Just what it says on the label.
Course of the War
The Universal Dominion started the War in a disadvantageous position. In 2790 the Dominion had moved east of the Mississippi in force for the first time in centuries; they sent an army to kill the Great Wyrm of Philadelphia and harvest her corpse, the Virginians mobilized forces to stop them, and on the very eve of battle… the Supreme Archmage, safely back in the Dominion, slipped on the soap in the shower and broke his neck. The Dominion might have still lost that battle; but the death of the Supreme Archmage without a successor guaranteed it. The Sephiroth sponsoring the Dominion army in the field found itself the immediate loser in the succession crisis and civil war that followed; that army was annihilated by the Virginians, and no attempt was made to avenge it. Dominion forces were too busy fighting each other.
The active fighting didn’t last long (there was a recognized successor by 2795, although some holdouts weren’t pacified until 2812), but it wrecked the Dominion army for two generations. The Dominion’s enemies took advantage: Deseret declared war in 2800, and shocked the continent by liberating Salt Lake City in 2803. Four years later, Deseret was joined by Dwarvenwood, the Second Republic, the Kentucky Free State, and Greater Hershey (but, oddly, not the Kingdom of Virginia).
The War has not been like the nation-destroying titanic conflicts of the fabled 20th Century. Though few contemporary scholars really recognize this, it’s been more like the slow decline of Byzantium: armies would be formed to conquer one place or another, there would be a campaign lasting a few years, and then eventually there’d be a truce or ceasefire (usually at the expense of the Dominion). Then the armies would regroup, and start again in a few years.
The Dominion did lose significant territory over this period; the conversion of the orcs in 2835 began the loss of their southern territories, and the Mississippi river campaigns of 2920-40 completed it. But after that period the War ratcheted itself down to a level where the Dominion was contained, more or less, and the other nations of North America could progress. It was at this time that the Alliance military became the autonomous entity that it is today. After a few decades, the War’s operational tempo slowed. The Dominion was in a disadvantageous position, but it was stable as long as nobody did anything stupid.
The Dominion did something stupid in 3045: the Archmage-general running the northern front ordered an ill-advised amphibious attack on the Second Republic and Greater Hershey. The entire northeast portion of the Dominion was stripped of troops and mages to invade via the Great Lakes; but, thanks to a combination of luck and prior warning, both nations had enough ships on hand to wreck the Dominion’s fleet. The collapse of the eastern front started a cascade of military disasters on the frontier: the Alliance has taken more territory in the last nine years than they have since the creation of the Imperium Orci.
And that is how things are today.