Honor Debt (1994) is a novel thriller by Tom Clancy. This is a continuation of the series featuring his character Jack Ryan. In this installment, Ryan has been a National Security Advisor when the Japanese government (controlled by a group of corporate tycoons known as Zaibatsu) went to war with the United States. One of the sub-plots in this novel (on occupying the "Northern Siberian Resource Region") will then become part of the main plot of Clancy's novel then The Bear and the Dragon.
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Plot
In New York City, Japanese industrialist Raizo Yamata bought a controlling stake in a US mutual fund group. He flew to Saipan and visited Banzai Cliff - where his parents committed suicide during the American invasion of the island at the end of World War II - to buy vast land.
Meanwhile, in eastern Tennessee, a car accident involving two Japanese-made vehicles caused the deaths of six people. Revelations about manufacturing and shipping errors leading to death sparked a long-standing resentment of Japan's protectionist trade policy. As trade negotiations between the United States and Japan halted, Congress passed a law enabling the United States to reflect the trade practices of the countries in which goods were imported. The bill was soon used to avenge Japan's non-tariff barriers, cutting US export markets in which the Japanese economy relies.
Faced with the economic crisis, the Japanese ruling company, led by Yamata, decided to take military action against the United States. Along with the veiled support from China and India, they plan to limit the US presence in the Pacific and rebuild the Greater East Asia Prosperity Area. Behind this development, Jack Ryan was recruited as National Security Adviser by President Roger Durling. Meanwhile, CIA officers John Clark and Domingo Chavez were sent to Japan to reactivate the commercial KGB spy network (codename THISTLE ) for intelligence.
Meanwhile, Japan has secretly developed nuclear weapons and with the SS-18 design purchased from the Soviet Union has fabricated and distributed several ICBMs.
Japan launched its first phase of attack, sending Self Defense Forces units to occupy the Mariana Islands, particularly Saipan and Guam. The invasion, with troops transported by commercial aircraft, barely bleeds. Meanwhile, during joint military exercises, Japanese ships "accidentally" launched torpedoes in the US Pacific Fleet, destroying two submarines and crippling two carriers, me. As a result, the US's ability to project power to the western Pacific is drastically reduced.
The retaliation was soon hampered by the second phase of the Japanese offensive: the economic assault. Even when the military offensive began, Japan engineered the fall of the US stock market by hiring a programmer who was a consultant for exchange companies to put logic bombs into the system, which, when triggered, blocked the storage of all trade records made after noon on Friday. Japan also killed the chairman of the Federal Reserve. With the massive economic crisis and subsequent mass panic, Japan hopes that the US will be too distracted to respond immediately to the Japanese military action.
Japan immediately demanded peace, offered international talks and apparently free elections in Marianas to delay the US response. Negotiators in secret revealed to the United States that Japan had acquired nuclear ballistic missile capabilities. The Japanese oligarchs, led by Yamata, believe that the offer of negotiation and nuclear deterrence, is maintained by the seemingly impenetrable AWACS system; modified Boeing E-767 We , will cause the US to recognize Japan's superiority. With two of the twelve US Navy operators deactivated, and the rest pinned by an international mix of maintenance and crisis elsewhere, Ryan has little resources to defend US interests.
Despite his main focus on military matters, Ryan advised President Durling to deal with the economic crisis first. Ryan also realized that the abolition of Japanese trade records could be an advantage in responding to economic threats. He made a "do-over", in which all transactions that were deleted on the day of mass removal were ignored and all trade information returned to the conditions during the day. Accompanied by presidential speeches for the state and behind the scenes of investment bank bullying, the plan was successful: the US stock market was restored with only minor annoyances. Simultaneously, a group of US investment banks began a massive demolition of Japanese investment products, effectively eliminating any profit made by Zaibatsu.
The United States abolished the Japanese AWACS system through a series of "accidents" and low profile military attacks using widespread US assets, allowing B-2 bombers to destroy the ICBM block.
In one accident, Clark and Chavez blinded two Japanese AWACS pilots with high light intensity and caused them to crash on landing. A fictitious technical warning of problems with an automatic landing system is used to create the impression that the attack was an accident. They then succeeded in rescuing the former Japanese prime minister, Koga, from his house arrest so that he could be used in later peace talks.
The US Air Force uses attacks by F-22 fighters who secretly to further undermine the Japanese air defenses.
An army special operations team was dropped to Japan to support the Comanche helicopter in disguise. One helicopter is used to attack other AWACS aircraft with air-to-air missiles while several others use Hellfire missiles to kill Yamata conspirators.
Meanwhile, Rear Admiral Robby Jackson freed the Marianas with a bit of bloodshed using a combination of cruise missiles and air carrier attacks to severely damage Japanese aircraft stationed on the islands that forced the Japanese commander to surrender his troops. The broken John C. Stennis has been quietly removed from Pearl Harbor while it was supposed to be fixed for damage to the propeller. However, the damaged aircraft carrier had two workable shafts that gave him enough speed for the air operations to be pressed into the emergency services for the attack.
Unbeaten and cornered by the US military and economic response, Japan's aggressive prime minister Hiroshi Goto resigned, handing over power to his predecessor, the rescued Koga. Yamata and his surviving conspirators were arrested for treason (because of nuclear), and the Japanese government just received a generous offer of status quo ante .
Throughout the book, President Durling faces another less important political crisis: Vice President Ed Kealty was forced to resign after being accused of drugging and raping his former staff member. With the crisis over, President Durling nominated Ryan as vice president for his services during the crisis. However, a Japanese Air Line pilot - angered by the death of his son and brother during the conflict - flew the Boeing 747 directly to the US Capitol during a special joint Congress session.
The President, as well as most of the Congress, the Supreme Court, and many other Federal Government members were killed in the attack. Ryan, who was on his way to be confirmed as vice president, was entering the Capitol Building via a tunnel and almost escaped the explosion. He first realized that he was suddenly the new President of the United States when his Secret Service agent, Andrea Price called him "Mr. President". He was immediately taken to Washington's CNN studio, and a District Court judge was brought in. Ryan took an oath of office on live television and started an uncertain term as president.
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Reception
Christopher Buckley, in a review for The New York Times, referred to the book as "herniating experience" and criticized the "racist" depictions of Japanese characters. The Weekly Publishers, on the other hand, argue that: "without taking a Japanese bashing, as did Michael Crichton at Rising Sun, or partisan politics, Clancy cautions that the recent downsizing this in the defense establishment has depleted our military resources so that the state is vulnerable to aggression that can arise anywhere, anytime. "
Legacy
In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, Tom Clancy commented on CNN about the very close similarities between events in the novel and the attacks.
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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