Hey, it wasn't Clancy's fault that the USSR collapsed....I always thought that his best book was the one novel NOT in the Ryan chronology..Red Storm Rising...and can I remind you that the opening of that novel, the fundamentalist Islamic attack on the Soviet petrochemical lant, was written, what, 20 years+ before the current unpleasantries...I wish the guy woudl pick my LOTTO numbers..
He certainly seems to be in the know on all this. I've thought he must be ex-something or other. But maybe not.
You might want to check out Flynn, he knows his stuff too. I'm enjoying so far the first one of his that I've read.