On June 29, the World Anti-imperialist Youth Platform held its 4th International Anti-Imperialist Conference in Türkiye, under the theme “Anti-Imperialist Struggle and the Youth Vanguard.“
The World Anti-imperialist Youth Platform, the youth wing of the World Anti-Imperialist Platform, was founded in Athens, Greece, in November 2023. It independently organized its first International Anti-imperialist Conference in Athens, followed by its second conference in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Consistently upholding the slogans of anti-imperialism and anti-NATO, the Platform has actively organized campaigns and actions reflecting the characteristics and concerns of youth and student movements.
Youth representatives from 11 organizations participating in this year’s conference condemned NATO’s military expansion and growing militarization amid the current international situation moving toward World War 3. Participants also shared the realities facing young people in their respective countries and engaged in lively discussions on the tasks of the youth movement and the historical responsibilities of the younger generation. They further resolved to oppose the upcoming NATO Summit on July 7 and to strengthen their participation in united anti-imperialist struggles.
The conference was chaired by a representative of the League of Socialist Youth of Yugoslavia (SKOJ, Serbia).
The first session opened with a presentation by the Revolutionary Students’ Union of Türkiye. This was followed by written and video presentations from the Syrian Democratic Youth Union, the Coalition Together to Save the Sahel (Mali), and the youth organization of the Union of Democratic Socialists of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Presentations were then delivered by the Communist Youth of Italy and the Communist Party of Armenia.
The second session began with a written presentation by the Revolutionary Youth League of Kenya. It was followed by presentations from the Russia–Korea Friendship and Cultural Cooperation Association, the 예ᄁᆞ International Youth Friendship League of Russia, the League of Socialist Youth of Yugoslavia, and the Progressive Youth League of the ‘Republic of Korea.’
The conference concluded with the adoption and publication of the 2026 World Anti-imperialist Youth Platform Declaration, titled “Youth, Stand at the Vanguard of the Righteous Anti-Imperialist, Anti-Fascist, and Anti-NATO Struggle!“
The full text of the declaration follows.
Youth, Stand at the Vanguard of the Righteous Anti-Imperialist, Anti-Fascist, and Anti-NATO Struggle!
World War 3 is underway. The war in Ukraine, which signaled the beginning of World War 3, started under the masterminding of NATO and imperialist forces with the 2014 “Maidan Coup,” which resembled a civil war. It escalated into full-scale in February 2022 with Russia’s special military operation aimed at prohibiting NATO’s eastward expansion, liquidating Neo-Nazism, and protecting residents. World War 3 deepened through the West Asian (Middle Eastern) war centered on the Palestinian war in October 2023. NATO politically and militarily finalized the “Pacificization of NATO” through the Washington Summit in July 2024 and multinational joint military exercises from June to August. Furthermore, in the second half of 2024, they provoked local and civil wars to escalate World War 3 into a full-scale through the East Asian war centered on the war in the ‘ROK.’ However, this was deterred and crushed by the war deterrence and “strategic patience” of the DPRK, as well as the December Uprising of the people of the ‘ROK.’ After igniting the West Asian war centered on the Iranian war in February of this year, the imperialist forces are desperately maneuvering to advance into the East Asian war centered on the Taiwan war.
The war machine NATO is the military command of World War 3. After integrating the IP4 (the four Indo-Pacific partner countries: Japan, the ‘ROK,’ Australia, and New Zealand) at the Madrid Summit in June 2022 following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, NATO pushed to expand the battlefield into the Indo-Pacific via Vilnius and Washington. At the Hague Summit in June 2025, it decided to raise the military expenditures of NATO member states to 5% of their GDP, and then applied this exact same standard to pro-NATO East Asian countries such as the ‘ROK’ and Japan. At the upcoming Ankara Summit in July 2026, they are concretely discussing weapon support for Ukraine and military spending increases, rallying pro-NATO Arab states, and preparing a conspiracy ground for global military-industrial capitals. The increase in European military spending signifies “militarization” and is bound to inevitably lead to the expansion and prolongation of war. Right now, in the Third World, youth and the people are losing their lives due to wars of aggression, civil wars, conflicts, and terrorism, while within imperialist countries, the reduction of welfare and the gap between the rich and the poor are accelerating. As the NATO Summit is held every year, the global war crisis intensifies, the political and economic crises of each country deepen, and the lives of the people, including the youth, plunge.
In addition to the soaring military expenditures, the economic crisis and the ruin of public livelihoods are severely threatening the situation of the youth. The national defense budget of the ‘ROK’ was finalized at 65.8642 trillion won for 2026, an increase of 7.2%, surpassing 60 trillion won for the first time in history. Reflected here are the costs of arms buildup and the construction of advanced weapon systems to strengthen the US blockade against China and maintain US hegemony in Northeast Asia. The cost for securing capabilities linked to the “Kill Chain”—which entails a US preemptive nuclear strike against the DPRK—and the “Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2)” which is integrated into US command and control, was budgeted at 19.9653 trillion won, a whopping 11.9% increase compared to the previous year. The pro-US traitorous Lee Jae-myung government is enforcing murderous restructuring while cutting budgets for youth and worker support, as well as employment, by hundreds of billions of won every year. It is massively reducing vocational training budgets for vulnerable groups, public rental housing-related budgets for low-income families, and care service budgets. As a result, the disastrous situation of the people is sufficiently confirmed by a few figures. The economically inactive population among the youth has surpassed 1.6 million, and while the ratio of non-regular workers among all wage workers is in the 40% range, the ratio of non-regular workers among the youth is in the 50% range. When the average wage of all ages is set at 100, the average wage of the youth is a mere 60%. This is not a matter of years of continuous service or skill level, but a gap that occurs as the opportunities themselves are blocked. If comprador capital outsources risk and cost to subcontractors, agencies, and subsidiaries, the resulting risk burden is directly concentrated on the youth, who are newcomers to society. The suffering of the youth is confirmed by the fact that the 20s and 30s account for around 40% of all depression patients, and the suicide rate of those in their 30s exploded by 14.9% compared to the previous year. Attention must be paid to the fact that the ‘ROK’ is classified as a so-called “advanced economic nation.”
Imperialist and far-right forces are operating in the shadows to paralyze the consciousness of economically vulnerable and socially isolated youth, thereby eliminating the engine of social revolution. Since the 2010s, when the community was destroyed as the ‘ROK’ was integrated into the neoliberal system and the economic crisis and the ruin of public livelihoods deepened, contents disparaging the history of popular uprisings and instigating regional conflicts spread rapidly, centered around far-right online communities. The psychological warfare unit and cyber team of the National Intelligence Service (NIS)—the fascist repressive apparatus of the ‘ROK’—are notorious for manipulating public opinion. As befitting a subordinate body of the US CIA, the NIS takes the enforcement of its directives as its primary mission. Meanwhile, the US NED is injecting funds into “defector of the DPRK” organizations in the ‘ROK.’ Far-right communities carry and disseminate the “fake news” produced by these defector organizations, brainwashing the youth of the ‘ROK’—particularly young men—with anti-DPRK and anti-communist ideologies. Through this, the fundamental problems of the society of the ‘ROK’ are thoroughly misled into conflicts of gender, region, and ideology.
If war finally breaks out on the Korean Peninsula, the young men of the ‘ROK’ will be the very first to degenerate into “cannon fodder.” Since the US military occupied the southern half of the peninsula in September 1945, conscription has been entrenched in the ‘ROK.’ The Commander of the US Forces in Korea holds the wartime operational control of the military of the ‘ROK,’ and the military of the ‘ROK’ is a puppet army commanded by the US military. Currently, the ‘ROK’ is strengthening its military conscription system by mobilizing AI and advanced science and technology. The US Forces in Korea treat the ‘ROK’ as a “floating aircraft carrier” between China and Japan, and the youth of the ‘ROK’ as “war materiel.” The pro-US proxy regime of the ‘ROK’ is violating freedom by extremely controlling the mobility and autonomy of the youth to suit the palate of the US military. Meanwhile, imperialist countries are generalizing the “‘ROK’ model” into their own nations, deepening surveillance and control for youth conscription. Conscription is being fully revived in the three Baltic states, and Germany, the UK, and France are also full-scaling compulsory service and mandatory military training policies targeting the youth.
The essence of the youth movement of the ‘ROK’ is the anti-US struggle for national salvation. The fact that the People’s Committee, a democratic self-governing body, was outlawed and the national territory was divided following the enforcement of the US military government in September 1945 shows the priority of anti-US independence. From the 20th century to the present, the Korean youth have stood at the vanguard of the anti-imperialist liberation struggle, waging armed struggles against Japanese imperialism and popular uprisings against US imperialism. In particular, the youth of the ‘ROK,’ who confirmed the ugly reality of the imperialist US on the occasion of the May 1980 Gwangju Popular Uprising, transformed the society of the ‘ROK’ from a windless zone of anti-US sentiment into a raging zone through the arson and occupation incidents of the US Cultural Centers in the 1980s. The essential character of the society of the ‘ROK’—which is completely seized by US imperialism and where pro-US fascist forces and pro-US comprador forces take power alternately—is a colonial semi-capitalist society. What is decisive here is the colonial dependency.
At the present time, the anti-US struggle for national salvation is precisely an anti-US, anti-imperialist struggle, and an anti-NATO struggle. The imperialist aggressive forces, the culprits of war, have expanded the regional scope of NATO from the North Atlantic to the entire world, transforming it into the headquarters of World War 3. NATO member states are frantically staging all-domain joint military exercises in the ‘ROK’ and its surrounding areas, targeting the DPRK and China, which are the main pillars of the anti-imperialist camp. Furthermor, Brunson, the Commander of the US Forces in Korea, even made a reckless remark, referring to the ‘ROK’ as a “dagger” aimed at China. This is the most bellicose, reckless remark made in the midst of publicly declaring that they will develop the “Kill Chain” into a “Kill Web” and employ a “wedge” tactic targeting China.
The NATO and imperialist forces, who are spreading the flames of World War 3 across the globe, are indeed the public enemy of all humanity that loves peace. The solution to economic, livelihood, and social problems also begins with the overthrow of imperialism and the dissolution of NATO. In this journey of justice, the revisionist and opportunist forces that disrupt and obstruct the anti-imperialist, anti-NATO struggle are the very pro-imperialist elements that have infiltrated the anti-imperialist camp, and a militant and sharp ideological war against them is an essential part of the anti-imperialist struggle.
Together with workers and peasants, the youth of the ‘ROK’ have historically fought bravely for the independence and democracy of our society, reunification of motherland, and human peace, as one of the three main pillars of the revolutionary movement. In the 20th century, the young fighters of the world organized the International Brigades of the Spanish Civil War and stood at the vanguard of the anti-fascist front during World War 2, risking their lives to pave the way forward. Today’s reality, on the brink of a full-scale World War 3, urgently demands that our youth stand at the forefront of the anti-imperialist, anti-fascist struggle and the anti-NATO struggle, fighting with devotion. The youth of the ‘ROK’ and the world in the 21st century will strengthen the anti-imperialist front and rise up in the anti-imperialist struggle to hasten global independence and lasting peace. As history proves, justice and victory are always on the side of our youth and our people.
June 29, 2026
World Anti-imperialist Youth Platform
