Spoiler alert! The following feature contains story elements from the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. This is not a review but an analysis of the story told in Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare series. For those of you that will never play the game, skipped the “No Russian” mission, or missed the subtleties I encourage you to read on.
Parts one, two, and three can be read
here.
With only one lead on Makarov and no way of connecting the ultranationalist to the attack at Zakahev International, taskforce 141 is hard pressed to find credible evidence to prove the Russian attack on US soil is unwarranted. Desperately fighting a battle to clear civilians from Russian occupied territory the bulk of the United States military is engaged with the Russian invasion. Reunited with General Sheperd, the 141 hatches a plan to attack the Kamchatka Peninsula in an attempt to gain a foothold on Russian soil and prepare for a counter attack. Coincidentally, the gulag holding the mystery prisoner is close at hand. After securing oil rigs off the costs being used as surface to air missile strikes the taskforce attacks the gulag in a joint effort with US naval forces. The 141 finds the prisoner who is revealed to be Captain Price. Price has been locked away, seemingly to keep him from Makarov and the British and US governments alike. After a narrow escape from deep within the prison Price joins the 141 and the hunt for Makarov.
Captain Price doesn’t waste any time catching up with current events. Whether he was being fed information through some friends in the prison is unclear but he certainly is not surprised by current developments in the world. He immediately heads an effort by the 141 to attack a Russian military dock yard, enters a nuclear submarine armed with ICBM with nuclear warheads, and then launches one aimed squarely at the United States. The missile is detonated high in the atmosphere creating a huge magnetic pulse which knocks out all electronics and communications of the US and Russian forces fighting in the nation’s capital. Despite his intentions, the launch of the missile has one repercussion Price did not plan on. The US military may have managed to regain the high ground and the advantage against the Russian invading force but the ICBM spurs the secretary of defense to give General Sheperd more control over US military activities.
