Modern Warfare 4 and the Propaganda of Self-Critique

The new video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, which released last week, is the latest and one of the more blatant examples of US regime propaganda against its enemies. In this case, North Korea and Russia.

Yesterday I came across this reddit user who expressed incredulity at the idea that the Call of Duty games are propaganda:

Like, have they actually played the campaigns of any of the recent games? This has been all over twitter since North Korea is the villain in the new Modern Warfare 4, people saying that COD is just American/CIA propaganda.

When you actually look at the plots of these games, it really isn’t the case. The last games that could’ve really been described that way is World at War, and that was about ww2. The games since then have actually had a cynical attitude toward the American government. For example, in Modern Warfare, both the old and reboot series explore themes of false flag attacks and the manufacturing of consent in order to meet political goals – ie. General Shepherd and Ghost Company. And things like blowback and conspiracies – ie. The Black Ops games. The Black Ops series is even more pronounced, you play as a CIA operative and you encounter the government doing all kinds of shady things. In Black Ops Cold War, the main plot is that the government secretly put neutron bombs in cities all over Europe in case of Russian invasion, only to have a rogue KGB faction to hijack and almost detonate them. The moral being that the American government nearly ended Europe out of paranoia. Black Ops 6 really takes the cake here, basically, you fight against the American deepstate who are trying to undertake a false flag terror attack in order to invade Iraq (I’m not joking) and overthrow the government in secret. Throughout the game you realize that this organization has been secretly conducting human experiments and working on mind control drugs all with government approval.

That being said, the thought that COD is government propaganda just because communists are the bad guys is stupid, especially considering the other factors.

And yet this is exactly the intended audience response, and what makes COD and countless other entertainment franchises propaganda. What’s particularly funny about that reddit comment is that the author directly states the propaganda message without realizing it. “[C]ynical attitude toward the American government… communists are the bad guys.” US policy is flawed, but is the clear lesser of two evils because US adversaries are cartoon villains.

Imagine you were required to make a propaganda movie praising a convicted serial killer. That would be a tough assignment to be sure, but doable with enough effort and imagination. Perhaps the most obvious strategy is to attack the character of his victims, implying that they were bad people who deserved it without directly saying that. You might dig into their backgrounds and find one victim had a conviction for domestic violence, and another one who was a prostitute who neglected her children, to name a couple of examples.

On the other side of that coin, you can subtly influence the audience’s perception of the serial killer. You could directly praise him, but that would be too obvious, especially to viewers who already viewed him negatively. So instead, you say things about him seem like criticism but actually humanize him, like teasing him for his bad taste in fashion. After doing that enough, your audience no longer immediately as a serial killer, but as a loveable, goofy suburban dad who wore white socks with sandals.

In fact I can think of a real-life serial killer that exact public relations strategy was used on successfully, Barrack Obama. Remember the “tan suit controversy,” when the news media made fun of him for his choice in clothes?

However ridiculous this sounds, Obama is widely remembered not for being a war criminal who murdered his own citizens with drone strikes and crushed whistleblowers, but as a kind and benevolent leader who wore a silly suit that one time.

The main thing with your movie about Mr. Serial Killer is that you are not marketing it as a project to defend his reputation. Instead, you present it as “neutral journalism” that’s “just presenting the facts.” This bothsidesism establishes credibility for yourself while also giving you options for attacking the credibility of your attackers. If someone says it was inappropriate and irrelevant to bring up the victims’ past convictions for domestic violence and child neglect, you can go on the offensive and smear that person for defending domestic violence and child neglect, thus shifting the conversation away from Mr. Serial Killer and onto his victims, and their supporters.

In addition to all those things, if you’re feeling particularly unscrupulous, you can just outright claim someone else did the murders. And note that these strategies aren’t actually mutually exclusive. Literally, “I didn’t do it, but if I had, he deserved it anyway.”

A previous COD game just straight up claimed that Russia did the highway of death massacre in the Middle East, and in Modern Warfare 4, they repeatedly claim it’s Russia and North Korea, not South Korea and the USA, that commits massacres. The evil commies’ senseless atrocities against civilians are repeatedly shown in cut scenes and gameplay. So imaginary massacres overwrite the real massacres committed by the US-backed dictatorship.

The game even claims that Russia invades South Korea across the Russian-South Korean border. Of course, obviously, Russia does not have a border with South Korea, but I guess if there was a border then Russia would want to invade across it, which proves how evil they are. See, when you make a game or a movie, you can just make stuff up, it doesn’t even matter if it’s true.

On this particular point of geography, the elephant in the room is China. In US propaganda, China simply doesn’t exist, only Russia, North Korea and Iran. From a geopolitical perspective, I don’t even think that’s an incorrect statement. In 2026, it’s probably accurate to say that China is no longer an adversary, or even a potential adversary.

While Modern Warfare 4 does have a surface-level veil of cynicism about US policy, it aggressively pushes the trope of an honorable and invincible military. You might call it a modification of the “stab in the back” fascist trope; saying that the heroic US military defeats evil despite the incompetence and corruption of politicians. And of course, US weapons are as invincible as always. Acts of US deception and perfidy are repainted as technological excellence. The inside betrayal of Venezuelan presidence Maduro is presented by Modern Warfare 4 as a Space Force EMP superweapon. Because claiming the US won with Star Wars style wunderwaffen is more exciting, and honorable, than admitting that they just bribed some corrupt Venezuelan soldiers to not shoot down the helicopters.

A slight variation to the tan suit trope is banter dialogue. The American and South Korean troops are humanized with extended sequences of small talk and jokes. The North Korean troops, on the other hand, only parrot patriotic slogans to each other, and have no personal families or feelings. In one of the opening cut scenes there is a long scene showing the American-Korean squad shopping for groceries. Remember that trick for your serial killer documentary.

it’s actually odd the more I think about it. North Korea is depicted as a colorless monolithic country obsessed with jingoistic patriotism, while South Korea is depicted as bustling downtowns with neon lights and freeze-dried shrimp. If I had to summarize this game’s message in the most reductive and literal terms, I would say it depicts the defense of international capitalism against the forces of nationalism.

Ian Kummer

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