The bloody denouement of the Cold War marked the beginning of a new world order. The fear of an Almaty nuclear inferno a hundred times greater, forced nations to draw closer together: even irreconcilable enemies now had to seek compromise and negotiate.

The new millennium began as perhaps the most peaceful and hopeful era in modern history. Humanity abandoned the military atom and turned instead toward grand projects intended for the benefit of all civilization. One such project was the dam across the Bering Strait — a monument to the age of cooperation and a symbol of friendship between the United States and post-Soviet Russia.

The collapse of the USSR triggered sweeping reforms in the West’s security structure. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization lost its former purpose and was therefore reformed into the Intercontinental Treaty Organization, actively admitting new members — Russia among them. Russia’s acceptance into the alliance signified not only the end of the USSR and everything Soviet, but also the merging of West and East into a single shared “Northern” civilization.

For those who did not share the values of the North, who felt exploited and saw the new world order as even more unjust than the one before it, who were simply different — things remained much the same as they always had been. Somewhere on the periphery, across the Arab world, Africa, and Latin America, local military operations conducted by the major Northern powers continued unabated. Yet support for resistance movements grew just as inevitably. This resulted not only in more frequent armed conflicts in distant regions, but also in a growing number of terrorist attacks within the borders of the Northern Bloc itself. Global trade was disrupted, new crises were provoked, control tightened, distrust deepened, society became increasingly polarized. Barely two decades had passed before the lives of northerners once again became filled with anxiety.

The largest terrorist attack in history, carried out aboard the passenger liners Pacific Dream and Coral Majesty, forced the North to unite once again. The war between the world’s two greatest civilizations entered its hot phase. Combat operations unfolded across Somalia, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Algeria, Mali, and Niger — though in one way or another, the entire world was set ablaze: from Latin America to Southeast Asia and Europe.

Once again, many nations were drawn into war solely because of allied obligations. Russia, for example, had never previously perceived the Muslim world as an existential threat. With several Muslim regions of its own, Moscow had for decades managed to maintain a compromise that avoided bloodshed. Now, however, it had been dragged into a broader civilizational struggle alien to its own interests. Russia no longer saw itself as part of a unified bloc: after a series of acts of sabotage and terrorist attacks, after the Russo-Tajik War, after diplomatic isolation, the idea of an equal alliance united by a common purpose no longer sounded convincing.

The North was once again splitting into West and East.

Despite the crisis, work on the Bering Strait dam continued. American and Russian scientists and engineers worked at the site under the protection of the American PMC Echelon and the Russian KZR militia.

At a moment when tensions between alliance members were already at their breaking point, and distrust toward Russia had grown exponentially higher still, an explosion tore through the Diomid scientific complex. The complex stood directly on the dam itself, precisely between the borders of the United States and Russia. Scientists there had been conducting research into energy systems and climate change. Now, part of the personnel were dead or missing.

The explosion itself did not begin the war. But it became the casus belli — the pretext for fateful decisions made behind the closed doors of high offices.

The dam project, it seemed, had been something far more important than the public had ever been led to believe. The American leadership authorized the immediate armed incursion of PMC Echelon deep into the destroyed section of the facility, placing everything at stake — the entire future of humanity itself.

To the Russian side, what was happening looked like nothing less than an unprecedented act of military aggression. The response came immediately and in kind. It was already too late to investigate: relations had long since reached a dead end where any search for truth would be perceived as weakness. Only the language of force remained.