When Russian President Valeri Volodin's ambitions are foiled in Dagestan, he faces a difficult choice. The oligarchs who support him expect a constant flow of graft, but with energy prices cratering, the Russian economy sputters to a virtual halt. Unable to grow the Russian market at home, his hold on power relies on expansion abroad—a plan that has been thwarted by the United States in the past. But this time Volodin has determined that an indirect approach is the best.

It begins with a family dinner in Princeton, New Jersey. After months at sea, US Navy Commander Scott Hagan, captain of the USS James Greer, is on leave when he is attacked by an armed man in a crowded restaurant. Hagan is shot, but he manages to fight off the attacker. Though severely wounded, the gunman reveals he is a Russian whose brother was killed when his submarine was destroyed by Commander Hagan's ship. Hagan demands to know how the would-be assassin knew his exact location, but the man dies before he says more.

Jack Ryan has only just moved back into the Oval Office when he is faced with a new international threat. An aborted coup in the People's Republic of China has left President Wei Zhen Lin with no choice but to agree with the expansionist policies of General Su Ke Quiang. They have declared the South China Sea a protectorate and are planning an invasion of Taiwan. The Ryan administration is determined to thwart China’s ambitions, but the stakes are dangerously high as a new breed of powerful Chinese anti-ship missiles endanger the US Navy's plans to protect the island.

There's a new strong man in Russia but his rise to power is based on a dark secret hidden decades in the past. The solution to that mystery lies with a most unexpected source, President Jack Ryan.

Dominic Caruso. Nephew of President Jack Ryan. FBI agent and operator for The Campus, a top secret intelligence agency that works off the books for the U.S. government. Already scarred by the death of his brother, Caruso is devastated when he can't save a friend and his family from a terrorist attack. Ethan Ross was a mid-level staffer for the National Security Council. Now he's a wanted fugitive on the run with a microdrive that contains enough information to wreck American intelligence efforts around the world.

Jack Ryan is dealing with an aggressive challenge from the Chinese government. Pawns are being moved around a global chessboard: an attack on an oil platform in Africa, a terrorist strike on an American destroyer, and a storm-tossed American spy ship that may fall into Chinese hands. It seems that President Zhao is determined to limit Ryan's choices in the upcoming G20 negotiations. But there are hints that there's even more going on behind the scenes.

Freedom may have finally arrived in Iran. As protests break out across the country, the media rejoices over the so-called Persian Spring. Western leaders are ecstatic. Members of Congress and the Cabinet clamor to back the rebels. Only President Jack Ryan remains wary. Meanwhile, he has plenty to handle at home. A deadly strain of flu is ravaging the United States as spring floods decimate the Southeast. An unethical senator wants to bring down the Ryan presidency and is willing to lean on fabricated bot-planted stories to do it.

Even though he's on forced leave from the clandestine intelligence group known as The Campus, Jack Ryan, Jr., still finds himself caught in the crosshairs after an attempt on his life is thwarted when he turns the tables on his would-be dispatcher. Convinced that the attack is linked to his recent covert actions with the convalescing Iranian national Ysabel Kashini, Jack sets out to find out who wants him dead - and why.

Twenty-six years ago, Dr. Cathy Ryan restored the eyesight of a young Bosnian girl who had been injured during an attack in the Bosnian War. Today, her son, Jack Ryan Jr. has agreed to track down the young woman and deliver a letter from his mother. The helpless child has grown into a remarkable woman. Aida Curic is a self-possessed beauty with a big heart and an even bigger secret who runs a controversial refugee agency near Sarajevo. Jack finds himself deeply drawn to both her and her country, but soon finds himself in the crosshairs of the seething ethnic tensions and ancient blood feuds of the Balkans.

On a remote island off the coast of Argentina, a team of elite counter-terror commandos prepare to assault a newly discovered Hezbollah hideout. What they don't expect is to be brutally ambushed themselves - slaughtered with no survivors. What they don't realise is that, on screens around the world, the enemies of the West are watching. Back in Washington, DC, the growing obstruction in the Senate has reached crippling levels, as a crucial treaty to strength NATO in Eastern Europe is inexplicably blocked.

Jack Ryan, the former president of the United States, is out of office, but not out of the loop about his brainchild, the “Campus” - a highly effective, counter-terrorism organization that operates outside the Washington hierarchy. But what Ryan doesn’t know is that his son, Jack Ryan, Jr., has joined his cousins, Brian and Dominic Caruso, at the shadowy Campus. While a highly effective analyst, young Ryan hungers for the action of a field agent.

Charged with spotting terrorist threats, the top-secret "Campus" has its hands full when Middle East thugs and Colombian drug lords join forces. New Campus recruits include Jack Ryan Jr., son of master spy John Patrick Ryan, now President.

Father Pat West, SJ, was a buddy of the young Jack Ryan when they were both undergraduates at Boston College. Father West left a comfortable job in the philosophy department at Georgetown to work with the poor in Indonesia. Now, he's been arrested and accused of blasphemy against Islam. President Ryan is desperate to rescue his old friend, but he can't move officially against the Indonesians. Instead, he relies on the Campus team to find out who is framing the priest.

Newly elected, Jack Ryan has found that being President is not easy: domestic pitfalls await him at every turn; there's a revolution in Liberia; the Asian economy is going down the tubes; and now, in Moscow, someone may have tried to assassinate the chairman of the SVR - the former KGB - with a rocket-propelled grenade. Were the potential assassins political enemies, the Russian Mafia, or disaffected former KGB? Or is something far more dangerous at work here?

Clancy plunges hero Jack Ryan into nonstop high adventure, as two seemingly unrelated occurrences being a chain of events that will stun the world. Called out of retirement to serve as National Security Advisor to the president, Ryan, with the help of CIA officers John Clark and Domingo Chavez, must prepare the untested president to meet the challenges of a new world order.