War of Eagles

Title:                      War of Eagles

Author:                  Jeff Rovin

Rovin, Jeff (2005) created by Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik. Tom Clancy’s Op-center. War of Eagles. New York: Berkley Books

LCCN:    2005577014

PS3553.L245 T669 2005

Summary

• When a mysterious cabal within the U.S. State Department causes tensions to erupt between Iran and Azerbaijan and plots to depose the President of the United States, Paul Hood and the Op-Center team must stop the conspiracy.

Date Posted:      September 7, 2016

Tom Clancy is, to me, to the right of Donald Trump. His ideology has been somewhat tempered by author Jeff Rovin in this #12 version of Tom Clancy’s Op Center: War of Eagles. In spite of Clancy, I am a fan of his books (I like big fat books) and of the Op-Center books. I like the action and suspense and the characterization is good. This book was badly hurt when Paul Hood is removed from Op-Center. He has been the central character throughout the series and to remove him is absolutely absurd. It might have been different if he retired, or quit on his own, but he was fired and a general took his place. This is Clancyesque, who believes that American Intelligence is in the trash bin. Throughout the book I hoped that Hood would regain his job, or that the tyrant general would get fired. Then there is the firing of main character, Bob Herbert. I don’t know what inspired this decimation of characters, other than to show how policymakers can never deal with the truth from good intelligence analysis.

The book begins with a bang (actually), and could be excellent. I’d love to know the motivation for the abrupt turn in the plot line.

Tom Clancy’s Op Center

Title:                      Tom Clancy’s Op Center

Author:                 Tom Clancy

Clancy, Tom (1995) and Steve Pieczenik. Tom Clancy’s Op Center. New York : Berkley Books

LCCN:    97817188

Subjects

• Crisis management in government–United States–Fiction.
• Secret service–United States–Fiction.

Notes

• Created by Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik

Date Posted:      June 10, 2015

Tom Clancy’s Op Center began as a single book and morphed into a series of 14 books, as of June, 2015. The books are based on Clancy’s bellicose view toward the world and his perception that the United States is constantly under imminent threat. He might have said, “I told you so,” when 9/11 occurred.

The op center books ounter the “threat” by a super-secret agency designed to meld intelligence with its “geek squad”, their computers and analysis algorithms, as well as a small but immediately deployable strike force. In the first series of 12 books the op center was established, carried out its mission, and was ultimately done away with by what Clancy would describe as a “weak” president. The series was revitalized by a 13^th book in 2014 and a 14^th in 2015.

Although familiarly called “Op-Center”, the actual name of the largely autonomous agency is the “National Crisis Management Center”. The charter of the NCMC, or Op-Center, is unlike any other in the history of the United States. They handle both domestic and international crises. In the first series, Director Paul Hood reports to the president himself, and what had started as “an information clearinghouse with SWAT capabilities” now has the singular capacity to monitor, initiate, and manage operations worldwide. The organization had its own paramilitary response team, called the Striker team, named by an Op-Center member who was a soccer fan, composed of members of the U.S. military special operations community. The series also mentioned similar organizations from England, whose response team was called Bengal, and Russia, with a team called Hammer. It is headquartered in a nondescript, two-story building located near the Naval Reserve flight line at Andrews Air Force Base that used to be a ready room, a staging area for crack flight crews. In the event of a nuclear attack, it would have been their job to evacuate key officials from Washington, D.C.

According to the 2014 reboot franchise, the NCMC was eventually disbanded after the Secretary of Defense and the Director of National Intelligence managed to convince the President of the United States to shut the organization down due to the effectiveness of the US Intelligence Community and Special Forces in the War on Terror (much to the disgust of Paul Hood and Mike Rogers). Years later however, terrorists blow up several NFL stadiums across the country and leave thousands dead or mutilated. It is determined in the resulting investigation that the inability of government agencies to prevent the attacks was due to a lack of information, as well as the inability to put the pieces together in time. In response, the President executes an emergency order that reboots Op-Center for the 21st Century. Retired Admiral Chase Williams is eventually named the new director and Op-Center’s new headquarters is located in the basement of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency; as its response team, Op-Center utilizes soldiers from the Joint Special Operations Command.

List of Op-Center Novels

The books in the Tom Clancy’s Op-Center series:

#	Title	Publication date	Authors	Plot
1	Tom Clancy’s Op-Center	1995	Jeff Rovin	Op-Center deals with many anti-unification terrorists in Korea trying to provoke a new war with North Korea.
2	Mirror Image	1995		A hardline coalition in the Russian government plots against the new president of Russia, backed by the Russian equivalent of Op-Center.
3	Games of State	1996		A millionaire funds Neo-Nazi activity in Europe, while plotting to insert subliminal messages of hate into the mass media.
4	Acts of War	1996		Syrian, Kurdish terrorists plotting a political assassination take hostages from the Regional Op-Center: employees testing a prototype mobile surveillance post.
5	Balance of Power	1998	Jeff Rovin	The murder of an Op-Center representative (Martha Mackall) leads to a faction trying to provoke a Spanish Civil War.
6	State of Siege	1999	Jeff Rovin	Rogue soldiers seize the UN complex in New York and demand a hefty ransom for the release of their diplomatic hostages (including Hood’s daughter, Harleigh). Now it’s personal, and Hood has returned to Op-Center to save his daughter.
7	Divide and Conquer	2000	Jeff Rovin	Op-Center seeks the help of their Russian counterpart in tracking the legendary assassin, The Harpooner. Meanwhile, Paul Hood is called in when it appears the President might be undergoing a mental breakdown.
8	Line of Control	2001	Jeff Rovin	The Striker Team, cut off and without support, has to fend for their survival on the line of demarcation between India and Pakistan.
9	Mission of Honor	2002	Jeff Rovin	Op-Center has to work with the Vatican and Spanish Special Forces when an African rebel group takes hostages at several missions.
10	Sea of Fire	2003	Jeff Rovin	High traces of radiation found on a corpse, leads to a company selling nuclear waste to terrorists.
11	Call to Treason	2004	Jeff Rovin	When Mike Rodgers is fired due to budget cuts, he goes to work for a corrupt senator and gets embroiled in the vicious world of Washington politics.
12	War of Eagles	2005	Jeff Rovin	Op-Center is under new management as Paul Hood is reassigned to a Pennsylvania Ave. appointment. At the same time, bombings in Charleston, Durban, and Taiwan, may signify the outing of a feud within the Chinese government.
13	Out of the Ashes	2014	Dick Couch and George Galdorisi	When terrorists blow up NFL stadiums across the country, the President of the United States charters a new Op-Center for the 21st Century. Admiral Chase Williams is the new director, (Paul Hood at this time is diagnosed with ALS) and must also stop another plot involving a renegade Saudi prince from manipulating America into attacking Syria and launching a war against Iran.
14	Into the Fire	2015	Dick Couch and George Galdorisi	A high-ranking North Korean general is murdered and a U.S. Navy ship is attacked and grounded during a training exercise. Op-Center discovers a secret alliance between China and North Korea, and must quickly rescue the crew in time as well as stop a terrorist cell being unleashed on the American homeland in order to prevent World War III.