It's 2018, and President Hillary Clinton has announced that the Russians have violated her "no fly zone" over Syria. Damascus is about to fall, as jihadists – some armed and supported by the United States – gather in a final assault on the city. In the fog of war, a Russian fighter jet nearly collides with a US warplane sent in to fulfill the US "responsibility to protect" the "moderate" rebels.

Meanwhile, in Ukraine, the newly-elected ultra-nationalist government has declared its intention to take back Crimea, and the freshly-rearmed Ukrainian military – with the neo-Nazi Azov Brigade in the lead – moves into the city of Mariupol, which has just voted to secede from Ukraine and asked for Russian protection. In Kalingrad, the isolated Russian outpost completely surrounded by Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea, groups funded by the EU are staging demonstrations demanding reunification with Germany. In the midst of all this, Vladimir Putin announces Russia's withdrawal from the INF treaty, Russian forces converge on the border with the Baltic states, and President Clinton puts US nuclear forces in Germany – which have just undergone a second "upgrade" – on high alert.