CIA Deputy Directors Robert Ritter and Arthur Moore are recruited to assist with the logistics of the plan. National Security Adviser James Cutter sees an opportunity to pursue a private goal, and convinces the president to declare that the illegal drug trade is a 'clear and present danger’ to national security, and authorize a secret effort to destabilize Colombian Cartel operations. As a result, he seeks a dramatic cause to champion in order to drum up support and votes. The President is embroiled in a tense re-election campaign against opponent J. The story begins with a detailed description of the Oval Office and Situation Room in the White House, just before a meeting between the President of the United States and his advisers. The sequel to Clancy’s previous novel, The Cardinal of the Kremlin, the novel features recurring character Jack Ryan, and Clancy’s trademark accuracy and realism when it comes to military hardware, tactics, and realpolitik. (Aug.Clear and Present Danger is a novel by Tom Clancy, published in 1989. Clear and Pres ent Danger is, in short, the author's best work since The Hunt for Red October. His characters are nicely drawn-particularly a Cuban intelligence officer who has ''gone private'' and now works for the drug lords-and his conclusion is unusual and provocative. Clancy's scenario is plausible and its development compelling. As the project unravels, Clancy's protagonist Jack Ryan tries to avert a total debacle and to rescue the men who have been hung out to dry.

Superior even to his descriptions of tools and techniques, however, is Clancy's analysis of the legal and moral problems of operating in a twilight zone, where the rules are ambiguous and an open society makes secrecy impossible. The response is a complex and covert military campaign against the ''Colombian Cartel.'' Clancy presents the technology of special operations and the details of light infantry warfare with his usual facility. A president decides that drug smuggling has become a ''clear and present danger'' to national security. In his fifth novel, the dean of techno-thrillers demonstrates once again his mastery of the genre.

Clear and present danger by tom clancy