Some obviously corrupt and incompetent commanding officer orders a jet to intercept Starscream. A 5’8" first Lieutenant with an obvious inferiority complex gets into his F-35, hyped to prove he’s a REAL MAN™, but crashes on takeoff. Some other equally unlikeable pilot is sent up in an F-22, which does actually manage to fly, but gets hopelessly outclassed by Starscream who ends up grabbing the pilot out of the jet by the head, popping it like a cherry, and dropping his corpse into a veterans living room from 12000 feet up, and trigger his PTSD.

US military in the South China Sea gets attacked by aqueous deceptions

Chengdu J-20s are dispatched to save the Americans

Americans start firing on the J-20s assuming they’re deceptions

Chinese military urge their pilots to be brave by withstanding fire without retaliating so they can rescue their foes

American soldiers are saved without any of them being killed by the Chinese

That kind of happens in the first one before Optimus helps them out. In general it’s shown that they get their asses kicked if Autobots aren’t around until the fifth film, and even then its because they’ve got Galvatron on side.