Debt of Honor is a techno-thriller novel, written by Tom Clancy and released on August 17, 1994. A direct sequel to The Sum of All Fears (1991), Jack Ryan becomes the National 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 on The New York Times bestseller list. The novel was later noted as containing plot elements which were similar to the circumstances of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the hijacking of United Airlines Flight 93. Plot summary 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 forces invading the island of Saipan during World War II. His opportunity comes when a car accident in East Tennessee, caused by faulty gas tanks made in Japan, results in the deaths of six American people. 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 ruling zaibatsu, led by Yamata, decides to take economic and military action against the United States. Along with covert support from China and India, they plot to curtail the U.S. presence in the Pacific and re-establish the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. After the Japanese 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 with SS-18 designs bought from the former Soviet Union, has fabricated and deployed several ICBMs. Japan launches the first phase of its assault, sending Self-Defense Force units to occupy the Mariana Islands, specifically Saipan and Guam, without casualties. However, during a joint military exercise, Japanese ships "accidentally" launch torpedoes at the U.S. Pacific Fleet, destroying two submarines and crippling two aircraft carriers. An immediate retaliation is forestalled by the second phase of the Japanese offensive: an economic 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 a logic bomb into the system, which