Propaganda Department of the People’s Democracy Party (‘Republic of Korea’)
This article was presented at the 104th “June 15 Academic Forum,” held in Seoul on December 23, 2025, under the theme “Analysis of the Current Situation: From an Anti-Imperialist and Internationalist Perspective.”
The storm of World War 3, instigated by imperialism, is blowing from Eastern Europe through West Asia (the Middle East) toward East Asia and the Western Pacific. Currently, wars are already underway in Ukraine and Eastern Europe, as well as in Palestine and West Asia, while the ‘Republic of Korea’ (‘ROK,’ South Korea), Taiwan, and East Asia stand on the brink of war. In addition, Venezuela and Latin America are emerging as new theaters of confrontation.
The “war headquarters” of World War 3 is NATO. Originally organized in 1949 as a regional imperialist military alliance confined to the North Atlantic, NATO completed its so-called “Atlanticization” long ago. Following the outbreak of World War 3 in 2022, NATO moved through the Madrid Summit (2022), the Vilnius Summit (2023), and finally the Washington Summit (2024), where it politically completed its “Pacificization.” This was followed by the military completion of that strategy through multi-domain, multinational joint military exercises such as RIMPAC, Freedom Edge, and Ulchi Freedom Shield between June and August of the same year. At the Hague Summit this June, NATO decided to raise member states’ military spending to 5 percent of GDP―a clear signal of the militarization of Europe. Militarization is fascization. The imperialist warmongering forces, which are waging World War 3 primarily through proxy wars, are elevating fascist forces as their proxies. These include Ukrainian neo-Nazi forces, Israeli Zionist forces, and the fascist coup forces of Yoon Suk-yeol in the ‘ROK,’ all of whom serve as puppets of imperialist war. In Venezuela, attempts to overthrow the anti-imperialist people’s government take the form of so-called “color revolutions” led by pro-US fascist forces, with figures such as María Corina Machado, called a “female Netanyahu,” at the forefront.
Within imperialism itself, a contradiction has emerged between imperialist warmongers and imperialist non-warmongering forces. Donald Trump has repeatedly boasted that he ended a total of eight wars during his first and second terms and has now stepped forward claiming he will bring an end to the wars in Ukraine and Palestine. Trump and the non-warmongering faction within imperialism are moving against the warmongers’ strategy of provoking World War 3 and advancing a “New Cold War.” Provided that the “madman” and predatory plunder policies pursued by the Trump administration―aimed at escaping the severe economic crisis marked by $38 trillion in US national debt and annual interest payments of $1 trillion―are rejected, and that the strategic line of expelling US occupying forces is firmly upheld, tactical cooperation with imperialist non-warmongering forces can have limited significance. Such tactical cooperation exists solely to concentrate blows against imperialist warmongering forces. During World War 2, the Soviet Union formed a tactical joint front with anti-fascist forces within imperialism, namely the United States and Britain. Unlike a tactical joint front, tactical cooperation does not require formal agreements or declarations. Unlike the anti-fascist character of World War 2, the anti-imperialist camp leading World War 3 as an anti-imperialist war has no need to form any tactical joint front with Trump.
Imperialism is the principal culprit of war; anti-imperialism is the guardian of peace. There is no gray zone between the two. As history has consistently shown, the forces of peace inevitably triumph, while the forces of war inevitably suffer defeat.
After World War 1, the world’s first socialist state was born. After World War 2, humanity entered a period of great revolutionary upsurge. As World War 3 develops into an anti-imperialist world war, imperialism will be dealt a decisive blow, and humanity will once again enter a new era of great upsurge.
“Second Caribbean Crisis,” or Latin American War?
In August 2025, the Trump administration branded Venezuela a “narco-state” and denounced President Nicolás Maduro as the head of a “narco-cartel,” doubling the bounty on him to USD 50 million. Since late August, the United States concentrated some 15,000 troops along with destroyers, submarines, and other naval invasion assets in the Caribbean. Civilian vessels engaged in normal commercial activity were falsely accused of being “drug-trafficking ships,” and by December, the US had carried out more than 20 bombing attacks, killing over 85 people.
In reality, Venezuela is a narco-free country, and President Maduro has been at the forefront of anti-narcotics efforts. According to UN reports, only about 5 percent of drugs flowing from Latin America to the United States and Europe pass through Venezuela, and the vast majority of those flows are completely intercepted by Venezuelan authorities.
To complete its propaganda narrative portraying Venezuela as a “narco-state,” the United States has repeatedly attempted so-called “false flag” operations. For example, according to a September 17 report by Telesur, the Venezuelan armed forces seized a vessel carrying 3,680 kilograms of cocaine, GPS equipment, two radios, 2,400 liters of fuel, and 100 sacks of cocaine hydrochloride, arresting four individuals involved in illegal trafficking of drugs and fuel. On that day, Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello publicly stated: “(One of) the drug traffickers is a man named Levi Enrique López. I state this clearly and with full knowledge of the facts: he is a DEA agent and a drug trafficker. It was a covert operation.” Cabello further described the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) as “the world’s largest drug cartel.”
In October, the Nobel Committee selected María Corina Machado as the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Colombian President Gustavo Petro criticized the decision, stating that Machado “supported the only Latin American president who backs genocide and genocidal actors.” The Network of Intellectuals, Artists and Social Movements in Defense of Humanity (REDH) fiercely condemned the award as “a cynical act of hybrid warfare designed to undermine Venezuelan sovereignty and pave the way for foreign intervention.” María Corina Machado, from the Venezuelan far-right party Vente Venezuela, rose to prominence during the April 2002 right-wing coup attempt against Hugo Chávez. She has been central to the far-right riots known as the “Guarimbas,” during which repeated acts of terrorism, destruction, and arson were carried out, including horrifying incidents in which government supporters were burned alive. Vente Venezuela maintains strategic ties with Netanyahu’s Likud Party, and Machado openly supports Israel’s massacre of Palestinians. It is now openly calling on Trump to launch a full-scale war against Venezuela. The Nobel “Peace Prize” is decided by the Nobel Committee in Norway, whose members are current and former Norwegian parliamentarians. The fact that Norway is a NATO member demonstrates that this award was thoroughly shaped within the broader strategy of World War 3. Imperialist warmongers have whitewashed Machado as a “democracy activist” while smearing Maduro as a “fascist,” thereby handing Trump a political pretext for aggression against Venezuela.
Between September and October, the United States conducted multinational joint military exercises in the Caribbean, including UNITAS 2025, explicitly rehearsing invasion scenarios against Venezuela. In November, Washington deployed the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford to the Caribbean, while treating Trinidad and Tobago―just 11 kilometers from Venezuela―as a “floating aircraft carrier,” further escalating military threats. According to reports on December 10, Trump illegally seized Venezuelan oil tankers and plundered their crude oil. These actions make it clear that the true intent behind US aggression against Venezuela lies not in so-called “anti-drug operations,” but in the plunder of its oil resources.
At present, Venezuela is resolutely preparing for an all-out anti-US resistance war. The head of the anti-imperialist people’s government has called on the entire population to defend the homeland, and the people have responded by mobilizing an 8-million militia. Under the slogan “Barracks to the People,” the government is integrating the Bolivarian National Armed Forces with the Bolivarian Militia and conducting defensive exercises such as Cumanagoto 200, Caribe 200, and Independencia 200. On November 11, Venezuela enacted a Command Law for Comprehensive National Defense, further strengthening its all-encompassing defense system. More than 90 percent of the Venezuelan population firmly opposes US aggression and the machinations of pro-US far-right forces. On November 11, the ruling PSUV declared at a preparatory meeting for the Comprehensive Bolivarian Base Committees (CBBI) that the far-right fascist forces had been politically “extinguished.” On December 1, the Bolivarian Integral Community Command (BICC) was established with the participation of more than 47,000 communal organizations. At the inauguration ceremony of the command, President Maduro proudly declared that 22 weeks of psychological terror had only strengthened the people’s love for Venezuela.
Global support and international solidarity with Venezuela are also intensifying. Russia, China, and Brazil are providing military equipment and logistical support. In particular, Russia, based on the Strategic Partnership and Cooperation Treaty signed with Venezuela in May of this year, has deployed air defense systems and Russian military personnel to the country. On November 4, the Defense Committee of the Russian Duma stated that advanced weapons such as the hypersonic medium-range missile Oreshnik and advanced cruise missiles like Kalibr could be deployed. Cuba, Nicaragua, Mexico, Colombia, along with progressive political parties and peoples across Latin America, are also standing firmly in solidarity with Venezuela.
Is the current crisis in Venezuela and Latin America a “Second Caribbean Crisis,” or the prelude to a Latin American war? Through a so-called “war on drugs” targeting Venezuela, Mexico, and Colombia, and a “war on terror” targeting Cuba and Nicaragua, Trump is intensifying the war crisis in Latin America―seeking in the short term to plunder natural resources such as oil, lithium, and rare earths, and in the long term to reassert the “backyardization” of Latin America. This agenda was explicitly confirmed in the White House’s National Security Strategy in December, which proclaimed a “New Monroe Doctrine.” At present, the situation is best analyzed as a “Second Caribbean Crisis.” Trump, while posturing as a non-warmonger and obsessively cultivating a “peace image,” faces a mass base in the MAGA movement that promotes “American isolationism” and is deeply hostile to foreign regime-change operations and military intervention that fuels wars. Moreover, the United States today is so weakened that it cannot confidently secure victory even on a single front, let alone multiple theaters of war.
Militarization and Rearmament of Europe
Militarism is the “reactionary policy or aggressive ideology of imperialist states that militarizes and fascizes all sectors of national and social life, subordinating the country’s material and spiritual resources to the preparation for aggressive war.” In March 2025, European imperialism disclosed the European rearmament plan mobilizing up to 800 billion euros, aimed at drastically increasing military expenditures, through the European Union. Three months later, at the NATO The Hague Summit in June, a decision was made to increase military spending to 5% of GDP. Subsequently, in July, the commander of the United States Army Europe and Africa remarked during the US Army’s “LANDEURO” held in Germany that NATO forces possess the capability to “take Kaliningrad down from the ground in a timeframe that is unheard of and faster than we’ve ever been able to do.” Kaliningrad is an extraterritorial territory of Russia and a strategic stronghold for the Russian Navy. Currently, as all Baltic coastal nations have joined NATO and NATO maintains naval supremacy over the Baltic Sea, Kaliningrad finds itself surrounded by NATO’s aggressive forces. This is precisely why the Russian side warned that it would take all corresponding retaliatory measures, including the use of nuclear weapons. On the same day, the US and NATO materialized their aggressive maneuvers against Russia by announcing the “Eastern Flank Deterrence Line” to strengthen land-based missile capabilities and promote defense industry cooperation; Meanwhile, in late July, Russia incorporated a new type of nuclear submarine into the Russian Navy, emphasizing the “repelling of maritime attacks.”
The total scale of military aid provided by European imperialist states to Ukraine from 2022 to 2025 amounts to approximately 97.9 billion euros. When including financial and “humanitarian” support, the figure reaches 177.5 billion euros. Germany is the largest donor in Europe with 44 billion euros, while the United Kingdom has invested between 13.8 billion and 18 billion euros. Countries such as the UK, France, the Netherlands, and Sweden have deployed the Storm Shadow/SCALP long-range missiles, and fighter jets including the F-16 and Mirage 2000 into the war in Ukraine while also dispatching the corresponding military personnel. These missiles cannot be launched without the coordinates provided by the United States and Europe. The war in Ukraine is, in reality, a war between Russia and NATO.
NATO’s anti-Russian propaganda and maneuvers to prolong the war are further intensifying. Led by Mark Rutte, the former Dutch Prime Minister and current NATO Secretary General, European imperialist states are spreading the so-called “Russian invasion of Europe” narrative. On December 11, at the Berlin event of the “Munich Security Conference,” Rutte incited the militarization and rearmament of Europe, stating, “We are Russia’s next target” and “the time for action is now.”
Both France, through its “voluntary military service” to augment military personnel, and Germany, with its decision to increase military spending from 2.4% of GDP to 3.5% by 2029, are accelerating their rearmament. The Netherlands recently decided on an additional 250 million euros in military aid to Ukraine and is even considering the dispatch of troops to Ukraine. Meanwhile, in early December, the Constitutional Tribunal of Poland forcibly dissolved the Communist Party of Poland. This is a clear threat to communist parties and organizations in other countries and serves as strong evidence of the militarization and fascization of Europe. This series of facts demonstrates that the forces plotting the prolongation of the war in Ukraine and the expansion of the war in Eastern Europe are NATO and European imperialism.
Escalating Crisis of War in East Asia
Following Ukraine and Eastern Europe in 2022, and Palestine and West Asia in 2023, the imperialist warmongering forces attempted to launch World War 3 in earnest through a war in the ‘ROK’ and East Asia in 2024. From September to November 2024, Yoon Suk-yeol instigated a fascist frenzy while simultaneously heating up localized war provocations against the DPRK, such as the drone attack on Pyongyang. If the December 3 Emergency Martial Law had not been immediately lifted, a “false flag conspiracy against the South” would have unfolded, as detailed in the “Noh Sang-won Notebook,” and the ‘ROK’ would have been transformed into a “bloody shambles” by a massacre on the scale of Suharto-led killings. In December 2023, Yoon Suk-yeol visited military units in the border area and made the reckless remark of “action first, report later,” and from the very beginning of the new year in January 2024, aggressive exercises against the DPRK were deployed across the entire border region. In March 2024, during the US-‘ROK’ joint military exercise “Freedom Shield,” the “Chungseong (loyalty) 8000” martial law exercise was exceptionally carried out for two weeks. The fact that the military was mobilized confirms that the force behind the December 3 martial law is the US imperialist aggressive forces. The localized war provocations against the DPRK from September to November last year, and the imposition of emergency martial law and the preparations for the false flag conspiracy against the South in December, were crushed by the DPRK’s war deterrence and “strategic patience,” as well as the December Uprising of the ‘ROK’ people.
As the attempt to ignite a war in the ‘ROK’ and East Asia was thwarted in the second half of last year, the imperialist warmongering forces have been deepening the crisis this year by provoking local wars in various Asian flashpoints, while simultaneously accelerating the rearmament of the ‘ROK’ and Japan. The local conflicts between India and Pakistan in May, Iran and Israel in June, and Thailand and Cambodia in July clearly demonstrate that war could also break out in East Asia at any moment. Notably, the localized warfares in May and July occurred in territorially disputed areas and Japan is now making frantic efforts to turn Dokdo, the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands, and the Kuril Islands into disputed zones, targeting the ‘ROK,’ China, and Russia.
The war crisis in East Asia is constantly escalating. The core of the US-driven “Alliance Modernization” is the expansion of the US-‘ROK’ Mutual Defense Treaty and the operational scope of US Forces in Korea (USFK) to encompass all of East Asia. Under this framework, direct intervention by USFK becomes possible in the event of a war over Taiwan, turning USFK bases into launching points for an East Asian war. Conversely, this reduces the ‘ROK’ to a primary strike target not only for the DPRK but also for China. Meanwhile, the possession of nuclear-powered submarines―pushed by the Lee Jae-myung government and “approved” by imperialist US―constitutes a violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and transforms the ‘ROK’ into a “quasi-nuclear state.” Militaristic Japan, frenzying over acquisition of nuclear subs by the ‘ROK,’ has stated it will re-examine its “Three Non-Nuclear Principles” within its three security documents by the end of 2026. As justification, the Japanese Defense Minister clamored on November 12 that “South Korea and Australia will possess them (nuclear subs), and the US and China already have them.” Earlier, on October 20, the coalition agreement between the Liberal Democratic Party and the Japan Innovation Party explicitly specified efforts for the early revision of the three security documents, the maintenance and deployment of long-range missiles for “counterstrike capabilities,” and the possession of submarines utilizing next-generation power. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi hinted at the Self-Defense Forces’ armed intervention in the event of a “Taiwan contingency,” while the Defense Minister inspected Ground Self-Defense Force bases in Okinawa Prefecture and intensified provocations for war against China through Japan-Philippines joint naval exercises. From December 2 to 4, the US, Japan, and the ‘ROK,’ along with Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore, conducted a joint military exercise for the “Proliferation Security Initiative” (PSI) in the waters and airspace off Tokyo and Chiba Prefecture.
The East Asia and Western Pacific region, where the DPRK, China, and Russia are situated, is the primary battlefield targeted by the imperialist warmongering forces and the designated theater for the full-scale outbreak of World War 3. To this end, they have politically and militarily finalized the “Pacificization” of NATO―the command center for World War 3―while forming an “East Asian version of NATO” through the August 2023 US-Japan-‘ROK’ Camp David summit. This was operationalized in June 2024 through “Freedom Edge,” a NATO-style multi-domain joint military exercise. Between July and August 2024, Western Pacific nations, including Japan and Australia, along with NATO member states such as the US, Britain, and France, conducted a diverse array of multinational joint military exercises, including “Pitch Black,” “Pacific Skies,” and “Pacific Dragon,” in preparation for wars in East Asia and the Western Pacific. There is no halt to such war machinations by the imperialist warmongering forces. Especially for imperialist warmongering forces aiming to establish a “New Cold War” system through World War 3, a war in East Asia is not a choice but an absolute necessity.
Gambit of Both Camps and Tasks of Progressive Forces
Strategy consists of objectives, means, and methods, and in the context of World War 3, it is expressed through justification, capabilities, and strategies. The success or failure of World War 3 can be scientifically predicted through an analysis of the gambit of both camps and their respective justifications, capabilities, and strategies. The gambit of the imperialist camp is the establishment of a “New Cold War.” To escape their military, political, and economic vulnerabilities through this “New Cold War,” the imperialist camp is conspiring to frame the anti-imperialist camp―ranging from Russia and Iran currently at war to the DPRK and China in a pre-war state―as the “New Axis of Aggressors” or the “New Axis of Evil.”
In October 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin noted at the BRICS Business Forum in Moscow that the share of BRICS countries in the global GDP has already surpassed that of the G7. He asserted that while the G7’s share of global GDP was 45.4% and the BRICS’ share was 16.7% in 1992, these figures were reversed to 29.3% and 37.4%, respectively, by 2023, and that the gap would continue to widen. This fact clearly demonstrates the vulnerability and crisis of the imperialist camp.
After World War 2 ended with the victory of the anti-fascist forces, the imperialist powers, facing their greatest crisis, fabricated the modern imperialist system centered on US imperialism and established the “Cold War” through the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and NATO. During the “Cold War” era, imperialism engaged in policies of isolation, suffocation and “invisible wars” against socialist powers, while waging “hot wars” against newly independent national liberation countries. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the 1990s, the imperialist camp emerged victorious in the “Cold War.” This historical fact drives the imperialist camp to cling even more desperately to World War 3 in pursuit of a “New Cold War.”
The gambit of the anti-imperialist camp in World War 3 is “anti-imperialism”―that is, the decisive blow to imperialism. Inheriting and developing the historical experience of transforming World War 2, which began as an inter-imperialist war, into an anti-fascist war to achieve victory, the anti-imperialist camp is struggling to realize the cause of anti-imperialism. Meanwhile, they are maintaining “strategic patience” to crush the imperialist propaganda of the “New Axis of Aggressors.”
The imperialist camp’s justification for war has collapsed due to the severe contradictions between its anti-Russian and pro-Israel propaganda. While the population of Ukraine is ten times larger than that of Palestine, the number of deaths in Ukraine is only one-tenth of those in Palestine. Given that the slaughter in Palestine is a hundred times more severe, it is only natural that anti-Israel and anti-NATO protests are expanding on a mass scale within the US and European imperialist countries that advocate for a pro-Israel stance.
In contrast, the anti-imperialist camp takes the cause of anti-imperialism as its foundation, complemented by the justifications of anti-fascism, liberation, and unification. These are justifications that the imperialist nations of the US, Britain, and France—which were part of the anti-fascist front during World War 2—can never deny.
In terms of capabilities, the imperialist camp is currently divided into warmongering imperialist factions and non-warmongering imperialist factions. In the US, power has shifted from the warmongering Biden faction to the non-warmongering Trump faction, while in Europe, large-scale anti-government protests are unfolding due to the deepening economic and livelihood crises following the war.
The three main forces of the anti-imperialist camp are the DPRK, China, and Russia—the strongest nuclear missile powers—while the four leading forces include the missile powerhouse Iran and the “Axis of Resistance.” The auxiliary forces consist of the peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, as well as peace-loving forces worldwide. The strategic and tactical cooperative relationship between the DPRK, China, and Russia is steadfast. In particular, the Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between the DPRK and Russia is evaluated as the most powerful treaty in history signed between top-tier nuclear missile powers. The participation of the DPRK military in the war to liberate Kursk, Russia, is the supreme example of internationalist unity. The world anti-imperialist front is also strengthening and expanding day by day. Since the strengthening of our own side’s capabilities is strategic and the weakening of the enemy’s is tactical, the anti-imperialist camp holds an overwhelming advantage in terms of capabilities.
In strategies, the imperialist camp employs proxy wars, localized wars, expeditionary wars, and non-nuclear hybrid wars, while the anti-imperialist camp utilizes direct wars, total wars, close-quarters wars, and tactical nuclear hybrid wars. The imperialist camp conducts war far from its own territories and within limited scopes by putting forward fascist forces as proxies; these conditions make the use of nuclear weapons impossible for them. In contrast, the anti-imperialist camp is fighting direct and vital wars within its own or adjacent territories and is prepared to use tactical nuclear weapons for an ultra-short-term war. If the imperialist camp responds with nuclear weapons to the anti-imperialist camp’s use of tactical nukes, the entire world will be turned into ashes due to Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). The anti-imperialist camp possesses the capability to strike the imperialist homelands with nuclear weapons and has issued several warnings regarding this.
Imperialism is the root cause of war, while anti-imperialism is the guardian of peace. At the center of the world anti-imperialist front stands the World Anti-imperialist Platform (the Platform), a resolute body comprising international communist and anti-imperialist independent forces. At the Caracas International Anti-Imperialist Conference in October, which brought together communist and anti-imperialist forces from around 50 countries, the Platform resolved to form Defense Brigades. The Defense Brigade is a political international brigade designed to protect and support the Venezuelan anti-imperialist people’s government and to lead the anti-imperialist struggle in each country in preparation for the full-scale outbreak of World War 3. This initiative inherits and develops the historical experience of the International Brigades, which were formed during the Spanish Civil War by the decision of the Comintern, and adapts it to the present era. The warriors of the 20th-century International Brigades fought and shed blood in Spain to overthrow fascism, transcending national differences and borders; they later returned to their home countries to lead the anti-fascist victory in World War 2. This history demonstrates the essence of true patriotism and internationalism. The People’s Democracy Party, which plays a pioneering and leading role in the organizational core of the Platform, formed the Defense Brigade “21st Century Che Guevara” through its 2nd Party Representatives Conference on November 23.
In World War 3, the defeat of the imperialist camp is inevitable, and its collapse is certain. The day is not far off when imperialism will be overthrown through the fierce anti-imperialist resistance and struggle of independent anti-imperialist nations and the world’s progressive humanity, leading to the realization of global independence and lasting peace.