Two old cold war naval foes, whom had once collided their war ships together before as enemies, now have collided their ships again as allies while preparing to participate in war game exercises. Harm and Mac are assigned to monitor the Russian ship as observers, while a Russian team, familiar to Harm, act as observers on the US vessel. However, both observing teams find that both Captains are more than ready to continue their cold war conflict. Worse, one Captain appears ready to sacrifice everything and everyone to be the final victor of the war between the two.
After being diagnosed with night blindness, Lt. Cmdr. Harmon Rabb, an F-14 Tomcat fighter pilot, is forced to change careers. Cmdr. Rabb chooses to join the Navy's Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps. There he both defends and sometimes prosecutes Navy and Marine Corps defendants. He is sometimes assisted by fellow lawyer, Lt. Sarah "Mac" MacKenzie, and his other fellow JAG staff.
Many of Rabb's cases require him to both keep up his F-14 qualifications and travel the world, in order to bring justice to the cases he is trying.
Rabb must also deal with the fact that his father, also a former Navy pilot, never returned home after being held prisoner after he was shot down in North Vietnam. Rabb believing his father is still alive continues the search he has pursued to find his father, since his teens.