Sorry for the lateness of this story, I wrote this in 2018 so it should be read in retrospect with a mind to the then current real-world political atmosphere.
Both space-shuttle accidents were the result of bad management decisions, not really technology, so even before he entered office President Trump of the United States of America made a deal with the U.S. Military to restart production of the space-shuttle using black funding. In 2018, he declared the forming of a new division of the military - the United States Space Force. Its purpose was, in his own words, to "dominate Space for the (sole) benefit of the U.S.A.". This declaration of sovereignty over the Earth's upper-most areas of environment annoyed all other nations immensely - in response Trump was forced to change the name to U.S. Space Patrol to appear to be a peaceful organisation but its mission remained the same. In 2019, to counter that declaration, President Macron declared that France would also have a Space Force.
Russia took full advantage of the situation calling a full meeting of the United Nations where everyone's wrath was shown by voting the United States out of the organisation. In retaliation the U.N. was kicked out of their headquarters in the U.S. & they relocated to Sweden. The U.S. still had a minor voice through the U.N.'s Canadian member as Canada's government & aerospace company, DeHavilland Space Projects, had received massive injections of money for designing the new U.S. space fighters which were to keep "the Peace" should any combat take place.
By 2024 the U.S. had weaponised space with nuclear bombs & high-power lasers in orbit to deter others from using Space for commercial purposes. The situation escalated into space war with the EU, Russia & China co-operating to share design of space-fighters to counter the incursions into what was considered "their" areas of the upper atmospheres and to launch their own space-station to base & service their fighters. Meanwhile India had quietly set up a small commercial experimental base on the far side of the Moon for astronomical research where there was no radio-interference.
On August 25th 2026, an Alien interdiction force started broadcasting on all radio & TV frequencies demanding a cease-fire before everything got out of hand. President Trump was sceptical but U.S. scientists admitted that the alien physiology seen on the TV screens was plausible & like nothing on Earth. Their speech in English did seem odd but was probably the result of the aliens not having vocal chords like ours -- the best lip-readers also confirmed that the lip movements conformed to the sounds.
However a demonstration of the Alien's power was soon made - blowing up a sub-moon of Jupiter. Communication with the Aliens was achieved by the U.N. & Trump but no progress towards lessening the threat to Humanity was achieved. The Aliens said it was down to Humanity to sort it out & warned that they would watch in case the Humans couldn't behave - after this no further attempts at contact with the Aliens were successful.
Under threat of extermination of the Human Race, a peace treaty was forged after much verbal escalation but no fighting took place, instead a treaty was signed after 6 months of international arguing. The treaty was named the North American Space Treaty …. or "N.A.S.Ty" as it was referred to by everyone. In case the U.S. tried to force the issue again, the U.N. announced the existence of an Emergency Response plan labelled "NASTyER" .…. this plan's contents would remain top-secret until much later.
Peace ensued for several years under this Alien threat until President Trump was removed from office.
When peace was assured, it was then announced that the "NASTyER" plan was in fact the Alien incursion threat itself - being planned even before Trump's election as his future plans were known in certain circles. The "Aliens" were really digitally created by Indian software developers & Russian GRU hackers with the program being broadcast from a satellite landed on a rock in the Kyper Belt. The live conversations between Humans & "Aliens" being a product of advanced technology & language software programming enabling the answering of Trump's & other's questions to the "Aliens" in real time.
As soon as the existence of this very advanced program was revealed to the public, the Movie Industry Committee announced that Bugs Bunny would be the next "live" host of the Oscars, thus permanently removing all the embarrassment that Human hosts had caused since Billy Crystal retired from the job.
Like all wars, this one helped advance technology but more importantly, co-operation between countries, taking the Human Race one step further towards becoming Civilised.