Debt of Honor

Debt of Honor is a 1994 novel by Tom Clancy. Incorporating contemporary ideas in science and technology, the novel follows protagonist Jack Ryan after the events of its prequel, The Sum of All Fears. Jack works as a national security advisor to suppress a political coup that seizes control of Japan. In popular culture, the book is interpreted as involving plot elements that foreshadow the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The novel begins by contextualizing the fictional coup. An industrialist magnate named Raizo Yamata has a power-hungry plan to restore Japan’s greatness by reinstating its geopolitical dominance. He also harbors an ulterior motive: to make the United States pay for the murder of his family on Saipan during World War II.

Yamata strikes at an opportune moment, when a car crash in Tennessee causes the devastating explosion of several gas tanks that were manufactured in Japan. The United States responds to the incident by scapegoating Japan, passing legislation that allows the US to cut the flow of critical economic goods to the country. In response, Yamata leverages this economic desperation to take charge of Japan’s most powerful business elites, and levies both a trade embargo and military action against the United States. Covertly supported by both India and China, Yamata plans to reduce the US’s power over the Pacific region and create a closed economic system.



In the aftermath of the US’s sanctions, the disgraced sitting prime minister, Mogataru Koga, resigns. The elite class replaces him with Hiroshi Goto, an outspoken critic of the United States. Japan also reexamines its nuclear program and queues several nuclear missiles for deployment. In its first assault, Japan nonviolently occupies the Mariana Islands, including Saipan and Guam. During a military exercise, Japan pretends to make a mistake and launches torpedoes at the US fleet, destroying four vessels. They strategically prevent retaliation by attacking the United States from an economic angle, using a spy in the Federal Reserve to plant code in its trading platform that deletes its trade records, throwing the system into chaos. At the same time, they kill the Federal Reserve chairman. At this point, Japan disingenuously asks for a peace treaty, confusing and delaying US action.

At this point, President Durling takes protagonist Jack Ryan out of retirement and appoints him as national security advisor. Jack suggests that Durling first fix the economic crisis by instating a process where the deleted trade data is ignored and the system is restored to an earlier backup. This restores the stock market with minimal turbulence. The investment banks are able to retaliate against Japan; they sell all of their investment products to negate Japan’s recent economic advantage.

Then the US military begins its retaliation. It destroys Japan’s air traffic tracking and analytics system in a series of covert and strategically placed attacks. Meanwhile, a US admiral named Robby Jackson frees the Mariana Islands with little violence by combining air and sea weaponry to destroy most of Japan’s aircraft, forcing Japan to surrender the islands. In defeat, Goto resigns his leadership position. Koga—having been rescued from Yamata, who was holding him hostage—returns to power. Yamata and his cronies are arrested, and the United States reinstates peace with Japan, generously agreeing to return the state of diplomacy that existed before Yamata’s coup.



The novel ends by looping back to a minor plot element: the accusation of sexual misconduct by the vice president. President Durling nominates Jack to replace him. In a final moment of suspense, a pilot for Japan Airlines flies a Boeing 747 into the US Capitol building during a congressional session. The explosion kills the president, most of Congress, and the Supreme Court justices. Jack narrowly escapes and is therefore named president. As the novel ends, he takes the oath of office on live television in CNN’s Washington, DC, studio.

A gripping thriller about fraught geopolitical relations between state rivals that quickly reach a tipping point, Debt of Honor ponders American ethics and state power. Clancy’s novel rejects the idea that the United States has automatic supremacy by portraying its war with Japan as a complex game with no clear victor. The fates of both countries are ultimately controlled by the actions of their bravest and most daring constituents.