The year is 1985, and Mikhail Gorbachev has come to power in the Soviet Union. While his Glasnost and Perestroika reforms are welcomed by western governments, there are communist hardliners in his own government that are unsympathetic to his cause and are ready to do anything to stop these reforms.

Aleksei Guba, a renegade general, is determined to bring down Gorbachev and make himself the next leader of the Soviet Union. Guba commands an army on the island base of Kolgujev. Guba invades nearby Everon, crushing the militia force there, and secretly plans to take the war to the Americans.

The NATO presence on Malden, under the command of the American Colonel Blake, moves in to investigate the loss of contact with Everon, and reports an invasion by an 'unknown hostile force'. When a helicopter of troops sent to investigate doesn't return, Blake orders a full scale invasion of Everon, not knowing about the Soviets. Most of the soldiers sent to Everon are the recruits who are about to be sent home after the finish of their duty.

Though the NATO forces manage to take control a portion of the island, the Soviets eventually counterattack, causing heavy losses to the American forces and forcing their hasty retreat back to U.S.-controlled Malden. The Soviets don't only reclaim Everon but push onto Malden as well which brings the Americans on the edge of defeat. Blake receives an ultimatum from Guba but at the same time he is informed by Washington that a full carrier group is on route at flank speed to lend assistance. Time is of the essence as both the U.S. and Moscow denied that hostilities broke out on the islands to prevent panic but at the same time the USSR began a full-scale mobilization, allegedly as a military exercise. General Guba is in possession of a nuclear-tipped SCUD aimed at Malden and the American forces must prevent the missile launch from happening to avoid the beginning of World War III.