Debt of Honor: Difference between revisions
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No matter the cost.
This 1994 book is the first in a new [[Myth Arc]] [[Tom Clancy]] started writing after [[The Sum of All Fears]], in which he started trying to find new antagonists for his heroes to contend with post-Cold War.
It was succeeded by ''[[Executive Orders]]'', the second part of the myth arc.
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* [[Actual Pacifist]]: Prime Minister Koga. It's partially because of this his political enemies temporarily oust him around the start of the book, because he'd screw up their own plans. {{spoiler|By the end of the book, though, he comes to accept violence, while distasteful, is reluctantly necessary to serve the cause of peace and justice, especially when American CIA officers use it rescue him from unlawful imprisonment and possibly being murdered at a later date}}.
* [[Apologetic Attacker]]: Sato apologises to the co-pilot he stabs in the back before doing out his final deed.
* [[Black Helicopter]]: The Comanche is depicted as this, being so stealthy it can be used to assassinate major corporate figures in their central Tokyo homes where any normal helicopter should have been intercepted long before it gets anywhere near.
* [[Continuity Nod]]: In the previous book, Japanese sources fed the CIA information via a Russian [[Double Agent]] that prevented a world war. Not only is this referenced, the source of the leaks that were used is met by the CIA for the first time.
** The time frame is a bit off, but Roger Durling's re-election is coming up soon, and it roughly coincides with how he took over after Bob Fowler resigned in the previous book.
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* [[Enemy Mine]]: Despite the public resentment China and Japan still feel for one another, conspirators in both countries secretly ally for mutual gain, though China secretly hopes to welsh on the deal as soon as they get a chance.
* [[Exact Words]]: To deceive the Japanese forces into believing they've already won, the Americans get the media to report the correct amount of time it would take to get their forces back to the strength they were before. It works, because the Americans instead opt to get their forces back to the bare minimum necessary required to strike back, so [[From a Certain Point of View]] they never lied per se, they just told the truth the Japanese were expecting to hear.
* [[Fair-Weather Friend]]: The Chinese break things off once Yamata's plans go pear-shaped.
* [[Feed the Mole]]: Towards the end of the book it becomes obvious Japan has a few moles in the American government undermining the US, so instead of immediately arresting them, they elect instead to use them to feed the Japanese false information, due to how complacently the Japanese regard the reliability of said moles.
* [[History Repeats]]: Several characters note how the leadup to open war contains uncomfortable parallels to World War II. The code phrase used by the Japanese to start offensive operations is the same as that which started the Attack of Pearl Harbor, and several submarines whose namesakes were Pearl Harbor survivors play important parts in the counterattacks.
* [[Hoist by His Own Petard]]: Yamata's plot to ruin the American stock market with junk becomes its own worst enemy when Jack realises, building on an earlier discussion, that because there are no records, the government can just reset the clock by fiating that none of the bad trades actually happened.
* [[Kaiju Defense Force]]: Given an extremely sympathetic perspective, given their antagonist role. Most are portrayed as patriots of one sort or another, and while only a few are portrayed as having truly malicious intentions in the short and long term, most are merely motivated by their national and personal pride.
* [[Heel Realization]]: Towards the end of the book, one of Yamata's allies realizes he bet on the losing horse and pissed off the wrong enemy {{spoiler|when a retaliatory American strike by stealth aircraft nearly assassinates him}}.
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** Koga rather easily and simply proves Yamata is full of it when they finally confront one another most of the way through the book, pointing out all the long-term damage his plans would effect even if he triumphed in the short term, points out the stunning idiocy of trusting the Chinese to go to bat for him if things go south, and that Yamata is so sure he's gonna win he underestimates America, the same country that nuclear bombed Japan before, to which Yamata really has no counter. {{spoiler|[[Laser Guided Karma|And Koga turns out to be so correct the few mentions of Yamata fate in the next book is a non-stop legal and deeply personal]] [[Fate Worse Than Death]] for the man}}.
* [[Make It Look Like an Accident]]: Both the Japanese and Americans use this ploy, in different ways.
** A hitman shoves a senior executive of an American financial firm into traffic, making him look like a victim of [[Car Fu]].
** The Japanese conspirators off the American mistress of Goto and try to make it look like a drug overdose to wrap up that loose end, and prevent her from being used as potential blackmail material. It becomes a non-issue ultimately, {{spoiler|and it actually tips their hand somewhat, confirming Goto is a pawn of Yamata and due to evidence of a struggle and rape at the scene discovered by the CIA, only gives the Americans more reason to be pissed off, albeit not publicly}}.
** The Americans later counter with an operation to cripple Japan's anti-aircraft radar screen by having Clark and Chavez use their flashlight device to blind several pilots who try to land at a Japanese runway, causing them to crash, then fake a technical fault regarding the model of the aircraft used by the pilots so that any investigation will be considered accidents later on.
* [[My Country, Right or Wrong]]: The mass majority of the Japanese characters who are remotely sympathetic do what they do, even if it means killing people, with this in mind, though a few of the villains driven by personal or less honorable reasons are shown to profess this publicly while having other motivations.
* [[Myth Arc]]: Part one of three, in which, with the Soviet Union being no more, Communist China takes their place as the main antagonist, albeit at a "once removed" fashion, using Japan's ambition {{spoiler|or at least that of those secretly controlling things there}} as a proxy for their own goals of seizing most of Siberia. India also makes
* [[Non-Lethal KO]]: Clark and Chavez use a souped up flashlight that induces a non lethal incapacitatory effect several times throughout the book.<ref>Based off a [[Real Life]] device which Clancy admitted he obscured details of, due to its classified nature.</ref>
**
* [[One Nation Under Copyright]]: Japan is revealed to be this, with the zaibatsu (the corporate leaders of major industries) being the [[The Man Behind The Man]] to the government, which largely exists to rubberstamp whatever the zaibatsu want.
* [[Playful Hacker]]: Yamata hires one to make his attempt to crash Wall Street work even better, by having them insert a bug into the Depository Trust Company's records that rendered them unreadable nonsense. {{spoiler|It works too well, which allows Jack Ryan to realize he can use this to effect a little [[Loophole Abuse]] and sidestep all the damage by pretending most of the financial damage this caused never happened since no records exist to prove it did in the first place}}.
* [[Putting on the Reich]]: The usage of this trope is noted by Clark and Chavez when they observe Goto having a political rally that disturbingly reminds both of [[Leni Riefenstahl]]'s ''[[Triumph of the Will]]''.
* [[Shown Their Work]]: In universe, despite being really rusty at the trading business and never having been a big name Wall Street trader (he worked as a trade consultant for one of the firms represented on the Street at most), Jack Ryan himself gets this reaction when he describes how the stock markets went to hell around the midpoint of the book, even from people who know how it all works on paper.
* [[Stranger in a Familiar Land]]: One POV character is Chester "Chet" Nomuri, a fourth-generation Japanese American serving as a CIA field officer in Japan. His narration has him grappling with the cultural differences between ancestral homeland and birthplace.
* [[Tempting Fate]]: On being informed of the stock troubles, a senior executive for an American financial firm says that since he's near the office, he'll just handle it in the office rather than on the phone. He doesn't get there.
* [[Unreliable Narrator]]: We get a big look inside Raizo Yamata's mind throughout the book, and while he publicly tries to come off as harmless, in private he comes off like a [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] patriot of his country with a tinge of [[Wide Eyed Idealism]]. His internal monologue, on the other hand, reveals he's really satisfying a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] and is using his privately expressed motivations as a very convenient excuse for his actions, given they dovetail nicely with his own actual goals.
* [[Unwitting Pawn]]: Hiroshi Goto is essentially an idiot used as a front man to make Japan an extension of Raizo Yamata's plans. Most of the way through the book, many of Yamata's supporters come to the conclusion they have become this themselves, with varying degrees of self realization.
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