Recently, military tensions between the United States and North Korea reached a very dangerous level, at least in appearance. This is what the press and the US government wanted to present. But what is interesting was the reaction of some workers in MTA, especially mechanics. In my opinion, I saw that one group thinks that North Korea is a society with a crazy dictator, who is young and anxious about keeping power. Others realize that these provocations are one more link in the chain leading to World War III.
Another group that thought that this was only about making threats in order to get economic aid. However, all of us who were present agreed that the beginning of a big nuclear war can break out at any time and that without any doubt it would be a human carnage never before seen. The concern was evident on many faces, and the questions were flying one after the other. "Who is North Korea? What is your system like? Why are there wars? Is it true that the rich in the US have tunnels to escape from war? What can we do?" And other questions.
Two members of ICWP tried to answer as best we could. That is why we decided to write this article to make things clearer.

Workers' Communist Power Will Defeat Bosses' Nuclear War
The publicity about North Korea's threats to use its nuclear arsenal against the US and South Korea was for several weeks a main news item worldwide. This media barrage has many people worried that this could lead to a nuclear war involving the US, China and other imperialist powers. Although accidents could happen, nuclear war is not on any bosses' agenda — yet. This is more of the same game that the western imperialists, led by the US, have been playing with supposedly communist North Korea for the last two decades: the UN sanctions capitalist North Korea's nuclear weapons program, and the North Korean "Supreme Leader" throws a temper tantrum, threatening nuclear war.
Both sides end up "winning." North Korea gets some aid to stop it from imploding and the US uses it to push anti-communism. But North Korea is a capitalist dictatorship, not a communist country. It never was one. North Korea is run by the rich who live in luxury by enslaving the workers there. Like Russia and China, the North Koreans never built an egalitarian communist society, or eliminated money, the essence of capitalism.
The working class of all three countries genuinely gave their lives for a better world. Unfortunately, the leadership didn't believe workers could be won directly to communism, so it never eliminated the old capitalist system.

US Bosses Want Japan to Re-Arm to Face China
The US bosses also use this "Korean crisis" to move their nuclear-armed planes and ships closer to China. It is a sign that in case of world war, the US will be determined to win and won't hesitate to use such weapons. They used them against Japan in 1945 during World War II, the only bosses ever to use nuclear weapons. To defend their empire, they will use them again, killing millions of workers – until we stop them.
Ironically, US imperialists are using North Korea's threats to pressure Japan to re-arm to confront China militarily. A sector of Japanese bosses seems willing to ally with the US imperialists, who murdered over 200,000 Japanese people by dropping two atom bombs in 1945. Naturally they face a huge contradiction trying to win Japanese workers to fight alongside US imperialism.

North Korea's threats prod Southeast Asia bosses closer to the US
Many countries close to North Korea, like South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines and Australia have forged closer military ties with the US because of China and North Korea. The US bosses know that in order to go to war against China in the future they will need their weaponry, including nuclear weapons, closer to the enemy. They need to build large military bases as close as possible. They hope these alliances will provide such bases.
It's true that China has a large military and new technology, but an all-out nuclear war right now would interfere with China's long range plans. They want stability in the region to continue expanding their economic and military might. Therefore China pretends to support the UN sanctions against North Korea.

Workers and Soldiers of the World: Communism Will Destroy Bosses' War
To answer the bosses' anti-communist lies, we need to mobilize for real communism. No worker in any capitalist country can gain from imperialist wars. The only war that the workers of the world need is a war to exterminate the imperialists from the face of the earth once and for all.
Workers around the world have more power in determining our own future than we may realize.
We need to build a communist revolution. We need to tell soldiers that dying for the capitalist bosses is against our interests. Our future is alongside the working class in the struggle to destroy capitalism, imperialism, and its nuclear weapons. Only then will we build a communist world that meets all workers' needs.
History is on our side. We've seen that when workers organize, we are capable of accomplishing great things. Armed with the goal of a communist society without bosses, exploitation or money, we can begin to determine our future starting today. We must build our communist party, ICWP, by reading, discussing, writing for and distributing our newspaper, Red Flag.