Chronicles of Southeast Asia

1. The chain of command: The nuclear button is not controlled by a single finger. It is a chain stretching from the president to the operator, welded in place by law. To break it, all it takes is one lie at any link.

2. The chain of ownership: Deepwater ports, runways, uranium mines, fiber-optic cables. Every inch comes with seven contracts, five signatures, and three mutually contradictory claims of sovereignty. No one owns them, yet everyone is ready to go to war for them.

3. The chain of price: There are no good people in this book. Everyone has a number, a sentence, or a person that can buy them. The only difference is the price, and whether they cry after they have sold themselves.

4. The chain of honesty: The final shot in this book is not fired by a schemer. It is spoken by someone who tells the truth. The truth saves no one. It merely gives the war in everyone's hearts a legal name.