March 12, 2034. US Navy Commodore Sarah Hunt is on the bridge of her flagship, the guided missile destroyer USS John Paul Jones conducting a routine freedom of navigation patrol in the South China Sea. Her ship detects an unflagged trawler in clear distress, smoke billowing from its bridge. On that same day, US Marine aviator Major Chris "Wedge" Mitchell is flying an F35E Lightning over the Strait of Hormuz, testing a new stealth technology as he flirts with Iranian airspace. By the end of that day, Wedge will be an Iranian prisoner, and Sarah Hunt's destroyer will lie at the bottom of the sea, sunk by the Chinese Navy. In a single day, America's faith in its military's strategic pre-eminence is in tatters. A series of arrogant miscalculations on all sides leads the world into an intensifying international storm.