? I think that has always happened, i.e. bat

Are you asking if deliberately dialing up collateral damage to make politically supporting proxy wars more difficult? I think that has always happened, i.e. battle of shanghai when chinese fought japanese in international quarters to influence global sentiment. TBH I don't know how well that works as primary effect, most don't care enough to object to proxy wars unless it effects their material conditions, as long as they're not suffering direct casualties hence US optmize force structure to reduce casualities for direct interventions. Every political structure pretty good at placating restive antiwar voices by now, i.e. GOTW lasted forever despite protests, and GAZA could too. The most vocal reason plebs repeat for pulling UKR support is strategic stockpile/$$$. Arguably IMO same with GOTW, all the protests didn't matter until planners realized COIN was taking too much resource from highend IndoPac fight (China). TLDR sympathetic victim hood is a wedge that raises costs of manufacturing consent. But at end of the day it's actual, material and strategic costs that change support. And yes while modern media increase velocity and volume of dead baby pictures, what we see is countries would rather burn their reputation / moral standing first.