 First edition cover | |
| Author | Tom Clancy |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Series | Jack Ryan |
Release number | 6 |
| Genre | |
| Publisher | G.P. Putnam's Sons |
Publication date | August 17, 1994 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover,Paperback) |
| Pages | 766 |
| ISBN | 0399139540 |
| Preceded by | The Sum of All Fears |
| Followed by | Executive Orders |
Debt of Honor is atechno-thriller novel, written byTom Clancy and released on August 17, 1994. A direct sequel toThe Sum of All Fears (1991),Jack Ryan becomes theNational Security Advisor when a secret cabal of Japanese industrialists seize control of their country's government and wage war on the United States. The book debuted at number one onThe New York Times bestseller list.[1] The novel was later noted as containing plot elements which were similar to the circumstances of theSeptember 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the hijacking ofUnited Airlines Flight 93.
Japanese industrialist Raizo Yamata has been plotting to bring back his country to a position of greatness for years, partly as revenge for the death of his family at the hands of American forcesinvading the island ofSaipan duringWorld War II. His opportunity comes when a car accident inEast Tennessee, caused by gas tanks made in Japan which were corroded after improper omission ofgalvanization and exposure to seawater during shipping, results in the deaths of six Americans in amulti-vehicle collision. The incident leads to the swift passage of a law allowing the U.S. to mirror trade practices of the countries from which it imports goods, cutting off the American export markets upon which the Japanese economy depends. Facing an economic crisis, Japan's rulingzaibatsu, led by Yamata, decides to take economic and military action against the United States. Along with covert support fromChina andIndia, they plot to curtail the U.S. presence in the Pacific and re-establish theGreater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. After theJapanese Prime Minister Mogataru Koga resigns in disgrace due to the economic situation, the zaibatsu installs Hiroshi Goto, an aggressive nationalist and critic of the U.S., to succeed him. Meanwhile, Japan has covertly developed nuclear weapons, and withSS-19 designs bought from the former Soviet Union, has fabricated and deployed severalICBMs.
Japan launches the first phase of its assault, sendingSelf-Defense Force units to occupy theMariana Islands, specifically Saipan andGuam, without casualties. Also, during a joint military exercise, Japanese ships "accidentally" launch torpedoes at theU.S. Pacific Fleet, destroying two submarines and crippling two aircraft carriers. An immediate retaliation is forestalled by the second phase of the Japanese offensive: aneconomic attack, where Japan engineers the collapse of the U.S.stock market by hiring a programmer who is a consultant for an exchange firm to insert alogic bomb into the system, which when triggered blocks the storage of all trade records made after noon on Friday. They also assassinate the President of theFederal Reserve Bank. The Japanese government then immediatelysue for peace, offering international talks and seemingly free elections in the Marianas to delay a U.S. response.
Meanwhile,Jack Ryan is pulled out of retirement from government service by U.S. President Roger Durling, who appoints him asNational Security Advisor. Despite his typical focus on military issues, he advises the president to deal with the economic crisis first, realizing that Japan's deletion of trade records could be an advantage in responding to the economic threat. He engineers a "do-over", where all of the transactions that were deleted on the day of the mass deletion are ignored and all trade information is restored to its condition at noon of that day. The U.S. stock market is successfully restored with only minor disruption, and a group of U.S.investment banks start a massive economic unloading of Japanese investment products, effectively eliminating any gains made by the zaibatsu.
The United States military then proceeds to launch a counterattack on their Japanese counterparts using whatever resources they have. In a staged accident,CIA operativesJohn Clark and Domingo Chavez blind two incoming JapaneseE-767 pilots with aDazzler that causes them to crash upon landing. TheU.S. Air Force then proceeds to eliminate the rest of Japan'sAWACS system through low-profile military attacks using widely dispersed U.S. assets, allowingB-2 bombers to destroy the hidden ICBM silos. They later use an attack by stealthyF-22 fighters to further damage Japan's air defenses. AnArmy special operations team is airdropped into Japan to support covertly insertedComanche helicopters. One helicopter is used to attack another AWACS plane with air-to-air missiles while several others useHellfire missiles to kill members of Yamata's cabal. Meanwhile, Admiral Robby Jackson liberates the Marianas with few casualties by using a combination of cruise missiles and carrier air attacks to severely damage the Japanese aircraft stationed on the islands, which forces the Japanese commander to surrender his troops.
Outmaneuvered and cornered by the United States' military and economic response, Goto resigns, ceding power to his predecessor Koga, who was rescued earlier by Clark and Chavez from Yamata. Yamata and his surviving conspirators are arrested for treason, and the new Japanese government accepts the generous U.S. offer ofstatus quo ante.
Throughout the book, President Durling faces another political crisis:Vice President Ed Kealty is forced to resign after being accused of rape. With the crisis over, President Durling nominates Ryan as vice president for successfully handling the crisis. However, an embitteredJapan Air Lines pilot, driven mad by the deaths of his son and brother during the conflict, flies hisBoeing 747 directly into theU.S. Capitol during a specialjoint session of Congress. The president, as well as nearly the entire Congress, theSupreme Court, and many other members of thefederal government, are all killed in the attack. Ryan, who was on his way to be sworn as vice president after being confirmed, narrowly escapes the explosion. He becomes the President of the United States and takes his oath of office before a district judge in theCNN studios in Washington.
Debt of Honor was released during a time of American resentment towards the Japanese, which was further popularized by the publication ofMichael Crichton's crime thriller novelRising Sun in 1992.[2]
The novel also reinforces Clancy's belief that the recent downsizing of the military establishment after theCold War "has so depleted our military resources that the country is vulnerable to aggression that can arise anywhere, anytime", according toPublishers Weekly's review of the book.[3]
The book debuted at number one on theNew York Times bestseller list. It also debuted at number one on theUSA Today's Best-selling Books list for the week of August 25, 1994.[4]
The novel received mixed reviews.Publishers Weekly praised Clancy, who "spins out story threads in a rich but bewildering tangle of plot and setting, then vigorously weaves them together. Here, the heart-stopping climax is unexpected, but oddly appropriate." However,Christopher Buckley, in a review forThe New York Times, called the book a "herniating experience", criticized its "racist" depictions of Japanese characters and judged that it was "as subtle as a World War II anti-Japanese poster showing a mustachioedTojo bayoneting Caucasian babies".[5]
In later years, the novel was noted for its similarity to the circumstances surroundingUnited Airlines Flight 93, especially regarding its climax, where an embittered Japanese pilot crashes his 747 on a joint session of Congress in the Capitol. While researching for the novel's ending, Clancy consulted an Air Force officer and described his reaction: "I ran this idea past him and all of a sudden this guy's eyeballing me rather closely and I said, 'Come on General, I know you must have looked at this before, you've got to have a plan for it.' And the guy goes, 'Mr. Clancy, to the best of my knowledge, if we had a plan to deal with this, it would be secret, I wouldn't be able to talk to you about it, but to the best of my knowledge we've never looked at this possibility before.'"[6]
In April 1995, United States senatorSam Nunn outlined a scenario similar to the novel's ending, in which terrorists attack the Capitol on the night of aState of the Union address by crashing a radio-controlled airplane filled with chemical weapons into it. Nunn concluded that the scenario is "not far-fetched" and that the required technology is readily available.[7] However, the9/11 Commission Report revealed that national security officials did not consider the possibility: “[Counterterror official]Richard Clarke told us that he was concerned about the danger posed by aircraft in the context of protecting theAtlanta Olympics of 1996, theWhite House complex, and the2001 G-8 summit inGenoa. But he attributed his awareness more to Tom Clancy novels than to warnings from the intelligence community.”[8]
In the aftermath of the attacks, Clancy was called intoCNN and commented on the similarity between a plane crash depicted in the novel and the crash of United Flight 93. CNN anchorJudy Woodruff later remarked: "People in our newsroom have been saying today that what is happening is like right out of a Tom Clancy novel."[9]
