Debt of honor
by Tom Clancy · first published 1994
13mentions
1recommended by
13HN commenters
2008–2025first – last mentioned
8% recommend92% neutral
It begins with the murder of an American woman in the back streets of Tokyo. It ends in war. . . Number-one bestselling author Tom Clancy takes a bold, incisive look at what our nation's leaders are calling "the new world order." The time and place: a world at peace, where yesterday's enemies are tomorrow's allies. The players: Jack Ryan as the new U.S. President's National Security Advisor, and his CIA colleagues, John Clark and Domingo Chavez. The crisis: a shocking chain of events in which the wages of peace are as fully complex—and devastating—as those of war.
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
To me, Tom Clancy was a visionary. He predicted 9/11 seven years before it happened. He did this by writing a fictional story (Debt of Honor) about a pilot that uses his plane as a weapon to attack a joint session of Congress. This warned us about the risk of passenger jets being used as giant missiles. It's not his fault we didn't pay attention.
It would be startling if they overlooked a threat vividly described in a best-selling novel seven years before, Debt of Honor.
on “Dear Dr. Stallman: An Open Letter” ↗There are "continuity of operations" procedures to prevent a "decapitation" strike killing the President & VP, thus preventing the US from retaliating [0]. This was a plot point in Tom Clancy's novel Debt of Honor [1] (which I distinctly remember reading right before 911, as I had to commute via public transit and commutes were so long I read books). 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Designated_survivor Since…
on “Before Skynet and the Matrix, This 50-Year-Old Movie Predicted the Rise of AI” ↗…crashing airplanes into things on purpose to destroy them (kamikazes), the specific idea of hijacking a commercial airliner to crash it into a national landmark (Air France 8969, and in fiction, Tom Clancy's Debt of Honor among others), and the specific idea of killing thousands of people by destroying the World Trade Center (1993 bombing). We can come up with ways for terrorists to kill thousands of people, and people…
on “Americans Are as Likely to Be Killed by Their Furniture as by Terrorism (2012)” ↗(Spoilers) The end of Tom Clancy's 1994 book "Debt of Honor" featured a 747 being crashed into the Capital, which is about as close as fiction gets.
on “September 11, 2001 media synced in real-time” ↗Yep. Almost exactly the same situation was described in the book. I'd bet Pianka has read "Rainbow Six". Clancy's "Debt of Honor" had a former Japanese WWII pilot hijack a 747 and fly it into the Capitol during the President's State of the Union address, destroying 2 of the 3 branches of the U.S. government. It spooks me that…
This is almost the exact scenario of "Debt of Honor" by Tom Clancy. Only it was a Japanese sub that ambushed a carrier.
on “How the United States Lost the Naval War of 2015” ↗Nope. For another example, see Debt of Honor by Tom Clancy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_of_Honor
on “IRC logs from the beginning of the Gulf War (1991)” ↗Sounds like something out of Tom Clancy's "Debt of Honour" : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_of_Honor
on “US accuses China of pointing lasers at its pilots from Djibouti base” ↗Sure you can't do that exact thing but who would have thought of flying planes into skyscrapers before 9/11 except a few crazies anyway? Tom Clancy? In ‘Debt of Honor’ it’s a major plot-point after all. The issue here is not that making a train into a cruise missile is hard to imagine, it’s actually impossible. You can attack the train, or use the train to attack a…
on “As the U.S. fantasizes, the rest of the world builds new transport system (2017)” ↗Indeed - Tom Clancy wrote Debt of Honor long before 9/11, and Rainbow Six long before COVID.
on “Play Counter Strike 1.6, with full multiplayer, in the browser” ↗…album for "Party Music" from Boots Riley's band "The Coup" was scheduled to be released in September and they had to delay it due to the cover having a picture of the WTC exploding [1] Tom Clancy's book "Debt of Honor" is very similar in a spooky way as well. Including the hesitation to shoot down commercial airliners being used as weapons. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_Music [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_of_Honor
on “The World Trade Center under construction through photos, 1966-1979” ↗Tom Clancy used an attack as part of the plot of "Debt of Honor".
on “Banks Forgot Who Was Supposed to Own Dell Shares” ↗