He knew people would not march behind a subordinate clause.
A subordinate clause is not a complete sentence: for example, because I have no friends.
Frequently the future tense is used in these subordinate clause.
If there are lots of subordinate clauses, that's even better.
In this he couldn't be more different from his old friend Greenspan, the other government official who can move financial markets with a subordinate clause.
So I would probably go with "is", subordinate adjective clause or not.
This is attached to the first verb of the subordinate clause.
It takes the place of, and translates, many phrases that would require a subordinate clause in English.
Simply put, it is used with the perfect subjunctive in subordinate clauses.
It can be used as a polite imperative, and is usually associated with subordinate clauses.