Bear and the Dragon.... 2006

[xchen08]

Given my own limited knowledge about weaponry, I won't try to argue weapon capabilities. However, no weapon ever works to theoretical capability in actual combat, especially not against an enemy that is at least somewhat competent. If all this information is available to people on this board, then Chinese intelligence will have far better information, and as their generals are not as incompetent as Iraq's, they will have countermeasures in place. Consider the Yugoslav war, when despite a long period bombardment of an utterly outclassed foe, the bulk of the Yugoslav military survived intact and would have greatly surprised a NATO ground invasion had one gone in. The entire war as described seems like a war nerd's version of the strawman arguement, think about some cool military gadgets, set up an enemy perfectly suited to be destroyed by such gadgets, then wow us with a description of hightech weaponry in action.

Anyone else find the nuclear disarmament insufficiently described or justified? It comes acrossed as just a contrived plot device to allow the U.S and Russia to get into major wars without being able to use nucs to solve the problem. Funny how the agreement destroyed all of the strategic arsenals of both nations(to the point where they had no ICBMs, SLBMs, or nuclear tipped cruise missles) while China, and presumably Britain, France, India, Pakistan, etc all retain their strategic arsenals. Were the leaders of America and Russia drunk when they signed that agreement?

[CalBear]

Originally Posted by xchen08

Given my own limited knowledge about weaponry, I won't try to argue weapon capabilities. However, no weapon ever works to theoretical capability in actual combat, especially not against an enemy that is at least somewhat competent. If all this information is available to people on this board, then Chinese intelligence will have far better information, and as their generals are not as incompetent as Iraq's, they will have countermeasures in place. Consider the Yugoslav war, when despite a long period bombardment of an utterly outclassed foe, the bulk of the Yugoslav military survived intact and would have greatly surprised a NATO ground invasion had one gone in. The entire war as described seems like a war nerd's version of the strawman arguement, think about some cool military gadgets, set up an enemy perfectly suited to be destroyed by such gadgets, then wow us with a description of hightech weaponry in action.

Anyone else find the nuclear disarmament insufficiently described or justified? It comes acrossed as just a contrived plot device to allow the U.S and Russia to get into major wars without being able to use nucs to solve the problem. Funny how the agreement destroyed all of the strategic arsenals of both nations(to the point where they had no ICBMs, SLBMs, or nuclear tipped cruise missles) while China, and presumably Britain, France, India, Pakistan, etc all retain their strategic arsenals. Were the leaders of America and Russia drunk when they signed that agreement?

The reason for the disarmament is based on the events in the last part "The Sum of all Fears". It is, like most of Clancy's later work, a thinly veiled position paper of the author's own beliefs on the subject. In large part it was a "let's not position ourselves to kill the world" statement. It is surprising, given Clancy's advocacy for almost every weapon system ever to cross the Pentagon's desk, how consistant his anti A-Bomb message was.

I doubt we will have much of a chance to further review his feeling on the subject, at least from a fictional character's perspective. Clancy has apparently decided that having a significant portion of all the money in the world is sufficient, and that outside of the occasional Op-Ed pieces, and selling his name for computer games, and for other authors to use to draw interest to their books.

[NHBL]

IMVHO, Tom Clancy is a very gifted writer, and his earlier stories show that gift. Sure, you can see his political viewpoint, but they are fine STORIES. The author's politics don't detract, IMHO, from Red Storm Rising or Red October.
As time goes on, the story seems to take a back seat to trying to push his agenda.
Has any enviromentalist been a good guy is his stories?
How many big American businessmen have been anything but upstanding pillars of the community?
Has the Catholic Church or Israel ever been anything but pure goodness?

Some of my friends love all of his works, but they are also far right wing politically. Almost everyone I know who's either only mildly right wing, or one of these <Gasp! EVIL> (at least per Tom Clancy) center or liberal enjoys the first books, and dismisses the rest as good stories ruined by political ranting.

[Fyrwulf]

Originally Posted by xchen08

Given my own limited knowledge about weaponry, I won't try to argue weapon capabilities. However, no weapon ever works to theoretical capability in actual combat, especially not against an enemy that is at least somewhat competent. If all this information is available to people on this board, then Chinese intelligence will have far better information, and as their generals are not as incompetent as Iraq's, they will have countermeasures in place. Consider the Yugoslav war, when despite a long period bombardment of an utterly outclassed foe, the bulk of the Yugoslav military survived intact and would have greatly surprised a NATO ground invasion had one gone in. The entire war as described seems like a war nerd's version of the strawman arguement, think about some cool military gadgets, set up an enemy perfectly suited to be destroyed by such gadgets, then wow us with a description of hightech weaponry in action.

How do you know how competant or incompetant the Chinese are? The last anybody saw of them, they were still using the standard Soviet tactics of numbers, numbers, and numbers. As for the Yugoslavs, they gave because of the threat of a NATO ground invasion.

[Adam]

Originally Posted by Fyrwulf

How do you know how competant or incompetant the Chinese are? The last anybody saw of them, they were still using the standard Soviet tactics of numbers, numbers, and numbers. As for the Yugoslavs, they gave because of the threat of a NATO ground invasion.

Last I heard, they were trying to modernize their navy by using 'stolen' plans of an AEGIS destroyer.

[Fyrwulf]

That's speculation and the supposedly "stolen" plans were for the solid state radar and combat management system, not an actual ship. Frankly, I find it more likely that France sold the Chinese an export version of their combat management system. As it is, they only have two such ships and frankly they're not that impressive.

[MerryPrankster]

I don't think that there's total nuclear disarmament in the Ryan-verse. I believe they decommissioned all the ICBMs and submarine-based missiles, but kept all the aircraft-delivered stuff.

The rationale was that you can turn a bomber around, but can't turn around a missile, if you release you've launched in error.

I believe there was discussion about reassembling nuclear-tipped cruise missiles to deal with the Chinese, but it didn't come to anything by the time the Chinese collapsed internally.

[MerryPrankster]

Originally Posted by Fyrwulf

That's speculation and the supposedly "stolen" plans were for the solid state radar and combat management system, not an actual ship. Frankly, I find it more likely that France sold the Chinese an export version of their combat management system. As it is, they only have two such ships and frankly they're not that impressive.

They have been buying Sovremny-class destroyers from the Russians. Said destroyers carry Sunburn supersonic anti-ship missiles.

One of these missiles tipped with a tactical nuke is a carrier-killer--in case the Chinese don't want to go that far, they can simply fire lots of conventionals. I recall that the Sunburns are so fast that the Aegis system might not be a good enough defense.

[Ivan Druzhkov]

Originally Posted by NHBL

IMVHO, Tom Clancy is a very gifted writer, and his earlier stories show that gift. Sure, you can see his political viewpoint, but they are fine STORIES. The author's politics don't detract, IMHO, from Red Storm Rising or Red October.
As time goes on, the story seems to take a back seat to trying to push his agenda.
Has any enviromentalist been a good guy is his stories?
How many big American businessmen have been anything but upstanding pillars of the community?
Has the Catholic Church or Israel ever been anything but pure goodness?

Some of my friends love all of his works, but they are also far right wing politically. Almost everyone I know who's either only mildly right wing, or one of these <Gasp! EVIL> (at least per Tom Clancy) center or liberal enjoys the first books, and dismisses the rest as good stories ruined by political ranting.

Well, the way I heard it, it seems that Clancy’s first wife helped out quite a lot with his earlier stories, mostly in terms of mellowing out the techno-speak, cutting down the page count, and creating some characters that were reminiscent of actual people. After Clancy dumped her for a younger trophy wife (not a classy move, by any standards), his prose got a lot more didactic and protracted. Furthermore, he was probably enough of a financial boon to G. P. Putnam’s Sons (or whoever publishes him) that he was able to get editors who were less likely to demand editing, kind of like another author familiar to the AH crowd Whom Shall Remain Anonymous.

Just commenting on some of the basic premise of The Bear and the Dragon (Vladivostok's hottest radio DJs!) here, I too find it odd that Russia gave up her strategic nuclear arsenal in the book. As I’ve mentioned before, the Kremlin considers those missiles a fundamental part of Russia's national defense. After all, the country’s surrounded by tons of not-entirely-friendly powers, and the frontier’s so bloody long that there’s no possible way that the army (which isn’t exactly in 100% top fighting for to begin with) can defend everything. It’s a move akin to the US scrapping all of the carriers and nuclear-armed subs in its navy.

[TechRat]

Originally Posted by Ivan Druzhkov

Well, the way I heard it, it seems that Clancy’s first wife helped out quite a lot with his earlier stories, mostly in terms of mellowing out the techno-speak, cutting down the page count, and creating some characters that were reminiscent of actual people. After Clancy dumped her for a younger trophy wife (not a classy move, by any standards), his prose got a lot more didactic and protracted. Furthermore, he was probably enough of a financial boon to G. P. Putnam’s Sons (or whoever publishes him) that he was able to get editors who were less likely to demand editing, kind of like another author familiar to the AH crowd Whom Shall Remain Anonymous.

Just commenting on some of the basic premise of The Bear and the Dragon (Vladivostok's hottest radio DJs!) here, I too find it odd that Russia gave up her strategic nuclear arsenal in the book. As I’ve mentioned before, the Kremlin considers those missiles a fundamental part of Russia's national defense. After all, the country’s surrounded by tons of not-entirely-friendly powers, and the frontier’s so bloody long that there’s no possible way that the army (which isn’t exactly in 100% top fighting for to begin with) can defend everything. It’s a move akin to the US scrapping all of the carriers and nuclear-armed subs in its navy.

I liked some of Clancy's books, but sold them all when I moved to a smaller apartment, along with a whole bunch of other books .(Mainly historical, military and SF) So that's why his books went down hill; Haven't considered his personal life.*Looks around and counts the boxes full of books* Gah, they're breeding again!

Vladivostok's hottest radio DJs sounds like a great way to improve Russian and Chiness relations.

I agreee that Russia giving up its nukes is quite odd. Canada , being the second largest country, is lucky not to have any major enemies; and having a strong and very friendly neighbor. Maybe Canadians should get a few nukes, just in case USA goes completly insane, instead of being mildy schizophrenic.
(Hopefully, the next couple of electons will be strong enough medicine to create saner policies for everyone.)

[pieman3141]

Originally Posted by Fyrwulf

How do you know how competant or incompetant the Chinese are? The last anybody saw of them, they were still using the standard Soviet tactics of numbers, numbers, and numbers. As for the Yugoslavs, they gave because of the threat of a NATO ground invasion.

From what I've seen (OK, so it's State TV... not the most accurate/unbiased source), the Mainlanders are trying desperately to modernize and change their military to a American-like one. One thing they don't lack is manpower, and they're cutting back on that. They might've saw how effective Gulf War 1.0 was, or they might've decided that they better switch tactics ASAP due to Japan and Taiwan and SK getting American toys.

I have no clue what they have now. Kinda vague on that front.

[Adam]

Originally Posted by Agentdark

I wont hold my breath, but I am hoping for a European Enenmy in the next tom clancy novel...

You should look for Larry Bond's Cauldron then.