History Literature / ExecutiveOrders

* CanadaEh: The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are stated in-dialogue to be helping with the investigation into the suicide attack from the previous novel (as the pilot took off from a Vancouver airport).

* CompressedTimeline: the events of the novel take place over the course of a month, with the UIR biological attack and conventional war (the second half of the book) taking place over 6-7 days.

* CrazyPrepared: PlayedWith. After being briefed on the nuclear football, Jack demands to review the plans, and finds orders for several methods on how to devastate Japan with nuclear weapons (including an EMP strike). He orders the plans to be destroyed, but notes in his internal monologue that the Pentagon doesn't actually destroy anything, and that the plans will probably be filed away "just in case".

* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Former Vice President Ed Kealty spends most of the book mounting a challenge to Jack's presidency. In order to counter Jack's executive order quarantining America in the face of an Ebola epidemic, he files a suit to have the order vacated due to violating the Constitution -- which refers to President Ryan by his proper name and office, effectively acknowledging Jack's position in a way he'd been careful to avoid up to that point. As a result, he effectively kills his own claim to the Presidency until ''Literature/TeethOfTheTiger''.

** The Mountain Men also manage to screw themselves over by overreacting to the cop who stopped them. The cop is actually on the verge of letting them go -- he thinks they're weird and vaguely suspicious, but their IDs are in order and he has no reason to hold them. But they decide the way he's walking back to their truck is ominous (the cop has his hand on his gun butt, which the narration points out is basically how all cops walk), and so they try to flee.

''Executive Orders'' is the eighth instalment of the ''Literature/JackRyan'' series, written by Creator/TomClancy, and follows Jack in [[ImmediateSequel the weeks following a devastating tragedy]] that elevates him to the top of the government.

** Actually a far more reasonable example than most. Jack is stating his personal belief on the issue, but also doesn't believe that it's properly within his powers as president to resolve it. Unfortunately, Van Damm explains that stating that in those terms means that liberals will only hear "he's against abortion" and conservatives will only hear "he doesn't care."

* NumberOfTheBeast: An Air China jetliner shot down [MakeItLookLikeAnAccident “by accident”] has a listed flight number of 666.

In the wake of a [[DrivenToSuicide suicide attack]] that resulted in [[KillEmAll the President and all of Congress being killed]], Jack Ryan is sworn in as President of the United States. Reeling from what's just happened, Jack is forced to lead alone as a new threat establishes itself in the Middle East -- the Iranian ''ayatollah'' Mahmoud Haji Daryaei, who instigates a coup-de-etat in Iraq, blitzkriegs it and fuses it with Iran to form a new nation called the United Islamic Republic. With Daryaei beginning to conduct terror attacks throughout the world, Jack is forced to take unprecedented steps to protect the country and its citizens. Jack also simultaneously fights a challenge to his leadership by Ed Kealty, the former Vice-President who was replaced shortly before the Congress attack.

* BoomHeadshot: Special Agent O'Day does this to dispatch the last two terrorists trying to kidnap Jack's daughter.

* NumberOfTheBeast: A Taiwanese jetliner bombed as part of a terrorist attack has a listed flight number of 666.

--> ''Mr. Daryaei, here is the reply of the United States of America.'' (cue a laser-guided bomb taking out Daryaei's compound on national television)

* BadassGrandpa: Secret Service Special Agent Don Russell, Katie Ryan's bodyguard, who has grandchildren of his own. [[spoiler:When terrorists with AK-47s attack Katie's daycare centre, Don has one second of warning and takes down 3 before getting shot, and kills a fourth with his dying breaths]].

''Executive Orders'' is the eighth installment of the ''Literature/JackRyan'' series, written by Creator/TomClancy, and follows Jack in the weeks following a devastating tragedy that elevates him to the top of the government.

* BadassBookworm: Colonel Nick Eddington, commanding officer of the North Carolina National Guard's 1st Brigade, is a professor of military history in his day job.

* FridgeHorror: An InUniverse example. When Ryan is touring the destroyed Capitol Building, he realizes that if President Durling had picked someone else to be the new vice president, then he would have been sitting with the other members of the Cabinet for the ceremony, with Cathy in the balcony. They both were saved from a fiery death because he happened to be a political nobody who would've been barely remembered as a inconsequential vice president.
* FriendlyRivalry: Special Agents O'Day and Russell have this, as they continually try to one-up each other to see who's a better shot. After the Giant Steps incident ([[spoiler:and Russell's death]]), O'Day admits that Russell is superior.

* MysteriousBacker: Ultimately subverted with Zhang Han San (and, by extension, the Chinese government). He aspires to be this: as in ''DebtOfHonor'', his MO here is to quietly support a smaller nation's aggression against the United States, in the hopes of being able to benefit from the fallout without being implicated. However, he's not nearly as mysterious as he thinks, the CIA becomes aware of him and his actions throughout the novel, and his meddling ultimately backfires badly when President Ryan responds by recognizing Taiwan as a sovereign nation (a ''huge'' slap in the face and blow to Chinese diplomacy, as the Chinese consider it a breakaway province that is legally their territory).

* SoleSurvivor: Or rather, dual survivors. Al Trent and Sam Fellows are the only two United States senators who survived the plane crash that killed the rest of the Senate, as the two men happened to be in the tunnels under the capital with Ryan when the attack happened.

** Justified: the two countries had barely been unified for a couple of months, and given that Daryaei ran the UIR as a one-man show, it's hard to believe that there would've been any state infrastructure left to hold it together after his death.

* BadassBystander: When terrorists storm a day care center to kidnap [[spoiler:the President's young daughter]], the only other parent there to pick up the kids is an armed FBI agent, Pat O'Day.

* BodyguardBetrayal: Daryaei has sleeper agents placed in the protection details of several world leaders; the plot of the novel gets moving when the President of Iraq is assassinated by the one in his bodyguard contingent, and later in the novel the one in the US President's protection detail is activated.

In the wake of a [[DrivenToSuicide suicide attack]] that resulted in [[KillEmAll the President and all of Congress being killed]], Jack Ryan is sworn in as President of the United States. Reeling from what's just happened, Jack is forced to lead alone as a new threat establishes itself in the Middle East -- an Ayatollah named Haji Daryaei, who leads a coup and forms a new nation called the United Islamic Republic. With Daryaei beginning to conduct terror attacks throughout the world, Jack is forced to take unprecedented steps to protect the country and its citizens. Jack also simultanously fights a challenge to his leadership by Ed Kealty, the former Vice-President who was replaced shortly before the Congress attack.

* ActionDuo: Clark and Chavez, naturally. They lead the mission to smart-bomb Daryaei's compound in the latter half of the book.
* TheAlliance: Iran (soon becoming the United Islamic Republic), India, and China. As in the previous book, this is downplayed by the fact that the latter two are unwilling to risk too much on the other's behalf. China limits its assistance to deniable and apparently innocuous actions meant to distract the U.S, while India initially offers more but backs off after a very blunt conversation with President Ryan.

** Used to great effect via Jack's speeches. One chapter in particular, "The Ryan Doctrine", has Jack go on at length about how any countries that want to attack the U.S. will be in trouble if they attempt to go through with it.

** Jack pretty much ends the UIR threat inside of a week, via using martial law to contain TheVirus before it spreads, deploying two divisions and a National Guard brigade to the Middle East that utterly ravage three UIR Armies[[note]]Also known as "1 US tank for every 20 UIR tanks, and the 20 UIR tanks are the ones that lost"[[/note]], and finally smart-bombing Daryaei on national television.

* PetTheDog: John Plumber goes on national television to apologize to Jack, after he and other journalists peppered Jack with inappropriate questions about his past in the hours following the latter's ascension to the Presidency.

* ProxyWar: To a degree, the Second Persian Gulf War is one on both sides. The Chinese and Indians provide some support to the UIR because they're counting on it to cripple America and later Russia, clearing the way for their own expansionist ambitions. The Russians, in turn, provide covert assistance to the U.S. throughout the war, because they'd rather see the UIR stopped immediately than have to face it themselves in a couple of years.

** The Indian Prime Minister, who attempts to bully Jack because she doesn't believe he's capable of running the country. Jack soon shuts her up after his RousingSpeech and public takedown of the UIR.

* PermissionToSpeakFreely: The newly-promoted ''Admiral'' Robby Jackson uses this phrase to warn the new Secretary of Defense Tony Bretano about the reason that Vice Chief of Naval Operations Bruno [=DeMarco=] was appointed to the position, as he was promoted to CNO after the [[spoiler:Capitol Hill disaster]].