Commander in Chief is Greaney’s third solo entry in the Jack Ryan series, which is part of the overall Tom Clancy universe.

President Valeri Volodin brings up a plan of covert armed conflict within Europe that will ensure the restoration of Russia’s status as a superpower, while at the same time revamping its economy and benefiting the siloviki as a result.

Privately however, Volodin tasks a financial expert, Andrei Limonov, with securing his assets worldwide in case his plan does not work.

U.S. President Jack Ryan immediately notices a pattern in the recent attacks and the corresponding increase in Russia’s oil profit.

Meanwhile, Jack Ryan, Jr. is in Rome, Italy, investigating Russia’s money networks as well as spending time with his Iranian girlfriend Ysabel Kashani.

Unbeknownst to him, the paparazzo had implanted a tracking device on Kashani's belongings, and the Iranian is later attacked by a group of men led by Russian hitman Yegor Morozov; they are dispatched by Ryan in the resulting altercation.

Domingo “Ding” Chavez and Dominic “Dom” Caruso are tasked by Director of National Intelligence Mary Pat Foley to photograph specific locations along the Belarusian border.

With help from Lithuanian intelligence director Linus Sabonis, they find out the identity of Branyon’s kidnappers as Serbs who posed as the Polish group that attacked the Russian train in Kaliningrad Oblast.

In addition, the naval battle in the Baltic Sea, which is depicted in Commander in Chief, paid homage to Tom Clancy's debut novel The Hunt for Red October; Greaney said about the experience: "Tom did it so well; it just didn’t need to be redone, especially by a follow-on author, but the advances in submarines and anti-submarine warfare over the past few years just made it really interesting.