Modern Warfare and the Politics of No Russian

We are blessed with so many wonderful games. Thought provoking games. Game to share with friends and family. All pieces of art that leave an impact on the psyche. Sometimes, however, I wish to just turn the ole noggin off. I don't want to think, I don't want to feel, I just want to let my body exist in a peaceful state. In comes the fps genre. For me, I grew up with these types of games. I'm also not very competitive, so I just let my brain become empty as I run around and shoot zombies, enemy players, or the enemies in the campaigns. In fact, the campaigns were a big chunk of my playtime growing up. So I recently decided to pick back up the original Call of Duty Modern Warfare Trilogy, as there would be yet another installment in the very long, long, long running franchise. The first game, Call of Duty 4, was compelling. I was reminded that there wasn't a whole lot like it at the time. Granted, with today's lens looking back at that time period, I realized that it's a little insane to have released a U.S. military shooter during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan where you spend a good amount of time shooting nondescript combatants in the Middle East. Though, this isn't an isolated instance amongst the military shooter pool. The second game was always my favorite, so when I moved on to Modern Warfare 2, I was ecstatic to revisit some fond childhood memories. While I did feel that glimmer of nostalgia, the feeling quickly died because of how insane the storyline got.

Modern Warfare 2 released in 2009 to acclaim, but also controversy. One of the earliest missions, the fourth to be exact, places the player in the shoes of an Army Ranger turned CIA operative embedded in a Russian terrorist cell run by a man named Makarov. You begin in an elevator, with 3 other men clad in formal suits and body armor, carrying automatic weapons. The mission title card appears on the bottom left as Makarov repeats it, "No Russian." The doors slide open revealing a busy airport terminal in Moscow, and without hesitation the men open fire on Russian civilians. As a player, you have two choices, to shoot or not to shoot. There are no ramifications for either, but you're also not blatantly told that the choice exists. In fact, I didn't know I could go through the mission without shooting when I was younger, as each mission prior had me shooting my way through everything. If anything, it bakes in the assumption that you'll have to do the same thing, even if you really don't. Though, the choice becomes moot when you have to shoot the Russian police forces responding to the massacre. Afterwards, Makarov reveals he knows the player character is an American spy and kills him, leaving his body to be found by the authorities so that the Russian government would blame the United States for the attack.

Leading up to the mission, General Shepard decides that the player character's actions during a combat mission in Afghanistan made him worthy of becoming a CIA agent. Of course, he has no real qualifications past that, nor was he alone during the combat mission. It feels random that he specifically was chosen. Of course, the U.S. Army Rangers are a special forces branch, sure. Yet, the CIA seems like a massive jump. Later we find that General Shepard wanted revenge on the U.S. government after his entire unit was wiped out by a nuclear blast in the first Modern Warfare game. He expresses that neither him or his men received honors after the incident. He wanted to manufacture conflict and become the war hero he believed he should be. 

So, there's a lot to unpack here. The first being that the CIA embedded an Army Ranger with no extensive training into a Russian terrorist cell and made him complicit in a massacre. There's no indication that the agency knew of the massacre itself or that he was relaying information. Either way he was put there knowing how violent this group was, as they had sparked a civil war with the Russian Government in the game prior. I'm well aware that the CIA has plenty of blood on their hands, perpetuating and manufacturing a lot of evil in the world. However, even for them this feels a bit insane, not to mention sloppy. They were going to carry out the attack anyways, so why have an agent there? How does Shepard have so much pull with the CIA? How did the Russian government, in a surveilled national airport, not see known ultranationalist Makarov carrying out the attack? In an article by PC Gamer, former Infinity Ward designer Mohammad Alavi states that they wanted to, "sell why Russia would attack the U.S., make the player have an emotional connection to the bad guy Makarov, and do that in a memorable and engaging way." While I grasp the intent of making sure that the player has an active rather than passive role in the scenario, I'm not so sure it worked for me. Playing a simple cutscene of the massacre would certainly be just as shocking, but obviously less engaging. The issue is that the player is made to participate in the carnage one way or another, even if they can opt out of killing the civilians. It becomes less, "I hate Makarov," and more, "I hate the game for making me do this." The first mission doesn't feel very necessary either, other than to introduce Shepard as a character. I don't need to know that the player character was an Army Ranger. You can assume that if he is a CIA agent, he's a dangerous man. Starting the game with a few missions as a CIA operative learning about the group and their ideals whilst Shepard feeds information in your ear gives you much more time to grasp the evil you're dealing with, and to learn more about Shepard. Plus, the death of the first player character would hit harder as you wouldn't have just met him. However, this game believes speed is its friend. Every moment lays a brick on the gas pedal without giving you time to buckle up and brace for anything.

I've spoken about how much Call of Duty is laden with propaganda before, but it's so compelling how flimsy it feels. Contrary to what Infinity Ward intended, the Russian response to the dead CIA agent isn't believable. This game was released in 2009, in the midst of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Obama administration which saw a rapid increase in drone strikes across multiple countries in the region. In fact, in January of that year shortly after he assumed office, he authorized his first strike. In the era of unmanned aerial warfare, a whole lot of bombs and strikes would come before any mass troop invasion. Plus, the west coast is significantly closer to Russia. Yet, far as narrative propaganda is concerned, the imagery of seeing Russians land in the nation's capital is far more powerful than seeing them land in, say, California or Alaska. On my metaphorical corkboard, the red string ties all of this back to the Cold War and U.S. actions during it. Even the War on Terror stems from the Cold War.  Al-Qaeda was born from members of the Mujahideen, a group funded by the U.S. to combat the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Despite all of the fear and media that manufactured it, there hasn't been a massive invasion of U.S. soil. Even attacks on U.S. soil have been responses to U.S. action, as brutal and tragic as they were. This game also seems to forget that diplomacy exists, even if in 2026 diplomacy may seem dead as far as the current administration is concerned. Hell, even during the Cold War there was a communication hotline built to connect the U.S. and Soviet governments. It's like we are stuck being fed by this assembly line that's been running since 1947. One that produces nothing but nationalism and improbable scenarios that means we must build out this massive military presence and adore them for it. No Russian is one of those improbable scenarios, and I think it's both reckless and stupid that it even exists in the first place.

Edited by Marie Bogdanoff