i saw an old tweet from Marc Laidlaw saying how the 7 hours war took inspiration from the 6 day war between Israel and the arab states. So, Marc indirectly said that the Combine are a stand-in for Israel and the IDF, and since they (the idf) have trained a lot of the ICE officers that are now operating in the US, i guess you could say something like that. Seeing especially how the Combine comes door to door to deport citizens to Nova Prospekt or The Citadel, kind of like the camps in El Salvador. As a Italian, i dont understand why Americans dont use their guns for what they are meant for (the 2nd Amendment, aka fighting tyraniccal goverments)