When our first re-booted Op-Center book, Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Out of the Ashes, made the New York Times and other best-seller lists, it put the bar high for the second book of the series, Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Into the Fire. That book didn’t disappoint, and it recently made the New York Times best-seller list.

As we’ve talked about the book in various venues, people have asked us how the new Op-Center series both stays connected to – but is different from – the original 12 book Op-Center series written by Jeff Rovin. Our answer is this: The new Op-Center series reflects the sea change in the U.S. security posture since the original series ended around the turn of the century:

• Even 15 years removed, September 11, 2001 still drives U.S. security thinking
• The creation of the Director of National Intelligence and the NCTC
• The creation of the Department of Homeland Security
• The creation of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence
• The creation of U.S. Cyber Command as a full combatant commander in 2013
• The creation of Northern Command as a United States Combatant Commander
• The success of the television series “24”
• The success of the television series “Person of Interest”
• The fact that the United States has been at war for over a decade – and counting
• The issuance this year of the new U.S. Strategy, the National Security Strategy
• The major strategic shift involved in the U.S. “pivot to Asia”
• That said, the validated U.S. near-term strategic focus is still the Mideast
• The forces unleashed by the Arab Spring are causing more Mideast turmoil
• Today, the U.S. military is reviving the counterterrorism vs. counterinsurgency issue

Read more about Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Into the Fire (Now available in mass market paperback, digital and audio editions) and other books in the series here.