Executive Orders

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Executive Orders
Written by: Tom Clancy
Central Theme:
Synopsis: The war with Japan is over, at a terrible cost. Meanwhile, Iran, sensing weakness in the badly damaged U.S. government, embarks on a campaign of terrorism and biological warfare in an attempt to unify the Muslim world by force. Not only is Ryan's leadership ability called into question like never before, but he and his family have once again become targets of a ruthless and powerful enemy.
Series: Jack Ryan
Preceded by: Debt of Honor
Followed by: Rainbow Six (novel)
First published: July 1, 1996
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A novel by Tom Clancy. The second part of the Myth Arc started in Debt of Honor.

After a kamikaze strike on the Capitol Building by a deranged Japanese airline pilot, Jack Ryan becomes President of the United States of America.

Unfortunately, the entire previous government more or less perished while he survived, so he faces the task of not only being President, but trying to reconstruct the government to its former glory.

But it will not be easy. Enemies, both foreign and domestic are seeking to destroy him, with former Vice President Edward Kealty trying to unseat Ryan so he can President, aided by media pundits and former enemies Jack made in CIA aiding and abetting Kealty. On the foreign front, China continues to have imperial ambitions, India still has the same, and they've joined forces with Iran, which seeks to start a world war for power while attempting to further cripple the weakened United States.

Tropes used in Executive Orders include:


  • Anonymous Ringer: Saddam Hussein is never mentioned as being anything other than "The President of Iraq", but he's the guy who is clearly assassinated not too far into the book. He is later referred to by his actual name by American military personnel discussing the Gulf War, but Clancy otherwise went out of his way to avoid identifying the killed Iraqi president by name.
  • Asshole Victim: The fact Hussein was murdered doesn't really make anyone on either side feel any regret.
    • The unnamed Premier of Turkmenistan is regarded as such by pro-Daryaei conspirators, who arrange to off him so a Daryeai friendly politician can step into his place.
    • The prisoners killed by the scientists working on Daryaei's bio-weapon plan are considered as such, given all of them are condemned criminals anyway.
  • Badass
  • Bodyguard Betrayal: Daryaei loves this trope, using it to great effect to get Hussein killed. He tries again with Jack Ryan using USSS agent Aref Ramam, but his cover is discovered shortly before he can pull it off and his attempt to kill Ryan backfires.
    • Raman himself lampshades it probably wasn't the best idea for his real boss to use the same trick twice because America and the Middle East were worlds apart politically and the same trick would not be as ideal given the differences in the Middle Eastern and American political scene. And he's right, as Daryaei's attempts to utilize the same trick more than once only serves to make the FBI realize Daryaei might try the same stunt on the President after a failed terrorist attack sponsored by Daryaei draws the USSS even closer around the President, which is nigh identical to circumstances allowing the Iraqi President to be murdered.
  • Devil In Plain Sight: NO ONE trusts Daryaei. Even his own allies know their alliance is temporary at best and everyone knows his real ambitions despite what he tells the world.
  • Divide and Conquer: Essentially the intended result of the various Evil Plans arrayed against Jack Ryan. Lack of coordination causes them to fall apart.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Raman is a sleeper assassin who will happily do Daryaei's bidding, but even he was sickened and disturbed by the attack on Ryan's youngest child, to the point he nearly blew his own cover trying to console Jack Ryan when it happened.
    • Dr. Moudi is quite disturbed by the fact he helped two women of virtue die in his attempt to culture an airborne strain of Ebola as a bioweapon. His lingering morality isn't strong enough to actually make him cease doing so, but he does have one brief moment where he defies his superior on the project and gives one of the women a medically induced Mercy Kill because he couldn't bear to see her endure anymore pain.
    • The Mountain Men are quite against the possibility of hurting children, even though they have no qualms killing adults.
  • Failed a Spot Check: Used in several different ways in the book.
    • The very first is when a nun unknowingly infects herself with Ebola because she didn't realize that it could spread by aerosol nor that she accidentally touched contaminated blood.
    • The latter is used to foil Daryeai's attempt to assassinate Ryan. Which is accomplished by duping Aref Raman into trying to kill Ryan with bullets with no firing powder, which he failed to notice because the difference in weight from normal rounds was so slight he couldn't detect the ammo had been switched out.
  • Genre Blind: The Indian Prime Minister is looked down upon by even her own allies for having a bad case of this. And this works to Ryan's advantage, as she proved so brittle under real pressure despite her claims to the contrary it allowed him to intimidate her into backstabbing Daryaei to save herself.
  • Genre Savvy: Both Jack Ryan and Domingo Chavez show they are aware of the tropes of the situations they are in, with Ryan immediately realizing the plots against him coming a long before they actually do and Ding figures out very quickly all the crap America has to deal with is done for the purpose of distracting the country as a whole from something else. Ding even figures out the real motivations for the assassin of Hussein and who his likely boss was long before anyone else by the same token.
  • Hoist By Their Own Petard: Ed Kealty tries to discredit Jack Ryan as the real President for most of the book. When threatening him with scandals that might force him to resign backfires, he tries to manipulate the courts into declaring his actions as President illegal. He gets what he wanted, but it ultimately doesn't help him. Worse, this results in the courts affirming officially that Ryan is the President because Kealty had to name the President as a defendant based on the actions Ryan took as part of his duties in that office, and the courts agreed Ryan's order was valid if illegal in their eyes because he was the legitimate President. And even that is nullified legally.
  • Hypocrite: Daryeai repeatedly violates his own religion numerous times to achieve his goals, a fact even his own allies note to themselves with no illusions otherwise. The more self-aware of them even violate Islam's tenets themselves, but avert the trope by having the honesty to admit it to themselves.
  • Obvious Beta: The bio-war plan using Ebola in general. It was an airborne variant of Ebola like the Iranians thought, but only a very weak airborne version, a fact they never noticed in their tests because they left other sources of contamination around, which disguised the weakness of the airborne transmission. This resulted in the actual damage it did being far less than they hoped for.
  • Unreliable Narrator: Daryaei gets a lot of internal monologue in which he clearly keeps telling himself he doing everything he does in the name of Allah while he publicly tries to put on a facade of seeking peace despite his anger filled past. It's clear he believes his own self delusion, but everyone else, both enemies and his own supporters, realize he's just a power hungry killer rationalizing everything as being done in the name of Allah, even though he betrays every principle of his faith that he finds convenient to do so in pursuit of his goals.
  • The Virus: Daryaei has a plan to weaponize an airborne strain of Ebola as a bio weapon to cripple the United States and potentially other enemies.
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