Debt of Honor
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| Author | Tom Clancy |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Ryanverse |
| Genre(s) | thriller, novel |
| Publisher | Putnam |
| Released | 1994 (1st edition) |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 766 pp (hardback edition) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-399-13954-0 (hardback edition) |
| Preceded by | The Sum of All Fears |
| Followed by | Executive Orders |
Debt of Honor (1994) is a novel by Tom Clancy. It is a continuation of the series featuring his character Jack Ryan. In this installment, Ryan has become the National Security Advisor when the Japanese government (controlled by a group of corporate tycoons known as the Zaibatsu) goes to war with the United States.
[edit] Plot summary
The story starts with a car accident involving a popular Japanese imported vehicle that leaves five people dead, including two children. Protectionists in the U.S. Congress seize this opportunity to pass the "Trade Reform Act", enabling the United States to mirror the trade practices of the countries that it imports goods from. The bill is immediately used against Japanese goods, and results in an increasing backlog of imported Japanese goods which begins to hurt the Japanese economy. Facing a perceived economic crisis, the Japanese Zaibatsu, an Illuminati-like group, decides to seize Japan and take military action to safeguard the Japanese economy. Along with the People's Republic of China and India, the Japanese plan involves curtailing the American presence in the Pacific in an effort to reestablish the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, which includes a possible Chinese-Japanese invasion of Siberia to secure its extensive resources.
Japan begins its part of the operation against the U.S. by launching torpedoes at two of the U.S. Navy’s Pacific carriers and two U.S. submarines at the conclusion of a joint U.S.-Japan naval exercise. Simultaneously, the Japanese cabal engineers the collapse of the American stock market, leaving America at an economic disadvantage. Meanwhile, units of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force and Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force occupy the Mariana Islands (as part of the grand plan involving China and India). The leader of the Zaibatsu, Raizo Yamata, believes that these two elements, combined with the acquisition of Russian SS-19 ICBMs under the cover of the Japanese space program, will be enough to force the United States to negotiate a truce.
As the U.S. and Japanese delegates confer in an effort to avoid further bloodshed, Jack Ryan, the newly appointed President’s National Security Advisor, with the help of the SVR (the “Foreign Intelligence” successor to the KGB), figures out what Japan is up to and in the process discovers the overall plan by Japan, India and China to eliminate U.S. influence in the Pacific. Fearful of an impending nuclear war between China and Russia, Ryan convinces the President that the U.S. must take immediate action to stop the Japanese occupation, which Ryan hopes will derail the efforts of India and China. As a result, the United States makes two separate surgical strikes against Japan, resulting in the death of nearly all the Zaibatsu and the elimination of the Japanese presence in the Mariana Islands.
In a parallel to the real-life September 11, 2001 attacks seven years after the book's publication, the book ends with an embittered Japanese airline pilot crashing his Boeing 747 into the U.S. Capitol building during a joint session of Congress with the President attending. He does this to avenge the deaths of his brother and son during the war. This paves the way for Ryan, who has just been appointed Vice President, to become President in the next book, Executive Orders.
[edit] Trivia
- Tom Clancy reportedly came up with the idea for the "crashing" end after a visit to the White House.
- The book is mentioned in the NCIS episode "Yankee White" as the inspiration for a planned terrorist hijacking of Air Force One for the purpose of kamikazeing it into Washington DC. However, Mark Harmon erroneously says the end of the novel was done by terrorists rather than a lone distraught Japan Airlines pilot.
- The book also contains a scene involving a delivery truck filled with ANFO being used to bomb a luxury hotel in Sri Lanka. The description of the bomb is very similar to that used in the Oklahoma City bombing.
- The sub-plot on occupying the "Northern Resource Area" (Siberia) would later form part of the main plot of The Bear and the Dragon.
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