History Literature / TheCardinalOfTheKremlin

* NoPlansNoPrototypeNoBackup: Sort of. The plans for Bright Star were in the same building as the prototype, so they were lost when the Archer's second in command trashed the place. At the same, several of the researchers who made the plans and the prototypes were killed when the Archer attacked the dormitories, complicating any attempts to reproduce the research immensely.

* HeteronormativeCrusader: done interestingly. Jack Ryan seems to be one, when a loud and public argument with a gay liberal congressman culminates in him using an attack that would've been crudely homophobic even in the eighties. [[spoiler:This turns out to be an act, meant to make the KGB believe that Ryan was falling out of favor with the American authorities as well as garnering some sympathy from the equally homophobic Soviets]]. The congressman in question had spent time in the Soviet Union before, enough to fall in love with a Soviet citizen, [[spoiler:causing the latter to be sentenced to the gulag for "antisocial activity." This results in a strong case of ItsPersonal towards the Soviet government, which, combined with the congressman's national security expertise and basic patriotism, made him all too happy to participate in the CIA operation against the KGB Chairman. As Ryan puts it to Gerasimov: "so, I guess you could say we used your own prejudices against you]].
** To the confusion of everyone not involved in the operation, [[spoiler: the senator ends up becoming one of Jack's most ardent defenders and supporters, until he dies at the end of ''Executive Orders''.]] Since everyone only knows about the very public confrontation between them, they struggle to understand why.
** Also played with where Beatrice Taussig is concerned. Bea's KGB handler is secretly repulsed by her agent's sexual preferences - to say nothing of being afraid Bea's affections may one day be turned on ''her'' - but maintains an accepting facade, not wanting to push her asset away. Similarly, when an FBI agent investigating the leak in the Tea Clipper program suspects Taussig might be a lesbian, her name is moved to the top of the list of potential suspects... but when surveillance doesn't pick up any signs of espionage activity, she's ruled out just as quickly as everyone else.
* HeroicSacrifice: Oleg Penkovskiy, when questioned by Filitov as to why they're both under KGB surveillance, convinces Filitov to become an agent for the US, and at the same time, tells Filitov to turn in Penkovskiy to establish his ''bona fides'' as a hero of the soviet union, and therefore beyond suspicion. Penkovskiy supposedly did it fully in the knowledge that he was about to be caught and killed.

* InterServiceRivalry: Taken up to eleven between the Red Army and KGB. At the top, it's simple power politics - Defense Minister Yazov and KGB Chairman Gerasimov are in opposite factions on the Politburo, hence the latter's attempts to compromise the former. It's equally intense in the ranks, though. Filitov considers the "chekists" to be incompetent meddlers, whose main contribution to World War Two was spying on their own men and executing those who'd been forced to retreat. Bondarenko considers their guards to be amateurs playing at war, and takes great pleasure in embarrassing them on his morning exercise run. And during the assault on the Bright Star complex, when a KGB officer doesn’t like the idea of Bondarenko (a decorated Afghanistan veteran) taking command of the defenses, Bondarenko unceremoniously knocks him on his ass and shoots him dead, [[{{Understatement}} quelling further dissent]]. [[spoiler:(That said, he does develop some respect for the ones who stand and fight alongside him when the Archer attacks Bright Star, and personally decorates one of them after the battle is over)]]. Even Vatutin's sympathetic counterpart from military intelligence lampshades this, asking him how he thinks the military will react if the KGB were to try torturing a confession out of a war hero.

* NotInThisForYourRevolution: a villainous example with Gerasimov, though he has the good sense not to say it out loud. His partner, Alexandrov, is a true believer in Marxism-Leninism and sees the coup they're plotting as an attempt to save their country from Narmonov's reforms. Gerasimov only cares about the power and perks - some of his plans for Russia are even NotSoDifferent from those of the man he's trying to overthrow.

* OddFriendship: Representatives Alan Trent (a gay Democrat from Massachusetts) and Sam Fellows (a Mormon Republican from Arizona), both members of the House Select Intelligence Committee.

* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: Discussed when Ryan points out that nuclear reductions treaties are nice, but really amount to little more than PR stunts that don't affect the nuclear war equation[[note]]The problem, he notes, is when the nuclear arsenals get ''small enough'', at which point nuclear war might be "winnable" through a carefully orchestrated and flawless first strike to take out the other side's arsenal. This is, in RealLife, one of the reasons that the SALT treaties and later START treaties broke down when the arsenal numbers got low enough[[/note]]. His analogy is figuratively pointing a gun with an eighteen round magazine at a man and then agreeing to remove six rounds from it, then asking if the man feels any safer.

* MurderTheHypotenuse: Beatrice Taussig quickly agrees to go along with the plan to [[spoiler:kidnap Al Gregory]], seeing it as a means to remove her rival for [[spoiler:Candi's]] affections. Unlike most examples of this trope, however, Bea actually display's genuine concern for [[spoiler:Al's]] well being, not wanting him dead but merely out of the way.

* TortureAlwaysWorks: KGB torture techniques are shown in great detail, and rarely do they involve physical abuse. One captured agent breaks from sensory deprivation, and another from sleep deprivation and psychological deception.

** Agent CASSIUS, a Soviet mole, makes his chronologically final appearance in the series. [[spoiler:Here, he acts as a double agent, having been caught and turned in ''The Hunt for Red October.''

* ComfortingTheWidow: Beatrice Taussig makes a clumsy attempt at this with Candi after Al Gregory's kidnapping. It ends so disastrously that she blows her cover.

* MakeItLookLikeAnAccident: Altunin's death, by genuine misadventure, is assumed to be this by the Russian authorities.

* CodeName: CARDINAL.

* IDidWhatIHadToDo: The Major acknowledges getting some of his own people killed while serving as a ReverseMole and shows some guilt about it but is also confident it helped establish his cover.

* TheAtoner: Altunin helps the spy ring out of guilt over the children his anti killed or injured with bombs in Afghanistan.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The Archer's KidSidekick Abdul gets a lot of primincne early on but vanishes form the story later, after The Major becomes The Archer's right-hand man.

* BadassGrandpa: Though he has no grandchildren of his own (his sons died young), Filitov is well-respected and never underestimated even decades after his war service.

* ArtisticLicensePhysics: The work of the SDI scientists seems to be on the verge of a breakthrough for the entire novel. As we now know, SDI lasers were barely ever more than a pipe dream, and never had a working prototype, especially not a free-electron laser (SDI focused on chemical and X-ray lasers instead). Later books in the series would go on to admit that neither Russia or the US was able to make a laser powerful enough to reliably shoot down a missile, resulting in the projects eventually getting shelved[[note]]The book points out that most of the senior scientists and engineers at the Soviet installation were [[spoiler: killed by the Archer's attack]], and as they were the ones primarily responsible for the breakthrough in laser power (the US having the advantage in laser aiming), no one was able to replicate it afterwards[[/note]].

** Filitov as well.

** Colonel Bondarenko has an Order of the Red Banner medal[[note]]Noted as being the second highest medal, after the Hero of the Soviet Union medal[[/note]] from his tour in Afghanistan. When Bright Star is attacked, he proves that he didn’t get them by just being the boss’s favorite[[note]]He got the medal by volunteering to tag along with a Spetznaz team to test new laser communication devices. When the team was ambushed due to poor tactics on the part of the team leader, Bondarenko took command and drove off the Afghan troopers, despite being an observer. He ultimately gets a second such award for [[spoiler: [[{{Foreshadowing}} doing the same thing]]]] in the novel's climax[[/note]].

* ForWantOfANail: The action that causes the detection of CIA's longest-lived and most valuable agent is a bump on a train. It causes a courier to drop a roll of film containing sensitive documents, which itself isn't that big a deal. But he does it within view of an off-duty KGB man, who arrests the courier and turns him over to the counterintelligence department.

* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: Discussed when Ryan points out that nuclear reductions treaties are nice, but really amount to little more than PR stunts that don't affect the nuclear war equation. His analogy is figuratively pointing a gun with an eighteen round magazine at a man and then agreeing to remove six rounds from it, then asking if the man feels any safer.

** Colonel Bondarenko has an Order of the Red Banner medal[[note]]Noted as being the second highest medal, after the Hero of the Soviet Union medal[[/note]] from his tour in Afghanistan. When Bright Star is attacked, he proves that he didn’t get them by just being the boss’s favorite[[note]]He got the medal by volunteering to tag along with a Spetznaz team to test new laser communication devices. When the team was ambushed due to poor tactics on the part of the team leader, Bondarenko took command and drove off the Afghan troopers, despite being an observer. He ultimately gets a second such award for [[spoiler: [[{{Foreshadowing}} doing the same thing]] in the novel's climax[[/note]].

** Colonel Bondarenko has some medals from his tour in Afghanistan. When Bright Star is attacked, he proves that he didn’t get them by just being the boss’s favorite.

* BigBadDuumvirate: Alexandrov and Gerasimov. As head of the KGB, Gerasimov easily has more power, but he needs the legitimacy that Alexandrov, as chief ideologue, can provide.

* ArtisticLicensePhysics: The work of the SDI scientists seems to be on the verge of a breakthrough for the entire novel. As we now know, SDI lasers were barely ever more than a pipe dream, and never had a working prototype, especially not a free-electron laser (SDI focused on chemical and X-ray lasers instead). Later books in the series would go on to admit that neither Russia or the US was able to make a laser powerful enough to reliably shoot down a missile, resulting in the projects eventually getting shelved.

* DidYouJustFlipOffCthulu: Vatutin begins his interrogation of Filitov by simply asking how long he’s been a spy. Filitov casually accuses him of homosexuality and pedophilia.

* BadassGrandpa: Though he has no grandchildren of his own, Filitov is well-respected and never underestimated even decades after his war service.

* InterServiceRivalry: Taken up to eleven between the Red Army and KGB. At the top, it's simple power politics - Defense Minister Yazov and KGB Chairman Gerasimov are in opposite factions on the Politburo, hence the latter's attempts to compromise the former. It's equally intense in the ranks, though. Filitov considers the "chekists" to be incompetent meddlers, whose main contribution to World War Two was spying on their own men and executing those who'd been forced to retreat. Bondarenko considers their guards to be amateurs playing at war, and takes great pleasure in embarrassing them on his morning exercise run. And during the assault on the Bright Star complex, when a KGB officer doesn’t like the idea of Bondarenko (a decorated Afghanistan veteran) taking command of the defenses, Bondarenko unceremoniously knocks him on his ass and shoots him dead. [[spoiler:(That said, he does develop some respect for the ones who stand and fight alongside him when the Archer attacks Bright Star, and personally decorates one of them after the battle is over)]]. Even Vatutin's sympathetic counterpart from military intelligence lampshades this, asking him how he thinks the military will react if the KGB were to try torturing a confession out of a war hero.