Didn't he save her (Vigdis?) from being raped, though? Your post implies that he raped her, and a romance developed from that.

I think I was ambiguous on who raped (or attempted to rape) her, but the point still stands. While its certainly possible, it seemed like such a non sequitor to have her fall immediately for her savior, after a rape whose sole point was to make it clear that the russians are the bad guys.

I think Clancy was misunderstanding his audience in believing he needed to add rape to all the other bad things, trivializing rape, and probably most importantly for the purposes of this discussion, insisting on a superfluous romance subplot in a techno-thriller. Its been a long time since I read Red Storm Rising, and the main thing I recall is that I hated the romance subplot. It was a human interest story when I picked it up for the guns and bombs and missiles and things.