posted
I read all of them up through Sum of All Fears before I tired of the whole cold war espionage, WW3, political intrigue scene (I was reading everyone else in the genre too).
I still think it's a shame that with all the movies that have been made from his novels, Cardinal of the Kremlin never got made. I think that would make a wonderful movie.
Posts: 891 | Registered: Feb 2010
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For some reason I was never able to get in to them. I think I'm just not that interested in reading about anything that's happened in the last 100 years or will happen in the next 20 years. It's a shame too because I tend to enjoy spy thriller type games and movies. Posts: 2827 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
He jumped the shark when the Cold War did. I loathe and despise everything he's written since, say, 1995; before that he was pretty good.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Cardinal of the Kremlin was my favorite too. I read them for a while but I got tired of them too. Haven't read anything of us for years and years.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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My favorite is Red Storm Rising -- by far the best, IMHO.
And then -- Debt of Honor Executive Orders The Bear and the Dragon
which occur chronologically one after the other. Of all his books, those are the ones I liked best (but obviously real life events unfolded much differently than they did in the books).
I liked the Hunt for Red October film more than the book. I thought both the book and film versions of The Sum of All Fears were implausible.
posted
His earlier stuff was very interesting and enjoyable to me. As time passed, however, preachiness skyrocketed.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Definitely got more preachy and much more careless. Rainbow Six was terrible. There were so many loose ends at the end of the book, I almost threw it across the room.
Red Storm Rising is a classic, though. I also liked Sum of All Fears and Debt of Honor.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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The first couple of Clancy's books I loved because he was able to give us a good idea about the difficulties of intelligence gathering. Every person in the books that was given a limited set of facts came up with a different take on the situation, and acted accordingly. There was no sudden "ah-ha" when the hero figures it all out perfectly and knows everything that is going on. As the stories progressed based on different views of the situation and the actions taken by people in response to those views, it was refreshing. I realized this is how life really is.
He lost that in his later books in exchange for a conservative--or perhaps Neo-Con political view point.
I think it was "The Sum of All Fears" that finally lost me. SPOILER They nuked Denver. Then, as an after thought, the hero arranges sending the guilty parties to Saudi Arabia for execution because they didn't deserve the civil rights found in the US. Later, President Bush would get in trouble for doing the same thing, except instead of execution by beheading, it was torture.
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
I've read most of the Jack Ryan novels, though not Teeth of the Tiger or Red Rabbit.
I usually reread them once every few years, and that's enough to remind me why it hide them away for so long. He's just so damned long-winded. Each of his books could easily be 200 pages shorter, at least, and would be much better off for it. Vince Flynn, as far as I'm concerned, is a leaner, meaner Tom Clancy. Mitch Rapp doesn't share the same moralizing spirit that Jack Ryan does, but the pace is certainly a lot more engaging.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Darth_Mauve: The first couple of Clancy's books I loved because he was able to give us a good idea about the difficulties of intelligence gathering. Every person in the books that was given a limited set of facts came up with a different take on the situation, and acted accordingly. There was no sudden "ah-ha" when the hero figures it all out perfectly and knows everything that is going on. As the stories progressed based on different views of the situation and the actions taken by people in response to those views, it was refreshing. I realized this is how life really is.
He lost that in his later books in exchange for a conservative--or perhaps Neo-Con political view point.
I think it was "The Sum of All Fears" that finally lost me. SPOILER They nuked Denver. Then, as an after thought, the hero arranges sending the guilty parties to Saudi Arabia for execution because they didn't deserve the civil rights found in the US. Later, President Bush would get in trouble for doing the same thing, except instead of execution by beheading, it was torture.
In fairness, I don't think Qati and Ghosn were executed for the sake of getting around US laws. It wasn't just that they had considerable evidence to prove that they were responsible, they even admitted to doing it. The only information they were holding back was the bomb-making site, which Clark tortured out of them. I think they were executed there for PR purposes. It was a way for the Middle East, as a whole, to tamp down anger from the US towards them because Middle Eastern militants were responsible for the bomb. The symbolism of allowing the Saudis to be the hand of justice was purely for PR. Circumventing US civil rights to gain a conviction was irrelevant.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
I seem to recall dialogue musing on the fact that neither of the relevant US jurisdictions had the death penalty right before the suggestion of sending them to Saudi Arabia. So not avoiding civil rights, exactly, but definitely avoiding sentencing limitations.
Edit: I also recall some approving comments on the swiftness of the trial and sentencing, with no drawn-out appeals process.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:Originally posted by dkw: I seem to recall dialogue musing on the fact that neither of the relevant US jurisdictions had the death penalty right before the suggestion of sending them to Saudi Arabia. So not avoiding civil rights, exactly, but definitely avoiding sentencing limitations.
Edit: I also recall some approving comments on the swiftness of the trial and sentencing, with no drawn-out appeals process.
I forgot about that, but it didn't really bother me when I read it. Usually my reservations about the death penalty deal with the impossibility of proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that someone is guilty when they still profess their innocence. But in this case, not only were the perpetrators willing to admit it, they bragged about it. That's also why, I think, the issues of swiftness doesn't matter much. What appeal could their have possibly been when the defendants plead guilty?
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
The first Clancy novel I tried reading was Rainbow Six. I gave it three tries and I just couldn't find the excitement of the video games in the book.
My goodness I might have just discovered the first video game based on a book that surpasses the book in quality!
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
I also have very vague memories of Rainbow Six and Without Remorse.
I did finish Clear and Present Danger over vacation, and liked it; but as I said, Red Storm Rising is epic in scale, and after reading it everything else felt small by comparison.
posted
I don't know why everyone thinks Rainbow Six was so bad, it was one of my favorites. I liked Red Storm Rising for the first 200-300 pages, but then it focused on naval combat and it got really boring.
Posts: 19 | Registered: Jul 2010
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
Bear and the Dragon was the most terrible piece of trash I have ever had the misfortune to have to sit through and read, took me an entire year to finally stomach it enough to finish it, the only decent plot thread was the Russian side, the Chinese actions totally broke believability, ignored real life parallels of their reaction to the Persian Gulf War came up with bold fraced slander and gross generalizations and frankly outright racism riddled the entire book from beginning to end, it can barely muster an ounce of literary merit.
It's cliched, absolutely terrible, plot holes bigger then a catamite's rectum, driven by idiot ball holding characters to drive the Idiot plot and defy's reality and believability at everyturn.
This pretty much sums it up:
quote:Tom Clancy's "The Bear and the Dragon"
by Robert Trickey
NOTE: This review is FULL of spoilers. Stop reading, or deal.
Well, I had jury duty today, which meant sitting in a chair from 7:30am to 4:00pm. This gave me time to read a Tom Clancy book I'd picked up like six months ago. I picked it up because a) I liked "No Remorse" and "Rainbow Six", b) it was hardcover, and most importantly c) it was $5 in the bargain bin.
The book is "The Bear and the Dragon". It is the story of China, which is led by psychotic brain-damaged panda bears, and the United States, which is led by Jesus Reagan (his name is actually Jack Ryan, but it's more fun to think of him as Jesus Reagan, since that's who he's modeled after). Russia's also in it, but only to serve as the "good foreigners" that get attacked, giving the USA moral justification to kill %#&@ing everyone and his brother.
Here's the loose plot summary.
Russia discovers it has the world's largest oil reserves and gold mine on the same day. This is the most realistic event in the book.
China's leaders, who to a one are all 60+ year-old perverts with acute brain damage, are plotting to invade Russia to take these valuable reserves. This is their latest of genius plots, the previous ones being getting Japan to go to war with the USA, and getting Iran and Iraq to team up and invade Saudi Arabia. I'm pretty certain that Destro or Major Bludd has influence with the Panda Council.
By the way, don't think about how the Chinese expected to get away with this. We're in the Clancyverse now, the laws of reason operate differently here.
Anyway, back to the plot. Somehow, the moronic pandas don't notice that without American trade, China will be bankrupt in four months. Very troubling, especially since they've just repeatedly (and I mean REPEATEDLY, OMG REPEATEDLY) told the USA, "%#&@ you round-eye! You do as we say! We master race! You round-eye slave!" I'm not paraphrasing very much here, he really drives the "Chinese are %#&@ing arrogant morons" nail into the ground and then some. Anyhoo, so after taking this moronically hard stance they find out they're going to be bankrupt if the USA embargoes them. In literally about five pages they go through these leaps of reason: "Holy shit, what do we do?" -> "Let's apologize! No, %#&@ that, screw the white devils!" -> "Hey, Russia's got lots of stuff, let's take it! They're wussies!" -> "Ok! Go Iron Dragon! Hi-ya!" I'm not even sure it was five pages. And yes they actually used the phrase "white devils". Of course this is doomed to absolute failure, but Cobra Commander assures the pandas that China is unbeatable, so they charge ahead.
What the pandas don't know is that the CIA is aware of all of this, because one of their operatives gets one of the Minister's secretaries willing to do anything for his amazing "Japanese sausage". Regrettably, I did not make that phrase up. Clancy, with his keen grasp of the female psyche, inexplicably writes the quiet, highly-educated secretary as being totally *&^%-addicted, and she uses the "sausage" phrase like ten times. It's pretty %#&@ing weird actually.
There's an assassination subplot (that's actually how the book begins) but that could have been completely left out, as 700 of this 1000 page wankfest should have been.
So as I was saying (and I'm skipping a lot here, the invasion actually takes place around page 600), the Chinese general -- who I'm guessing was put into cryosleep after the Korean War, with strict orders only to be woken up when the nation needed a disastrous defeat -- decides to storm 2000 tanks into Russia to take the gold mine and oil field. Apparently, he thought once tagged, the fields would never need to be defended again, like an RTS checkpoint. Also, for some bizarre reason that only makes sense in the Clancyverse, the Chinese are certain that the USA will not help Russia (they actually use the phrase "paper tiger", which makes me think of Leslie Nielsen at the beginning of "Naked Gun"). At this point, the book is so amazingly %#&@ing outside reality that I'm seriously thinking that the book will end with Jesus Reagan donning a commando suit and single-handedly rappelling into Beijing to kill the Panda Council.
China invades Russia, and of course the USA uses advanced technology to completely obliterate them. This is the "money shot" part of the book, the part that Clancyverse fans wait for, where the primitive evil-doers cluelessly mass in the open and the USA kills them all in some novel new fashion. Clearly China was busy during the Gulf War, because for some reason they think the USA's air power will be useless against their massed tanks in the open. I was trying to figure that out, but then I realized that was the least stupid assumption they'd made in the book, so I surrendered thought and pressed on.
China gets their ass predictably raped. So their obvious reaction is to launch all their nukes at the USA and Russia. Clancy muddles through some tortured logic here to get to the inevitable launch...the sad thing is that it's the most coherent moment for the pandas. Special forces takes out all the nukes but one, which of course is aimed at Washington, and of course Jesus Reagan bravely stays behind, and of course the US shoots it down at the last second. And of course the children in China successfully revolt. To encourage the budding Chinese democracy, Jesus Reagan gives every Chinese citizen one share of an S&P 500 stock and a King James bible. Ok, I made that last part up -- but you didn't even blink an eye at this point, did you?
Book over. Thank God.
Now let's try to make sense of the Clancyverse. These are the lessons I gleaned from it: Non-ally foreigners are really, really %#&@ing stupid. Like nonsentient stupid. Like monkey-****ing-footballs stupid. Mouth-breathing, shitting-their-pants stupid. It's just %#&@ing silly. Ally foreigners are smart, but inevitably kept down by their government's flaws, which always stem from not being capitalistic or Christian. The media are idiotic to the point of treason; upon receiving any confidential news that could put American lives in danger, they trip over each other to get to the phone. Republicans are near perfect, their only fault being that they have trouble reigning in their righteous anger at all the %#&@ing bleeding-heart liberals around them ruining everything. Jesus Reagan is perfect, not just near perfect. That's how you tell him apart from the other characters. In fact, that's the only way you can tell him apart. There are only three types of Americans: %#&@ing moron pansy-ass liberals; foul-mouthed ass-kicking street-savvy Republicans; and clean-mouthed ass-kicking street-savvy Republicans. There are only two types of enemy foreigners: evil nonsentients and evil genius subordinates kept down by their non-capitalistic and/or heathen evil nonsentient leaders Women talk just like men, and somehow work their insatiable sex drive into almost every conversation. Just like real life. Women are always described as being uber-skilled and competent, yet their only use in the Clancyverse is to show that when not killing shit, their husbands are gettin' it left and right.
Note that I assume that all the heroes are Republican, even though this isn't explicitly mentioned in the book. For some reason Jesus Reagan ran as an independent, even though he shares every and I mean every Republican view. It's really pretty amazing how Clancy managed to preach on every single issue that separates Republicans and Democrats. After the first few issues were brought up I started thinking, "wow, he's gotta work gun control in here -- whoop, this is it" and so on. It's like a goddamn Republican grocery list -- Clancy manages to push the party line on every %#&@ing issue imaginable, and of course the counter argument is always represented by some %#&@ing strawman idiot liberal. This is so %#&@ing blatant it's insulting. Not only does he promote every part of the RNC's agenda, he also makes sure to bash every other wussy liberal cause/organization he could think of.
So I've decided that a new category is needed in Barnes & Noble for the Clancyverse books: "Republican Revenge Fantasy". The basic theme is this: every Republican is a straight-shooting, money-making, ass-kicking, God-fearing, wock-swinging superman who could fix the whole damn world with a Bible and an M16 if only those %#&@ing traitorous, hypocritical, adulterous, perverted, lying, dodge-drafting, atheistic, wussy-ass liberal Democrats/Socialists weren't in the way. Or more succinctly put: "Jesus Reagan Unleashed".
Swearing edited to protect the innocent.
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My god that is hilarious. That right there is the perfect script to a spoof of Tom Clancy movies. Print that off and send it to the Wayans or something.
Oh, and you did miss one swear word if anyone cares.
Posts: 891 | Registered: Feb 2010
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
I'm generally keeping an eye out for F-word,P-word, the others in context, non derogatory, and rare my impression can be glanced over.
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: Bear and the Dragon was the most terrible piece of trash I have ever had the misfortune to have to sit through and read, took me an entire year to finally stomach it enough to finish it, the only decent plot thread was the Russian side, the Chinese actions totally broke believability, ignored real life parallels of their reaction to the Persian Gulf War came up with bold fraced slander and gross generalizations and frankly outright racism riddled the entire book from beginning to end, it can barely muster an ounce of literary merit.
It's cliched, absolutely terrible, plot holes bigger then a catamite's rectum, driven by idiot ball holding characters to drive the Idiot plot and defy's reality and believability at everyturn.
This pretty much sums it up:
quote:Tom Clancy's "The Bear and the Dragon"
by Robert Trickey
NOTE: This review is FULL of spoilers. Stop reading, or deal.
Well, I had jury duty today, which meant sitting in a chair from 7:30am to 4:00pm. This gave me time to read a Tom Clancy book I'd picked up like six months ago. I picked it up because a) I liked "No Remorse" and "Rainbow Six", b) it was hardcover, and most importantly c) it was $5 in the bargain bin.
The book is "The Bear and the Dragon". It is the story of China, which is led by psychotic brain-damaged panda bears, and the United States, which is led by Jesus Reagan (his name is actually Jack Ryan, but it's more fun to think of him as Jesus Reagan, since that's who he's modeled after). Russia's also in it, but only to serve as the "good foreigners" that get attacked, giving the USA moral justification to kill %#&@ing everyone and his brother.
Here's the loose plot summary.
Russia discovers it has the world's largest oil reserves and gold mine on the same day. This is the most realistic event in the book.
China's leaders, who to a one are all 60+ year-old perverts with acute brain damage, are plotting to invade Russia to take these valuable reserves. This is their latest of genius plots, the previous ones being getting Japan to go to war with the USA, and getting Iran and Iraq to team up and invade Saudi Arabia. I'm pretty certain that Destro or Major Bludd has influence with the Panda Council.
By the way, don't think about how the Chinese expected to get away with this. We're in the Clancyverse now, the laws of reason operate differently here.
Anyway, back to the plot. Somehow, the moronic pandas don't notice that without American trade, China will be bankrupt in four months. Very troubling, especially since they've just repeatedly (and I mean REPEATEDLY, OMG REPEATEDLY) told the USA, "%#&@ you round-eye! You do as we say! We master race! You round-eye slave!" I'm not paraphrasing very much here, he really drives the "Chinese are %#&@ing arrogant morons" nail into the ground and then some. Anyhoo, so after taking this moronically hard stance they find out they're going to be bankrupt if the USA embargoes them. In literally about five pages they go through these leaps of reason: "Holy shit, what do we do?" -> "Let's apologize! No, %#&@ that, screw the white devils!" -> "Hey, Russia's got lots of stuff, let's take it! They're wussies!" -> "Ok! Go Iron Dragon! Hi-ya!" I'm not even sure it was five pages. And yes they actually used the phrase "white devils". Of course this is doomed to absolute failure, but Cobra Commander assures the pandas that China is unbeatable, so they charge ahead.
What the pandas don't know is that the CIA is aware of all of this, because one of their operatives gets one of the Minister's secretaries willing to do anything for his amazing "Japanese sausage". Regrettably, I did not make that phrase up. Clancy, with his keen grasp of the female psyche, inexplicably writes the quiet, highly-educated secretary as being totally *&^%-addicted, and she uses the "sausage" phrase like ten times. It's pretty %#&@ing weird actually.
There's an assassination subplot (that's actually how the book begins) but that could have been completely left out, as 700 of this 1000 page wankfest should have been.
So as I was saying (and I'm skipping a lot here, the invasion actually takes place around page 600), the Chinese general -- who I'm guessing was put into cryosleep after the Korean War, with strict orders only to be woken up when the nation needed a disastrous defeat -- decides to storm 2000 tanks into Russia to take the gold mine and oil field. Apparently, he thought once tagged, the fields would never need to be defended again, like an RTS checkpoint. Also, for some bizarre reason that only makes sense in the Clancyverse, the Chinese are certain that the USA will not help Russia (they actually use the phrase "paper tiger", which makes me think of Leslie Nielsen at the beginning of "Naked Gun"). At this point, the book is so amazingly %#&@ing outside reality that I'm seriously thinking that the book will end with Jesus Reagan donning a commando suit and single-handedly rappelling into Beijing to kill the Panda Council.
China invades Russia, and of course the USA uses advanced technology to completely obliterate them. This is the "money shot" part of the book, the part that Clancyverse fans wait for, where the primitive evil-doers cluelessly mass in the open and the USA kills them all in some novel new fashion. Clearly China was busy during the Gulf War, because for some reason they think the USA's air power will be useless against their massed tanks in the open. I was trying to figure that out, but then I realized that was the least stupid assumption they'd made in the book, so I surrendered thought and pressed on.
China gets their ass predictably raped. So their obvious reaction is to launch all their nukes at the USA and Russia. Clancy muddles through some tortured logic here to get to the inevitable launch...the sad thing is that it's the most coherent moment for the pandas. Special forces takes out all the nukes but one, which of course is aimed at Washington, and of course Jesus Reagan bravely stays behind, and of course the US shoots it down at the last second. And of course the children in China successfully revolt. To encourage the budding Chinese democracy, Jesus Reagan gives every Chinese citizen one share of an S&P 500 stock and a King James bible. Ok, I made that last part up -- but you didn't even blink an eye at this point, did you?
Book over. Thank God.
Now let's try to make sense of the Clancyverse. These are the lessons I gleaned from it: Non-ally foreigners are really, really %#&@ing stupid. Like nonsentient stupid. Like monkey-****ing-footballs stupid. Mouth-breathing, shitting-their-pants stupid. It's just %#&@ing silly. Ally foreigners are smart, but inevitably kept down by their government's flaws, which always stem from not being capitalistic or Christian. The media are idiotic to the point of treason; upon receiving any confidential news that could put American lives in danger, they trip over each other to get to the phone. Republicans are near perfect, their only fault being that they have trouble reigning in their righteous anger at all the %#&@ing bleeding-heart liberals around them ruining everything. Jesus Reagan is perfect, not just near perfect. That's how you tell him apart from the other characters. In fact, that's the only way you can tell him apart. There are only three types of Americans: %#&@ing moron pansy-ass liberals; foul-mouthed ass-kicking street-savvy Republicans; and clean-mouthed ass-kicking street-savvy Republicans. There are only two types of enemy foreigners: evil nonsentients and evil genius subordinates kept down by their non-capitalistic and/or heathen evil nonsentient leaders Women talk just like men, and somehow work their insatiable sex drive into almost every conversation. Just like real life. Women are always described as being uber-skilled and competent, yet their only use in the Clancyverse is to show that when not killing shit, their husbands are gettin' it left and right.
Note that I assume that all the heroes are Republican, even though this isn't explicitly mentioned in the book. For some reason Jesus Reagan ran as an independent, even though he shares every and I mean every Republican view. It's really pretty amazing how Clancy managed to preach on every single issue that separates Republicans and Democrats. After the first few issues were brought up I started thinking, "wow, he's gotta work gun control in here -- whoop, this is it" and so on. It's like a goddamn Republican grocery list -- Clancy manages to push the party line on every %#&@ing issue imaginable, and of course the counter argument is always represented by some %#&@ing strawman idiot liberal. This is so %#&@ing blatant it's insulting. Not only does he promote every part of the RNC's agenda, he also makes sure to bash every other wussy liberal cause/organization he could think of.
So I've decided that a new category is needed in Barnes & Noble for the Clancyverse books: "Republican Revenge Fantasy". The basic theme is this: every Republican is a straight-shooting, money-making, ass-kicking, God-fearing, wock-swinging superman who could fix the whole damn world with a Bible and an M16 if only those %#&@ing traitorous, hypocritical, adulterous, perverted, lying, dodge-drafting, atheistic, wussy-ass liberal Democrats/Socialists weren't in the way. Or more succinctly put: "Jesus Reagan Unleashed".
Swearing edited to protect the innocent.
WARNING MAJOR SPOILERS His review is somewhat unfair. He has clearly not read the other books in the Ryanverse. The plotlines make sense: Debt of Honor. Executive Orders :. His critisicm of their plausibility is baseless. I also disagree with his critiscism of the Chinese leaders, we all know how logical and reasonable communist leaders are . Calling Clancy a racist makes no sense. He makes African-Americans and Hispanics heroes on a regular basis, and goes to great pains to show in Executive Orders that not all Arabs are "crazy terrorists". The spy is a JAPANESE-AMERICAN, and the government is overthrown by Chinese students. Soldiers always try to dehumanize their enemies, and Clancy is simply writing from a candid POV. His casual dissmisal of the assasination subplot shows his complete ignorance about the importance of inteligence leaks like that in history. Communist countries often place advancement of people loyal to the party ahead of inteligent people (I wonder if those things have an inverse relationship....), so it is not completely unreasonable to think that there would be flaws in the thinking of the Chinese high command. Wikileaks recent release of the documents from the war in Afganistan caused the deaths of several Afganis, so maybe his critiscm of the Media is not totally ridculous. His last section at the end is so @#$%ing stupid.
Posts: 19 | Registered: Jul 2010
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quote:His critisicm of their plausibility is baseless.
*polite cough* Oh, yeah. That's right. So when the President names Clancy's Marty Stu the Vice-President out of personal gratitude, immediately following which almost the entire government is killed by a Japanese airline pilot crazed with grief because his son was killed during Japan's brief shooting war with the U.S. (instigated by the Chinese), and Marty Stu is named the President amid the smoking ruins of the capitol, thus....
Oh, I'm sorry. I absolutely cannot go on. *groan* Look, YN, the Clancy books are military porn. Enjoy them if you must, but they're no more plausible than a young housewife who, desiring some action, calls up a handsome, innocent, and yet remarkably skilled plumber to clean her pipes.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I forgot about Bear and the Dragon. I'd pay ten dollars to be able to watch Blayne's reactions as he reads it. Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Truefacts: I think of Twilight as being better written than most of the crap that Clancy churns out these days.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: I forgot about Bear and the Dragon. I'd pay ten dollars to be able to watch Blayne's reactions as he reads it.
I would burn the book if it wasnt for the fact that it's not mine, but I borrowed it from a friend.
You have no idea how long or how much I have ranted about it to him.
I will only concede that the Russians were interesting but requires me to pretend that their fighting a completely different enemy, like Demons from Hell.
Military Porn AND doesn't push my buttons, the one time I can be happy about US military breaking stuff.
quote:WARNING MAJOR SPOILERS His review is somewhat unfair. He has clearly not read the other books in the Ryanverse. The plotlines make sense: Debt of Honor. Executive Orders :. His critisicm of their plausibility is baseless. I also disagree with his critiscism of the Chinese leaders, we all know how logical and reasonable communist leaders are . Calling Clancy a racist makes no sense. He makes African-Americans and Hispanics heroes on a regular basis, and goes to great pains to show in Executive Orders that not all Arabs are "crazy terrorists". The spy is a JAPANESE-AMERICAN, and the government is overthrown by Chinese students. Soldiers always try to dehumanize their enemies, and Clancy is simply writing from a candid POV. His casual dissmisal of the assasination subplot shows his complete ignorance about the importance of inteligence leaks like that in history. Communist countries often place advancement of people loyal to the party ahead of inteligent people (I wonder if those things have an inverse relationship....), so it is not completely unreasonable to think that there would be flaws in the thinking of the Chinese high command. Wikileaks recent release of the documents from the war in Afganistan caused the deaths of several Afganis, so maybe his critiscm of the Media is not totally ridculous. His last section at the end is so @#$%ing stupid.
First of all the book details the PLA as still pretty much carbon copies of the Soviet Army from 20 years previously in the books, this is a huge blow to its credibility because Clancy is kinda one of those Dan Brown preDan Brown kind of authors whose books you read because "the scenario is made up but if it happened this would be a realistic portrayel of what would happen with realistic weapon systems on both sides" this is why people like Red October and Red Storm Rising, but whereas in Real Life the Chinese had took the Gulf War to heart and completely revamped their army in the most radical force reorganization and restructuring in modern military history to fight "high tech wars in local condictions" instead the Ryanverse Chinese were completely pants on head retarded and ignored the valuable lessons from the Ryanverse version of the gulf war which played out almost exactly as it did in real life.
So we get the predictable massed armor soviet style offensive across Siberian forests and tundra when in real life they would never had done this assuming in rl they also lost all common sense and decided to invade Russia.
Then there's the whole "US wiping out the entire PLAAF losing only a single plane" utterly garbage, China has the world's best SAM defence networks next to the Russian Federation they souldn't make mistake of letting their key supply bridges be knocked out by 1 strike force without any significant SAM defence, same for their naval base.
Also this is the People's Republic of China circa year 2000, we're talking about Hu Jintao/Wen Jiabao administration, the PRC is a Great Power and a member of the UNSC and in RL fairly responsible in their job, has the actual PRC done anything off its rocker in recent years? Can you name one instance of them doing anything off kilter recently? Thought so.
Also dude, have you read the book "Thirty foot country"? "Looks good from far away but if you get close enough its ugly", "slant eyed &%$#'s" every page? The dude subscribes to the yellow peril disease, this permeates the vast majority of his works, like that one novel where the KGB officer and the protagonist were in Vietnam talking about how inhuman the Vietnamese were.
quote:Communist countries often place advancement of people loyal to the party ahead of inteligent people (I wonder if those things have an inverse relationship....), so it is not completely unreasonable to think that there would be flaws in the thinking of the Chinese high command.
Prove it. Find a source that shows "rampant" nepotism in the Chinese Intelligence community since the force modernizations began.
The Chinese once maybe emphasized party loyalty in the Army back in Mao's time but since the 80's they've been striving to acquire a modern professional force capable of meeting any challenge, hence their force reductions, if you read "China: Fragile Superpower" by Susan Shirk you'ld see that the PLA is actually a force in of itself in Chinese politics that cooperates with the Party and nolonger a subordinate organ.
quote:. The spy is a JAPANESE-AMERICAN,
Who waves his sausage and gets what he wants from the apparantly intelligent secretary who knowlingly goes along with treason where the whole situation only works because Clancy decided via fiat that every Chinese politician is old and a pervert who sleeps with their staff.
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: Then there's the whole "US wiping out the entire PLAAF losing only a single plane" utterly garbage, China has the world's best SAM defence networks next to the Russian Federation they souldn't make mistake of letting their key supply bridges be knocked out by 1 strike force without any significant SAM defence, same for their naval base.
I haven't read the book and agree that does sound a bit far fetched but not impossible. Stealth aircraft have proven pretty effective so far. Granted they haven't gone up against massive numbers of Chinese SAMs but I think it could happen (though still pretty unlikely).
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Blayne Bradley
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It's currently believed that both the Russians and the Chinese have Radar's capable of detecting stealth aircraft, in addition I don't recall them using stealth aircraft within the novel.
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: It's currently believed that both the Russians and the Chinese have Radar's capable of detecting stealth aircraft, in addition I don't recall them using stealth aircraft within the novel.
It is quite possible that they do have such radars but it's not yet a known FACT so it is perfectly reasonable to say in a work of fiction that their radars were not so good and a few stealth aircraft armed with anti-radiation missiles could wipe out an areas air detection and defenses pretty quickly.
Now if none of that happened and a bunch of F-15, F-16 and F-18s went sailing off into China and only one got shot down, yeah pretty much impossible.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: ... Look, YN, the Clancy books are military porn. Enjoy them if you must, but they're no more plausible than a young housewife who, desiring some action, calls up a handsome, innocent, and yet remarkably skilled plumber to clean her pipes.
quote:Who waves his sausage and gets what he wants from the apparantly intelligent secretary who knowlingly goes along with treason where the whole situation only works because Clancy decided via fiat that every Chinese politician is old and a pervert who sleeps with their staff.
IIRC, the secretary has no idea what he's doing. He'd installed a program on her computer that automatically transmitted her files to him every day.
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Blayne Bradley
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Which every single office enviroment drills into you everyday DO NOT ALLOW TO INSTALL STUFF ON OFFICE COMPUTER WITHOUT PERMISSION OR CREDENTIALS, he basically just got her to agree to "heya, can you run this cd in your office PC for me? Thanks dear *clucks tongue*"
quote:Now if none of that happened and a bunch of F-15, F-16 and F-18s went sailing off into China and only one got shot down, yeah pretty much impossible.
Was pretty much that afaik.
But a "few" wouldnt have been or at least SHOULDNT have been enough, this is a very particular bridge, one that pretty much for some reason of stupidity I cant fathom 90% of Chinese supplies to their invading forces transited through, a heavy duty bridge for the passage of trains etc, and somehow only had a barest most meagre defence for reasons I cant even begin to understand.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: I forgot about Bear and the Dragon. I'd pay ten dollars to be able to watch Blayne's reactions as he reads it.
I would burn the book if it wasnt for the fact that it's not mine, but I borrowed it from a friend.
You have no idea how long or how much I have ranted about it to him.
I will only concede that the Russians were interesting but requires me to pretend that their fighting a completely different enemy, like Demons from Hell.
Military Porn AND doesn't push my buttons, the one time I can be happy about US military breaking stuff.
quote:WARNING MAJOR SPOILERS His review is somewhat unfair. He has clearly not read the other books in the Ryanverse. The plotlines make sense: Debt of Honor. Executive Orders :. His critisicm of their plausibility is baseless. I also disagree with his critiscism of the Chinese leaders, we all know how logical and reasonable communist leaders are . Calling Clancy a racist makes no sense. He makes African-Americans and Hispanics heroes on a regular basis, and goes to great pains to show in Executive Orders that not all Arabs are "crazy terrorists". The spy is a JAPANESE-AMERICAN, and the government is overthrown by Chinese students. Soldiers always try to dehumanize their enemies, and Clancy is simply writing from a candid POV. His casual dissmisal of the assasination subplot shows his complete ignorance about the importance of inteligence leaks like that in history. Communist countries often place advancement of people loyal to the party ahead of inteligent people (I wonder if those things have an inverse relationship....), so it is not completely unreasonable to think that there would be flaws in the thinking of the Chinese high command. Wikileaks recent release of the documents from the war in Afganistan caused the deaths of several Afganis, so maybe his critiscm of the Media is not totally ridculous. His last section at the end is so @#$%ing stupid.
First of all the book details the PLA as still pretty much carbon copies of the Soviet Army from 20 years previously in the books, this is a huge blow to its credibility because Clancy is kinda one of those Dan Brown preDan Brown kind of authors whose books you read because "the scenario is made up but if it happened this would be a realistic portrayel of what would happen with realistic weapon systems on both sides" this is why people like Red October and Red Storm Rising, but whereas in Real Life the Chinese had took the Gulf War to heart and completely revamped their army in the most radical force reorganization and restructuring in modern military history to fight "high tech wars in local condictions" instead the Ryanverse Chinese were completely pants on head retarded and ignored the valuable lessons from the Ryanverse version of the gulf war which played out almost exactly as it did in real life.
So we get the predictable massed armor soviet style offensive across Siberian forests and tundra when in real life they would never had done this assuming in rl they also lost all common sense and decided to invade Russia.
Then there's the whole "US wiping out the entire PLAAF losing only a single plane" utterly garbage, China has the world's best SAM defence networks next to the Russian Federation they souldn't make mistake of letting their key supply bridges be knocked out by 1 strike force without any significant SAM defence, same for their naval base.
Also this is the People's Republic of China circa year 2000, we're talking about Hu Jintao/Wen Jiabao administration, the PRC is a Great Power and a member of the UNSC and in RL fairly responsible in their job, has the actual PRC done anything off its rocker in recent years? Can you name one instance of them doing anything off kilter recently? Thought so.
Also dude, have you read the book "Thirty foot country"? "Looks good from far away but if you get close enough its ugly", "slant eyed &%$#'s" every page? The dude subscribes to the yellow peril disease, this permeates the vast majority of his works, like that one novel where the KGB officer and the protagonist were in Vietnam talking about how inhuman the Vietnamese were.
quote:Communist countries often place advancement of people loyal to the party ahead of inteligent people (I wonder if those things have an inverse relationship....), so it is not completely unreasonable to think that there would be flaws in the thinking of the Chinese high command.
Prove it. Find a source that shows "rampant" nepotism in the Chinese Intelligence community since the force modernizations began.
The Chinese once maybe emphasized party loyalty in the Army back in Mao's time but since the 80's they've been striving to acquire a modern professional force capable of meeting any challenge, hence their force reductions, if you read "China: Fragile Superpower" by Susan Shirk you'ld see that the PLA is actually a force in of itself in Chinese politics that cooperates with the Party and nolonger a subordinate organ.
quote:. The spy is a JAPANESE-AMERICAN,
Who waves his sausage and gets what he wants from the apparantly intelligent secretary who knowlingly goes along with treason where the whole situation only works because Clancy decided via fiat that every Chinese politician is old and a pervert who sleeps with their staff.
While there are no examples after 1973 of modern aircraft going up against moderns SAM, usually airpower whallops the heck out of anything on the ground. Do you mean "Dale" Brown (as in "Edge of Battle") because The Bear and the Dragon bears no resemblence to Dan Brown's work. The North Vietnamese were not known for their bedside manners, it is hardly suprising that the KGB guy and the flyer were dissmisive of their barbarism. China has increasingly gotten invovled in Africa, and helped the Sudanese build oil refineries as they killed anything that moved in Darfur. Also, China has increased military spending by a lot, 17% in 2006 alone. Also I read this in the NY Times a few days ago: [url= http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/world/asia/03briefs-MAO.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=mao's%20grandson&st=cse]Mao's grandson promoted on basis of genes[/url] . That is an obvious example of nepotism.
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:While there are no examples after 1973 of modern aircraft going up against moderns SAM, usually airpower whallops the heck out of anything on the ground.
This is a contradiction, if there is no example of a modern up-to-date sam system engaging a modern strike package then one cannot make the dubious claim that a strike package even when utilizing stealth technology against modern advanced militaries and air defence networks in Russia/China would be able to successfully complete every objective with only a single or less casualties.
quote:The Bear and the Dragon bears no resemblence to Dan Brown's work.
I am in fact referencing Dan Brown, not because of any resemblance, but if you read my text it is a matter of credibility Dan Brown presents himself as a well researched writer, using plausible historical facts to present his narrative; but the fact of the matter is that this is utterly false in reality, but the veneer of credibility and respectibility remains to those utterly uneducated in the subject matter.
The same applies to Tom Clancy, a techno-military thriller novelist who achieved early success with realistic scenarios featuring for the most part 99% realistic military technology, kit, and equipment as well as the most likely and plausible ways they would be used with the story simply to show this. But now Tom Clancy allows his political views and a desire to make cheap profit to taint what could otherwise be good books with utter uncredible, unrealistic, unlikely contrived scenario's rigged in the US's favor by a sequence of unfortunate events all designed to allow America to save the day (again).
quote:The North Vietnamese were not known for their bedside manners, it is hardly suprising that the KGB guy and the flyer were dissmisive of their barbarism.
They were also getting bombed to the stone age by the US, milions of Vietnamese died due to the US and their participation in the war, they were a technologically inferior nation lacking in the industrial-military complex or the economic force to engage the US on equal footing, thus, they resorted to any means required to win.
Tom Clancy is either willfully ignorant or a racist, take your pick, all of his books are permeated with the majority of its cast easily and flippantly using derogatory ethnic slurs against Asians and never at all recieving any kind of karmic backlash, implying that its "Okay" for his characters to hold these views, this isn't realism, this is author appeal.
quote:China has increasingly gotten invovled in Africa, and helped the Sudanese build oil refineries as they killed anything that moved in Darfur.
You do realize that Sudan is fighting a civil war not ethnic cleansing right? Also relevance? Sudan is a sovereign nation, so is China, they have the right to trade with each other and invest, Sudan has significant oil deposits its perfectly rational for China fearing an "encirclement" strategy or the security of its oil routes would need to diversify its sources.
quote:Also, China has increased military spending by a lot, 17% in 2006 alone.
So? They're a Great Power and a member of the United Nations Security Council as a permament and founding member, as well as technically a part of the UN Joint Military Commission, it is their responsibility and obligation to maintain a large, well equipped, military for not only the defense of its territorial integrity but also to uphold its obligations to the United Nations.
quote:]Mao's grandson promoted on basis of genes... That is an obvious example of nepotism.
I asked for an example of widespread nepotism in the Intelligence corps of the PLA/or Ministry of State Security and all you could do is dig up an irrelevant example of Mao Zedong's grandson, a career officer being promoted based on merit? Mao isn't alive anymore, not for years. There's no one left in CCP upper echelons politically who would look out for him, this isn't an example of nepotism or corruption as this doesn't jive as that kind of situation, his promotion wasn't publicized so it wasn't an attempt to gain press, he has a career with the army for quite sometime working as researching, to me this promotion was probably a requirement to gain the needed security clearances to do whatever research he may be doing.
Just because he happens to be Mao's grandson, in post-Maoist China... Isn't significant enough evidence to state this an example of nepotism anymore then George W Bush being president because his father was prior to him.
You are just randomly spouting whatever nifty sounding newspaper headlines and not critically thinking the argument through, these are not examples to prove that somehow Beijing is an irrational international actor, everything that they have done conforms with their balanced neorealist and neoliberal policies to achieve a better position in the international system.
By definition any action to enhance your soft and hard power to strengthen the relative position of the nation is rational.
You may not like what China may be doing on the world at large but to claim that it isn't somehow in their logical and rational best interest is ignorant.
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Blayne: You should at least concede the point that the government in China is stacked by the Good Ol' Boys party. All the top and most of the middle level positions are given in part based on your ability but mostly by who you know. Most of the US's diplomats to major countries are that way, so why is it so hard to believe that in China where many if not most of the officials are selected not elected it would be more so?
China does not get hung up on nepotism like we do in the US, they think it's weird that we get so mad if a father helps his son's career progress if they are at the same bank. Now the fact people can only have one child definitely cuts down on that as the chances that one child will definitely want to be in government aren't high.
Arguing that there is no more nepotism in China is like arguing that Americans do not consume more burgers than people in France.
quote:Oh, I'm sorry. I absolutely cannot go on. *groan* Look, YN, the Clancy books are military porn. Enjoy them if you must, but they're no more plausible than a young housewife who, desiring some action, calls up a handsome, innocent, and yet remarkably skilled plumber to clean her pipes.
This reminds me of a book recommendation thread I had made once, and you suggested Tom Clancy to me. I'm retroactively even more insulted than I was at the time .
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: ... Just because he happens to be Mao's grandson, in post-Maoist China... Isn't significant enough evidence to state this an example of nepotism anymore then George W Bush being president because his father was prior to him.
To be fair, Mao's grandson is widely regarded in China as not just an example of nepotism, but as a big joke. Kinda like, well, Bush ... except he hasn't done his harm (yet?).
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Blayne: You should at least concede the point that the government in China is stacked by the Good Ol' Boys party. All the top and most of the middle level positions are given in part based on your ability but mostly by who you know. Most of the US's diplomats to major countries are that way, so why is it so hard to believe that in China where many if not most of the officials are selected not elected it would be more so?
China does not get hung up on nepotism like we do in the US, they think it's weird that we get so mad if a father helps his son's career progress if they are at the same bank. Now the fact people can only have one child definitely cuts down on that as the chances that one child will definitely want to be in government aren't high.
Arguing that there is no more nepotism in China is like arguing that Americans do not consume more burgers than people in France.
I specifically asked for examples in the intelligence corps, examples that could in theory harm them in a shooting war, that some random mayor has his son in charge of say water filtration doesnt matter in this discussion.
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Blayne: It's not "some mayor who has a son in charge of water filtration."
We are talking about upper echelons here. Of course there are mid a lower level operatives who do good work and are qualified to do their jobs. There are even heads of operation who we could safely assume have some ability. But the top brass are career bureaucrats. They may play it hands off and let the guys who know what they are doing make decisions they simply sign, but its just as likely many of them like to toy with power and actively interfere with the intelligence gathering apparatus.
Again, that happens all the time in the US, why should China be immune?
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Blayne Bradley
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Looking at upper echelon profiles like Hu Jintao on wikipedia show that many of them even if it is possible they got help because they're father/uncle were Long March era politicians still had to go through certain motions, such as given a lower level post to start with, then promoted once they gained experience, so even if they were on the fact track the system at least seems to say "Yeah its alright to help your children, but make sure they're at least moderately competent at it".
Which is why YN's example is an argument into cherrypicking to support his blatant and dubious generalization that the "Chinese high command, it is not unreasonable that they would have flaws in their thinking" and "I also disagree with his critiscism of the Chinese leaders, we all know how logical and reasonable communist leaders are [sarcasm]" are baseless.
Sure, all nations have some corruption and some nepotism, but to say that this is significant enough or more accurately severe enough in China to degrade military readiness is ridiculous.
The book is wish fufillment and the author wanking off in our faces nothing more.
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Wikipedia cannot possibly have the information necessary to indicate how Hu Jin Tao got from point A to Z in his rise to becoming chairman. All of these decisions are made by committees behind closed doors, and announced at congress sessions.
Of course you start out low, but unless you've got the "關係" (connections) "Hitherto shalt thou go, but no further." It ensures that many talented people who refuse to be corrupted go nowhere. If you aren't willing to accept graft or cut deals with people, people very quickly notice that, and you are kept in a position where you can be useful but you can't interfere with what other players want to do. All the games are played at the top, all the grunt work takes place at the bottom.
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Blayne Bradley
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Isn't it a sign of being talented being able to acquire the connections in the first place? They're are probly hard working people who only get promoted slowly due to lack of connections but talented people should be able to grab oppurtunity.
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Yes, yes, but there's talent and talent. In every society those with talent rise to the top; the question is, are we talking about those with talent at their actual jobs, or those with talent at, as you say, making connections? The one does not translate into the other.
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iirc about 90% of china's upper rich are children of high-ranking Communist officials. Their cultural/governmental problem of nepotism defies comparison to systems in developed countries, since nothing even remotely on that scale exists.
It would be as if 90% of all multimillionaires in the united states were children of G.O.P. congressmen and federal appointees during the Bush years. And there were no elections and there was only the G.O.P. as the state party. And there had been decades of precedent for party officials to seize property, land, and business interests outright for their own business interests and those of their children. So on. So forth. There's no way to remotely compare the two.
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I really enjoyed Red Storm Rising when it first came out. Then Clancy made a crack on air about Southerns being illiterate and I decided I had better writers to spend my time on.
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quote:Recently the reports and discussions on "91% of the wealthy people who own more than 100 million yuan are children of senior cadres" were circulated broadly on the Internet. On August 4, this reporter entered the subject "91% of those rich people with more than 100 million yuan are children of senior cadres" on Baidu search and obtained more than 2,810 results. Just two days ago, the number was 2,650. At the same time, the traditional media have also published commentaries and opinions based this statistic, drawing wide public attention.
So where did the data come from? Did the 'authoritative departments' actually publish such a research report? Why did this information draw such a high level of attention? With these questions in mind, the People Daily reporter interviewed the various relevant persons and organizations for the purpose of discovering the truth behind the number.
On June 26, Time Weekly published a report written by reporter Han Honggang. The report said in the lead-off: "At the recent 11th Chinese Communist Party Political Consultative Conference standing committee meeting, the 'degree of concentration' of wealth in China drew the close attention of the standing committee members. Committee member Cai Jiming said: 'A report from the authoritative department in China showed that 0.4% of the people own 70% of the wealth. This concentration of wealth is higher than that in the United States.'"
After several tries, our reporter finally made contact on July 31 with Time Weekly reporter Han Honggang. He admitted that the data did not come from the speech of committee member Cai. Rather it came from an essay written by a certain Chinese economist that was published on the Internet in 2006.
Afterwards, our reporter contacted that economist for confirmation. This scholar said that the data came from the Internet in 2006. He said: "At the time, those data were very popular on the Internet."
Cai Jiming, who stands at the vortex of the public opinion storm, is annoyed by the attention. On July 11, he issued a statement of clarification on his personal blog. But the effect was tiny, because the data continued to be disseminated and discussed.
On the afternoon of July 31, Cai Jiming was interviewed by the People Net reporter. He said that at the special topic discussion meeting at the sixth meeting of standing committee of the Eleventh Chinese Communist Party Political Consultative Conference, he only said that "according to the estimation by a research organization outside of China, 0.4% of the wealthiest Chinese people controlled 70% of the wealth."
quote:Let us now look at the other assertion that "3,220 Chinese persons have assets more than 100 million yuan, of whom 2,932 are children of senior cadres." This is where that 91% figure comes from.
China has a population of somewhere about 1.4 billion people (=1,400,000,000). 3,220 persons out of 1,400,000,000 is an incidence of 100 x 3,220 / 1,400,000,000 = 0.00023%. If you run a survey with 100,000 respondents, the number of respondents with assets more than 100 million yuan is 100,000 x 3,220 / 1,400,000,000 = 0.23. I dare you to explain how you figured out that 2,932 out of those 3,220 are children of senior cadres on the basis of this already massive survey. It seems that you can't get to that level of precision. Even if you surveyed 10,000,000 (= ten million) persons, you will only find 23 people with assets of 100 million yuan or more. Nobody can afford to do a survey with such a sample size.
The reported numbers are also too precise. 3,220 persons with assets worth more than 100 million yuan? 2,932 with senior cadres as parents? These numbers could not have been obtained via any sample survey. The only way to arrive at this level of precision is that you have a complete listing. In other words, you have census data.
Chinese citizens are not required to declare their net worth to anyone. It is not as if some government agency has a listing of the net asset worth of all citizens from which they tally that 3,220 out of 1.4 billion people own more than 100 million yuan. If all citizens are required to periodically declare their net asset worth to the government, then this is possible. But no such procedure is known to exist. Even if such a procedure exists, it does not mean that people will provide truthful answers. Why would you tell the government that you have 100 million yuan in assets? Do you want them to audit your tax returns? If this procedure exists, many of the corruption problems would go away because it is possible, for example, to produce a list of government officials who earn 5,000 yuan or less per month but own more than 10 million yuan in assets. That is called "having assets incommensurate with your known income" and those flagged need to explain their unexpected wealth. ... Highly connected people have accumulated disproportionately greater wealth? Yes, it is logically reasonable, in China and anywhere else in the world. 2,932 of 3,220 Chinese persons with more than 100 million yuan in assets are children of senior cadres? Bogus.
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. Calling Clancy a racist makes no sense. He makes African-Americans and Hispanics heroes on a regular basis, and goes to great pains to show in Executive Orders that not all Arabs are "crazy terrorists". The spy is a JAPANESE-AMERICAN, and the government is overthrown by Chinese students. Soldiers always try to dehumanize their enemies, and Clancy is simply writing from a candid POV. His casual dissmisal of the assasination subplot shows his complete ignorance about the importance of inteligence leaks like that in history. Communist countries often place advancement of people loyal to the party ahead of inteligent people (I wonder if those things have an inverse relationship....), so it is not completely unreasonable to think that there would be flaws in the thinking of the Chinese high command. Wikileaks recent release of the documents from the war in Afganistan caused the deaths of several Afganis, so maybe his critiscm of the Media is not totally ridculous. His last section at the end is so @#$%ing stupid.
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