The Drive to War Against North ​Korea and the Danger of World War III

Not since the height of the Cold War has the danger of a war between major nuclear armed powers been so great.

In the past two weeks the Trump Administration has fired cruise missiles at a Syrian base with Russian military personal operating out of it, fired the largest non-atomic weapon in history to intimidate its adversaries, and, now, has threatened North Korea with assassinations and a pre-emptive strike. The Democratic Party and media, which has opposed Trump on the basis of his attempt at a rapprochement with Russia, now bursts out in ecstatic praise for Trump’s recent spate of warmongering.

Behind the US threat to North Korea lies the more fundamental conflict with China, which American officials and military strategists see as a major long-term economic and geopolitical competitor. At the center of the campaign on the Korean peninsula is the effort to force China, which also possesses nuclear weapons, to accept US hegemony over the Asia-Pacific region.

The war drive of Washington, backed by Seoul and Tokyo, has no progressive content. They have no regard for the suffering of the North Korean people or for the potential of even greater suffering in war. US and Japanese imperialism, backed by South Korea, seek to deepen their hegemony in the region. Pyongyang has commitied numerous crimes against its people, but the historical task of dealing with the Stalinist regime is the duty of the North Korean working class, united with their class brothers and sisters in the South, Japan, China, the United States, and internationally.

Please join the IYSSE to discuss the grave, growing danger of war between the US and its major geopolitical rivals. At the discussion, WSWS journalist and Korean correspondent Ben McGrath will deliver a political report on the events in the Koreas, as well as deeper history of conflict and imperialism in the region.