Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2 file extensions

The U.S. is knee-deep in apple pie and amber waves of grain. The Red Menace is all but dead, diluted into the World Socialist Alliance, a harmless humanitarian organization with U.S.-friendly puppet leader Premier Romanov shaking hands and making speeches. Peace and prosperity reign. Then the reports come in.

Reports of U.S. citizens in the southwest U.S. succumbing to fits of dizziness and nausea. Others falling into a state of zombie-like submission, turning against both family and nation. Intelligence reports soon link the disturbance to a Soviet presence in Mexico, where, with a nod from the U.S., Romanov's WSA troops are supposedly putting down an insurrection. But it's soon revealed as an elaborate ruse, as Soviet troops—like none the Allies have ever seen—storm Texas, then California, and other major cities. Planting mysterious beacons along the way, the Soviet troops are led by psychic generals who use their minds instead of munitions to push forward with their invasion of the U.S. In the cities, Americans take up arms against their neighbors. In the country, patriotic farmers weep as they watch their cows—strapped with explosives and saddled by mind-control—march into military installations to explode in deadly clouds of beefy, succulent shrapnel. President Dugan opts for a decisive nuclear strike. The red phone rings. The button is pushed. Nothing happens.

By now, intelligence sources confirm the worst: Romanov is behind the siege, and he's using the most mysterious—and terrifying—technology to date: psychically enhanced troops whose minds are as deadly as their AK-47s. Premier Romanov's full agenda is soon unveiled. The Premier has for years used the WSA as a front to develop a global network of Communist allies who want to see the Hammer and Sickle replace the Stars and Stripes. Having developed his psychic technology in secret for years, Romanov finally has the means to do it. Romanov's motivations, meanwhile, are more personal than those of his communist cohorts. Still stung by the fall of the Soviet Union after the Cold War—memories that have haunted him since his childhood—Romanov has long promised to make America pay for its crimes against Mother Russia. And he's found the perfect way: not by destroying the last bastion of the free world, but by using mind-control technology to cripple his Allied enemies, leaving the infrastructure, defenses and resources of America free for the taking. Romanov plans to turn the United States into the premier Communist republic of the west.

Its nuclear arsenal temporarily disabled, the U.S. gathers its conventional forces—and some unconventional ones. Using its own time-warp technology to thwart the Soviet foes, the U.S. and its allies rally to stop Romanov's twisted plan. Will it be Stars and Stripes or Hammer and Sickle? The final battle—on American soil, in American cities—will determine the fate of the free world.