Debt of Honor
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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, called the Zaibatsu) goes to war with the United States.
Plot summary
The story starts with a horrendous car accident involving a popular Japanese imported car that leaves five people dead, including two children. Protectionists in the US 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 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.Japan begins its part of the operation against the US by launching torpedoes at two of the U.S. Navy’s Pacific carriers and two US submarines at the conclusion of a joint US-Japan military 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 Zaibatsu believe that these two elements, combined with Japan’s acquisition of Russian ICBM’s, will be enough to force the United States to negotiate a truce.
As the US and Japanese delegates confer in an effort to avoid further bloodshed Jack Ryan, with the help of the newly created SVR (the 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 US influence in the Pacific. Fearful of an impending nuclear war between China and Russia, Ryan convinces the President that the US 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.
Allusions/references to actual history, geography and current science
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.
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Fiction: 1980s: The Hunt for Red October | Red Storm Rising | Patriot Games | The Cardinal of the Kremlin | Clear and Present Danger 1990s: The Sum of All Fears | Without Remorse | Debt of Honor | Executive Orders | SSN | Rainbow Six 2000s: The Bear and the Dragon | Red Rabbit | The Teeth of the Tiger Non-fiction: 1990s: Submarine | Armored Cav | Fighter Wing | Marine | Into the Storm | Airborne | Carrier | Every Man a Tiger 2000s: Special Forces | Shadow Warriors | Battle Ready |
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