The year is 2035 and Chinese strategic patience has finally paid off. After decades of standing by, watching the United States parade its naval assets unimpeded through the Pacific and park its aircraft and personnel in its own strategic backyard, the Directorate—an alliance of convenience between China and its very junior partner Russia—strikes a near-fatal blow against America’s technologically advanced, but network dependent, global defense enterprise. In search of natural resources and hungry for the international prestige denied to them for years, revenge has been a long time coming