History YMMV / TheSumOfAllFears

** The Russian president in the film is a Putin expy. He's portrayed the way most in the West viewed Putin circa 2001, a bit tough and rough around the edges but a good guy ultimately. That line of thought has not aged well since then, unfortunately.

* HilariousInHindsight: Elliot calls Ryan "James Bond", unable to adapt to the end of the Soviet Union, but the novel makes it clear that his skills are still necessary. More than twenty years later, ''Film/{{Skyfall}}'' would run with the same themes.

** Let's just say Nemerov's role as a heroic Vladimir Putin who wants to expand the Russian Empire but disdains war crimes hits very, very different after years of Putin's control of Russia.

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: Oh, man. The movie is about large-scale terrorism and finished filming in ''June'' 2001.

*** The US' planning in general came to be focused on a true "improvised nuclear device" that wouldn't require expertise as seen in both the novel and movie ( TruthInTelevision in the novel in particular - nuclear weapons are easily botched[[note]]even weapons built by government-funded teams with years of experience can still fail or [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fizzle_(nuclear_explosion) fizzle]][[/note]], and the technical expertise needed to create even a low-yield atomic device is considered far beyond the reach of terrorist groups - see the Real Life folder on ExplosiveStupidity for examples of the trouble they can get into with just conventional explosives). There is a lot of such planning, much of which was released to the public, and the idea of a terrorist doing this is now so deeply ingrained that it would be all but impossible to leap to the conclusion the fascists want as quickly as the plot demands.

** The Russian president in the film is pretty much a Putin expy. He's portrayed pretty much the way most in the West viewed Putin circa 2001, a bit tough and rough around the edges but a good guy ultimately. That line of thought has not aged well since then, unfortunately.

** [[spoiler: Cabot's death.]]

* IdiotBall: Jack Ryan grabs it ''hard'' when he has finally gotten on the phone with one of the President's advisors, a man who hates him and dismissively refers to him as "Nemerov apologist" right off the bat. Instead of ''immediately'' telling him that he can ''prove'' the plutonium in the bomb was of American origin, which would ''at least'' encourage further investigation before retaliation, he decides to argue with the guy about Nemerov's integrity, which just makes the advisor hang up on him. Arguably the advisor, too, is handling the idiot ball here, since he's ignoring potential new information from a CIA Analyst who he knows was working directly for Bill Cabot in recent weeks.

** The Jersualem Treaty also counts as one, in light of increasingly tense disputes between Israelis and Palestinians. Interestingly enough, it also extends to in-universe, [[BrokenBase for better or worse,]] as it is revealed as the Treaty fell apart by the time Literature/TeethOfTheTiger came around.

** The Jersualem Treaty also counts as one, in light of increasingly tense disputes between Israelis and Palestinians. Interestingly enough, it also extends to in-universe, [[BrokenBase for better or worse,]]as it is revealed as the Treaty fell apart by the time Literature/TeethOfTheTiger came around.

** The Jersualem Treaty also counts as one, in light of increasingly tense disputes between Israelis and Palestinians. Interestingly enough, it also extends to in-universe, [[BrokenBase for better or worse,]]as it is [[Retcon revealed]] as the Treaty fell apart by the time Literature/TeethOfTheTiger came around.

* TooSoon: The biggest criticism of the film was that it came out less than a year after the September 11 Attacks [[spoiler: so seeing a major American city destroyed by Nuclear Bomb hit way too close to home for many.]]