It was Friday, the 4th of December, 2026, and President John Jefferson was sitting at the Resolute desk in the Oval Office contemplating how to make the best use of the two remaining years in his second term. He was primarily focused on the hot spots around the world and trying to determine where the influence of the United States might best be exercised to have the greatest impact on society as a whole. He decided he would take the weekend to go to Camp David, convene a meeting of his National Security Council, and whittle down the possibilities to a manageable few. By Sunday, it had been determined that the country’s influence might best be used to defuse the war between the Russian Federation and Ukraine in Europe and decrease the level of tension between the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific region. Over the next two weeks, President Jefferson and his team would formulate new and, hopefully, innovative approaches by which they might, at best, bring about peace and, at a minimum, decrease the damage or likelihood of war.