History Literature / ClearAndPresentDanger

* SwissBankAccount: The Cartel launder their money through an intricate network set up by an Alabama businessman, which was almost untraceable. However, once it's cracked by Operation ''TARPON'', it inflicts a net loss on the Cartel on the order of half a billion dollars. Keep in mind, these are 1988 dollars, so the result is equivalent to ''over'' a billion dollars today.

** In lesser measure, Bob Ritter himself, as Clark explains while venting to Larson. Not only has he had a desk job for so long that he's losing his memory of how things work in the field, but his own career in the field consisted mostly of running spies in Eastern Europe, which is very different from the "low intensity warfare" that the CIA is now practicing in Colombia.

* ElitesAreMoreGlamorous: Averted. John Clark recruits his soldiers from regular U.S. Army light infantry units and then gives them additional training in guerrilla warfare. The reason he doesn't recruit from Special Forces is that the Special Forces community is small enough that people would notice the missing soldiers and start asking questions.

* ArtisticLicense[=/=]AnachronismStew: In the real world, 1988 featured UsefulNotes/GeorgeHWBush running against Michael Dukakis, since it was impossible for UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan, who got elected in 1980, to run for a third term. However, for the purposes of the story, the President in the last two novels was elected to his first term in 1984, theoretically making him either Harold Stassen or Walter Mondale. But this is impossible, since ''Red October'', which has the same President, clearly states that December 3rd took place on a Friday that year, which makes it only possible to happen in one of four years in the post-Vietnam, pre-2000 era: 1976 (Impossible as Ryan would have still been in college at that time, and ''Red October'' has explicit references to events that happened in 1981), 1982 (''Red Rabbit'', which takes place before ''Red October'' is explicitly stated to take place in this year), 1993, or 1999. This gets more confusing in later novels where Clancy treats the Reagan and Bush presidencies as happening as normal. Furthermore, the President in ''Clear and Present Danger'' is implied to be a Republican, or at least right-wing (the parties are never named in the Clancy novels), because his opponent Fowler's foreign policy is very dove-ish and pro-Cuba and his convention is in Chicago, a traditional location for [=DNCs=]. In addition, Clark mentions that he's been in the spy business for twenty-odd years, which, since ''Literature/WithoutRemorse'' had him get recruited by the CIA in the early seventies, implies this story takes place in 1996 at the earliest.

* HollywoodSilencer: Played completely straight, notable in a book by Tom Clancy, whose claim to fame is meticulous research and realism in the technological aspects of his stories[[note]]For what it's worth, the MP5-SD2 on single-shot with subsonic ammunition ''is'' impressively quiet, but firing it on three-round burst (as Chavez does) or full-auto makes it unmistakable as gunfire, if you're close enough (generally about 100 feet). The intent of the SD2 isn't silence, it's confusion: the few seconds of "was that gunfire or something else?" is invaluable.[[/note]]

* HollywoodSilencer: Played completely straight, notable in a book by Tom Clancy, whose claim to fame is meticulous research and realism in the technological aspects of his stories.

* DarkHorseVictory: The President was heavily favored to win the election but deliberately throws it, allowing Bob Fowler to win an upset victory.

* DidYouJustFlipOffCthulhu: invoked in-universe by Felix Cortez. He refuses to divulge the identity of his sources to Escobedo, saying that not only is this a principle of intelligence operations but that ''Castro himself'' once asked him the same thing and was given the same answer. Privately, he acknowledges this is baloney: not only was he never that close to Castro, but no one in Cuba would have dared refuse him if he ''had'' asked. It's a good story to improve your street cred, though.

* NoOneGetsLeftBehind: Brutally averted. Most of the American teams don't make it out and even the ones that do suffer heavy casualties, with those who fall being left behind and likely ending up in unmarked graves.

* RealityEnsues: Dropping laser guided bombs on drug kingpins is all fun and games until the rescue teams start pulling the bodies of the kingpins' family and innocent house servants from the wreckage.

* ArtisticLicense[=/=]AnachronismStew: In the real world, 1988 featured UsefulNotes/GeorgeHWBush running against Michael Dukakis, since it was impossible for UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan, who got elected in 1980, to run for a third term. However, for the purposes of the story, the President in the last two novels was elected to his first term in 1984, theoretically making him either Harold Stassen or Walter Mondale. But this is impossible, since ''Red October'', which has the same President, clearly states that December 3rd took place on a Friday that year, which makes it only possible to happen in one of four years in the post-Vietnam, pre-2000 era: 1976 (Impossible as Ryan would have still been in college at that time, and ''Red October'' has explicit references to events that happened in 1981), 1982 (''Red Rabbit'', which takes place before ''Red October'' is explicitly stated to take place in this year), 1993, or 1999. This gets more confusing in later novels where Clancy treats the Reagan and Bush presidencies as happening as normal. Furthermore, the President in ''Clear and Present Danger'' is implied to be a Republican, or at least right-wing (the parties are never named in the Clancy novels), because his opponent Fowler's foreign policy is very dove-ish and pro-Cuba and his convention is in Chicago, a traditional location for [=DNCs=].

* ArtisticLicense[=/=]AnachronismStew: In the real world, 1988 featured UsefulNotes/GeorgeHWBush running against Michael Dukakis, since it was impossible for UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan, who got elected in 1980, to run for a third term. However, for the purposes of the story, the President in the last two novels was elected to his first term in 1984, theoretically making him either Harold Stassen or Walter Mondale. But this is impossible, since ''Red October'', which has the same President, clearly states that December 3rd took place on a Friday that year, which makes it only possible to happen in one of four years in the post-Vietnam, pre-2000 era: 1976 (Impossible as Ryan would have still been in college at that time), 1982 (''Red Rabbit'', which takes place before ''Red October'' is explicitly stated to take place in this year), 1993, or 1999. This gets more confusing in later novels where Clancy treats the Reagan and Bush presidencies as happening as normal. Furthermore, the President in ''Clear and Present Danger'' is implied to be a Republican, or at least right-wing (the parties are never named in the Clancy novels), because his opponent Fowler's foreign policy is very dove-ish and pro-Cuba and his convention is in Chicago, a traditional location for [=DNCs=].

The novel is notable for introducing {{Badass}} John Clark as a regularly recurring character, after the popularity he enjoyed in ''Literature/TheCardinalOfTheKremlin'', as well as Domingo "Ding" Chavez, who would later become the other half of Clark's Badass Duo.

** LeaveBehindAPistol: [[spoiler:Admiral Cutter is given the "choice" by Clark of facing trial for flagrant violations of U.S. and international law. He chooses the "easy" way out by stepping in front of a bus. Later novels clarify that Clark did this entirely on his own initiative.]]

** FalseFlagOperation: In order to facilitate the above, Clark [[spoiler:uses Navy-dropped stealth bombs to make the Cartel think that their own members are killing each other]].

** HonoraryUncle: [[spoiler:Due to Buck Zimmer's death, Ryan effectively becomes this, looking after Zimmer's family and making sure they all go to college]]. It becomes a major plot point in later novels.

* WasItReallyWorthIt: [[{{YMMV}} depends on your point of view]]. This is discussed in a later book when we learn that the operation was a success, in the sense that the Cartel eventually came apart as a result of the EnemyCivilWar initiated here. On the other hand, this made no serious dent in Colombia's organized crime problem or in the drug trade, as [[EvilPowerVacuum another cartel simply took its place]]. On the ''other'' other hand: "True, and they haven't killed any American officials, have they? Somebody explained to them what the rules are."

* OddFriendship: Alan Trent, a gay liberal for Massachusetts who was introduced in ''Literature/TheCardinalOfTheKremlin'', is first seen in the company of Sam Fellows, a Mormon from Arizona, at the end of the novel [[spoiler:when they force the President to throw the election to Fowler]].

** In ''much'' lesser measure, Clark with the Cartel. He despises drug dealing and organized crime on a very personal level, but is also a veteran Cold Warrior and as such appreciates the Cartel's very successful history of confronting Marxist insurgencies in Colombia.

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Cortez, when he discovers the nature of the American operation against the cartel, to the point of saying he would like to meet the man who put this plan together: "truly he is a professional!" When he ''does'' get to meet John Clark, it doesn't end well for him.

* DarkerAndEdgier: the Ryanverse was never a warm and fuzzy place, but it takes a level in darkness in this one. Admiral Greer [[spoiler:dies of cancer]]; high ranking members of the U.S. government who had previously been shown as men of honor and integrity, including Judge Moore, Bob Ritter, and the President, are shown engaging in a covert operation that eventually [[spoiler:slides into a criminal conspiracy]]; Admiral Cutter gives us our first CorruptPolitician in the series; and by the end, [[spoiler:the President having thrown the election as part of a deal to avoid exposure]], it's implied (and sadly borne out by the next book) that the incoming administration will be even worse. The American soldiers deployed to Colombia are [[spoiler:betrayed by a superior trying to cover his own ass]], resulting in the deaths of most of them. Finally, the book touches on two heavily topical and controversial issues for the late eighties, the war on drugs and the Iran-contra scandal, in contrast to the general {{Eagleland}} Type 1 portrayal of America in the first few books.
** Possibly the bleakest thing about the story is the knowledge that the drug problem is unsolvable, or at least beyond the ability of the main characters to fix - as Cortez points out, education may eventually reduce the demand for drugs, but in the meantime, so long as Americans want them, someone will be there to supply them.

* DidYouJustFlipOffCthulhu: invoked in-universe by Felix Cortez. He refuses to divulge the identity of his sources to Escobedo, saying that not only is this a principle of intelligence operations but that Castro himself once asked him the same thing and was given the same answer. Privately, he acknowledges this is baloney: not only was he never that close to Castro, but no one in Cuba would have dared refuse him if he ''had'' asked. It's a good story to improve your street cred, though.

* OddFriendship: Alan Trent, who was introduced in ''Literature/TheCardinalOfTheKremlin'', is first seen in the company of Sam Fellows, a Mormon from Arizona, at the end of the novel [[spoiler:when they force the President to throw the election to Fowler]].

* HomeFieldAdvantage: In one case, some Cartel workers manage to escape from Team ''Knife'' due to knowing the terrain better and using it to flee.

** Possibly the bleakest thing about the story is the knowledge that the drug problem is unsolvable, or at least beyond the ability of the main characters to fix - as Cortez points out, education reduce the demand for drugs, but in the meantime, so long as Americans want them, someone will be there to supply them.

* DarkerAndEdgier: the Ryanverse was never a warm and fuzzy place, but it takes a level in darkness in this one. Admiral Greer [[spoiler:dies of cancer]]; high ranking members of the U.S. government who had previously been shown as men of honor and integrity, including Judge Moore, Bob Ritter, and the President, are shown engaging in a covert operation that eventually [[spoiler:slides into a criminal conspiracy]]; Admiral Cutter gives us our first CorruptPolitician in the series; and by the end, [[spoiler:the President having thrown the election as part of a deal to avoid exposure]], it's implied (and sadly borne out by the next book) that the incoming administration will be even worse. The American soldiers deployed to Colombia are [[spoiler:betrayed by a superior trying to cover his own ass]], resulting in the deaths of most of them. Finally, the book touches on two heavily topical and controversial issues for the late eighties, the war on drugs and the Iran-contra crisis, in contrast to the general {{Eagleland}} Type 1 portrayal of America in the first few books.

* GeniusBruiser: Clark. He's former non-commissioned officer with no college degree who's kept around partly as the CIA's in-house hitman. He also speaks six languages, several of them well enough to pass for a native, is fully capable of planning complex operations (both information gathering and low intensity warfare), and his ability to restructure these operations on the fly in the face of changing circumstances while still achieving the best outcome possible borders on XanatosSpeedChess.

** In lesser measure, Bob Ritter himself, as Clark explains while venting to Larson. Not only has he had a desk job for so long that he's losing his memory of how things work in the field, but his own career in the field consisted mostly of running spy operations in Eastern Europe, which is very different from the "low intensity warfare" that the CIA is now practicing in Colombia.

** Cortez feels this way about the American who set up the operation against the Cartel (Bob Ritter, though he doesn't know it), noting that it's an unusually subtle yet ruthless plan by CIA standards and the sort of thing he himself might have thought up.