Call of Duty’s newest installment is set in a renewed Korean War. But Modern Warfare 4 isn’t just a game—it’s a forecast of the genocidal war the US is planning for Korea.
The game’s release trailer shows shocking images of North Korea striking civilian areas—but it was the US that leveled almost every standing building in the north during the Korean War. COD MW4 is part of a larger project to obscure the reality of the Korean War, which was a war waged by the US occupation against Koreans who resisted its division of the country.
Far from a game, millions of Koreans today still live in the distended shadow of the ongoing war—a war that the US is actively stoking the flames for with hundreds of escalatory war games.
This is not the first time COD has completely revised history. In 2019, the franchise laundered the infamous Highway of Death as a massacre by the Russians—not as was in reality, the US.
COD is part of a larger military-entertainment complex that spans the entire entertainment industry from movies to video games, through which the Pentagon actively shapes the narratives of games like MW4 that serve as public relations shields for US imperialism.
Games like Call of Duty also condition young people for recruitment, which recruiters take advantage of by infiltrating gaming platforms, public schools, and gaming conventions. Youth enter the military hoping to be heroes, only to be the world’s most dangerous terrorists.
It’s no coincidence that COD MW4 is set in Korea while US war threats in the region are at an all time high. Many of us are outraged by this depiction of the Korean War—but our task now is to build organized opposition to US imperialism by raising consciousness and solidarity.
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