Read it recently (love the cameo of BB62, USS New Jersey!

), and I would also choose about 6 weeks.
It is arguably his best effort, along with Red October, before he put in too much political rhetoric, and lately, appalling crudeness and attempted sex scenes. Given the subject matter, he couldn't leap to far from reality; i.e. Jack Ryan and Mr. Clark suddenly paradrop into East Germany and kill the entire Red Army with nothing but a broken tin opener and a small aubergine, who was lame!

Total US war casualties come to zero! And let this book be an official warning to all you out there who will even dream of thinking of p1ssing us off!
He is not in the class of Higgins or Forsyth; he can communicate a nice amount of technical information. Bringing this down in his later works is his own personal agenda (Not that I necessarily disagree with it; but it is very unsubtly done, and this harms the books)
What Clancy needs and needed is a vicious harsh bastard of an editor, who could slash the hundreds of unnecessary pages from his works.
In Red Storm, there is too much focus upon the frigate, and the SSN, to the neglect of the wider picture. It is still a very good book, but would have benefitted from the knife being wielded more ruthlessly.
Case in point: The Bear and the Dragon. Close to 1000 pages, and the real action starts in the last 100...
It has been downhill since then for old Tom though, even though his sales still remain high.
OK, rant mode taken off now. I'm going to reach for my medication and then have a lie down.
