On Becoming Jack Ryan in The Sum of All Fears
My 20s sucked. I was still serving in the military for part of it, so there’s that. But I was also working frantically, the living embodiment of what would, in the Obama years, come to be called (and later mocked as) “hustle culture.”
It was a 24/7 lifestyle, and it made me pretty disconnected from the real world during that decade. I didn’t keep up with trends in music, celebrities, or film. Other than protesting the Iraq War and knowing people who lost their homes in the global financial crisis, I was completely out of touch, singleminded about making myself the person I thought I wanted to be.
That person was fictional CIA analyst, polyglot, and PhD historian Jack Ryan, from the Tom Clancy novels. And since I’d never read the original Clancy material, my understanding of Jack Ryan came from the film adaptations—Harrison Ford, Alec Baldwin, and most importantly Ben Affleck. Affleck’s portrayal of Jack Ryan in 2002’s The Sum of All Fears was the model for the life I aspired to.
It took a lot to mold myself into that person. My lifelong love of Brazilian jiu jitsu—which I still practice—started by training in mixed martial arts; Affleck’s Jack Ryan knew how to fight. I got a PhD in international relations in part because it struck me as similar to studying history but with better job prospects. I learned Korean instead of Russian. And after spending a little time in Air Force intelligence (enlisted, not officer), I realized that being a policymaker was waaaaay better than being a CIA analyst.
But striving to be that tall, dopey, well-read dummy I saw on the big screen in 2002 came at a cost. I basically gave up my 20s. I never went out. I was stressed all the time. I completed all my studies—including for my PhD—at night, finishing school only when I was 31 or 32. I read constantly. And frankly, for most of this period, I was rarely happy unless I was engrossed in MMA culture or nose-deep in books and journal articles. Both were escapes from an otherwise empty life.
Since you likely came to this newsletter understanding that I’m an anti-imperial, anti-militarist critic of the national security state, you can imagine that I have conflicted feelings about the life choices of my early career. But even if you’re someone who still thinks national security is noble work—and for some it is—I question whether I was right to give up what for most people is the defining decade of their lives. I at once feel like it worked for me and that it’s not advisable.
Perhaps I’ve overshared.
But that’s the baggage I brought with me when I re-watched The Sum of All Fears for the latest episode of the Bang-Bang Podcast. It was a wonderful nostalgia bath. The unipolar-moment politics made me cringe, but also brought back a surge of memories about the collective delusions guiding us back then. And despite being farcical in a few moments, it held up as an action-packed political thriller.
Most importantly, it’s the only film I can think of that depicts the geopolitical imagination of the global far right. That’s right—the antagonist around which the plot twists is a cabal of European fascists who conspire to detonate a nuke in Baltimore so that Russia and America go to war against each other. Fantastical? Sure. But it does a great job of playing out the underpants-gnome logic of the white supremacy-addled mind. For the film to go there in 2002, as we chat about in our episode, is impressive and prescient.
As for Affleck’s Jack Ryan, my eyes welled up for a brief moment when he appeared onscreen. Not when he was kicking ass or staffing the CIA director. The moment that struck me hardest was when Ryan was at home, enamorada, kicking it with the girlfriend he was rapidly falling in love with.
Further Reading
“‘90s Dad Thrillers: a List,” by Max Read
The Spook Who Sat By The Door, by Sam Greenlee
"Trump dreams of a Maga empire – but he’s more likely to leave us a nuclear hellscape," by Alexander Hurst
The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, by Daniel Ellsberg
Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety, by Eric Schlossser
“The Man Who Knew Too Much,” by Lyle Jeremy Rubin
The Hunt for Tom Clancy Substack, by Matt Farwell