Tom Clancy: Bear and the Dragon

The Bear refers to Russia and the Dragon refers to China and these are terminologies from old. If you are a follower of the Chinese Communist Party, then this book is not for you (in fact, if you detest somebody making critical comments of China, then you would not like this book). There is very little positive in this book about China, starting from the beginning and going almost till the end. Even a person who is portrayed somewhat positively is also shown as forcing himself on the young girls in his office.
The book is much more positive on Russia, although the cooperation that is depicted in the book between Russia and the US does not exist in any form or condition currently. In fact, given the adversarial nature of the relationship between Bush's administration and Putin's semi-dictatorship, the story in this book seems almost fanciful.



The book has many positives. There is the usual Clancy style of having multiple stories weaving into the script, slowly coming together and blowing into a tension wracked ending. And suddenly, you see an almost calamity occurring, stopped in the nick of time. Next, you have the usual concept of people with honour, and many people without honour. There is more of Jack Ryan (and if you are a fan of a fictional character such as I am of Jack Ryan), you get to see more of the individual qualities of his characters, including more anger, and of his revulsion against actions that go against his morality.
As always, the CIA is essentially portrayed as a positive and patriotic force, (although numerous other books normally portray the CIA as a force that can act like a rogue force at times). The best thing is the level of detail in the book about military actions. The main battle action in the book is wonderfully detailed; in addition, with the current discussion about missile defense, there is a fair amount of discussion about the way in which to prepare for missile defense.
The book starts with an assassination attempt on the head of the Russian intelligence agency (the successor to the KGB), he is a close confidant of the President and such an attempt causes a great deal of alarm. At around the same time, Russia discovers that Siberia has an immense stockpile of gold and oil, something that will cause Russia to lift itself out of its slow economic growth and into modernity. This stockpile causes immense jealousy among China's leaders.
And onto the main theme of the book: China. Clancy does not spare China (I would not be surprised if Clancy is prohibited from entering China). Its dictatorship (the Chinese Communist Party), the lack of democracy and freedom of worship, and most of all the restrictions on citizens including the forced enforcement of abortion on citizens violating the one-children rule comes in for special focus. Even though the criticism is harsh, one wonders whether any of this is false (One knows that there is no democracy, the treatment of the Tibeteans, of special religious cults, of people seeking the right to move from one part of the country, and the immense clashes between the citizens the corrupt party all over the country all seem to portray a country very different from others).
Anyhow, in this book, the enforcement of a brutal abortion combined with a crackdown on a Christian sect inflame western opinion, and push the Chinese towards attempting a military attack on Russia's new riches. The book is all about how this moves forward into an actual war between China and a Russo-US axis, moving forward into a nuclear confrontation.