Preview of Executive Orders Summary:

Clancy does not take a sanguine view of America's place in the modern world.

For the second novel in a row, he argues that America has been weakened by cutbacks in its military and espionage budgets; in both novels the American government is unable to protect American citizens on American soil. In Debt of Honor, America's military is spread too thin to rebuff the combined military threats of Japan, India, and China; in Executive Orders, not only has America weakened its military too much, but its spy agencies lack the resources to discover and prevent terrorist attacks such as the planting of a strain of the ebola virus in the United States. Further, in the two novels, America has gone too far in eliminating its nuclear weapons; without its missiles on land and in submarines, America is not a credible threat to many of the nations of the...