Command & Conquer Red Alert is a real-time strategy video game of the Command & Conquer franchise, produced by Westwood Studios and released by Virgin Interactive in 1996. The second game to bear the Command & Conquer title, Red Alert is the prequel to the original Command & Conquer of 1995, and takes place in the alternate early history of Command & Conquer when Allied Forces battle an aggressive Soviet Union for control over the European mainland.

Starting out at the Trinity Site in New Mexico in 1946 (in our timeline), Albert Einstein prepares to travel backward in spacetime. He activates his experimental time machine to find himself in Landsberg, Germany, on 20 December 1924, where he meets a young Adolf Hitler just after the latter's release from Landsberg Prison. Following a brief conversation between the two, Einstein shakes Hitler's hand while activating his time-traveling device. In the process of Einstein returning to his time of origin, Hitler dies due to the lack of his own equipment for the transit through time.

Hitler's death prevents him from rising to power as leader of Nazi Germany. This creates a new timeline, in which eliminating Hitler's actions has caused a change for the worse. Without Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union grew powerful under the rule of Joseph Stalin. Unweakened, the USSR seizes land from China and then invades Eastern Europe, to achieve Joseph Stalin's vision of a Soviet Union stretching across the entire Eurasian landmass. In response, the nations of Europe form the Alliance, and start a guerrilla war against the invading Soviet army. Over the course of the game's story, the Allies and Soviets fight for control over the European mainland in an alternate World War II.