Japan’s Defense Plans Are Big, Popular, and Expensive

Bolstered by a more aggressive defense policy and with serious money to back it up, a nation whose very constitution forbids an army or navy has now become the go-to country for military alliances. Since the start of the year, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has met with a broad array of foreign leaders, from U.S. President Joe Biden to Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, increasingly concerned about a China-Russia axis, with the ever-volatile North Korea thrown into the mix.

Kishida’s actions run counter to the traditional Japanese political approach of gradualism, in which by the time a decision is taken a broad consensus has been formed. That decision-making formula has helped to keep the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in power for almost all of post-World War II Japan. This time, however, the process has been measured in weeks and months, rather than the long battle it took for then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to win changes to the rules of engagement for Japanese forces in 2014.

Among the most visible of Kishida’s actions was a complete review of the three documents that guide Japanese defense policy: the National Security Strategy, the National Defense Program Guidelines and the Mid-Term Defense Program. With the introduced changes, Japanese forces, which are constitutionally prohibited from waging war, can nevertheless engage in “counterstrike attacks” against an enemy’s bases back home. To make this possible, Japan will enhance the capabilities of its domestically produced Type 12 missiles and also spend around $2 billion to purchase U.S. Tomahawk missiles, with a range of 1,000 miles.

Most important are plans to double defense spending over the next five years, which would make Japanese defense spending third highest in the world behind the United States and China. The current year’s budget provided a solid down payment on this ambitious target, with a 26 percent increase in defense expenditures. This is fairly heady stuff for a nation of military euphemisms where the army is dubbed a self-defense force and aircraft carriers are modestly called “multi-purpose operation destroyers.”

Japan is also looking to “weaponize” its extensive overseas aid program to include defense-related spending for the first time. The new program, dubbed “official security assistance,” would represent a break from the long-standing policy of providing aid only for civilian purposes. The impact will be more symbolic than real, at least for now, with just $15 million budgeted for the current fiscal year. Recipients are expected to include the Philippines, Malaysia and Bangladesh.

All of this was just what Washington wanted to hear and follows years of exhortations by U.S. officials for Tokyo to do more to shoulder the defense burden (while of course buying U.S. weapons systems). With these gifts in hand, Kishida took the opportunity to burnish his credentials as a statesman—and escape his dismal public opinion poll ratings that were falling below the 30 percent mark—by holding talks with U.S. President Joe Biden in early January.

The bilateral meeting was a welcome respite for both leaders. Kishida was all smiles, calling Biden “my dear friend,” while Biden said that the event came at “a remarkable moment for our alliance.” There was substance as well, with the leaders able to point to a new agreement further bolstering the already large U.S. military presence in Okinawa Prefecture, Japan’s southernmost territory that would have a ringside seat for any Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

Kishida’s diplomatic offensive has been a formidable one. Using Japan’s presidency of the G-7 industrialized nations as a calling card, he wasted no time in a string of other high-level meetings at home and abroad to stitch up various military cooperation deals. His overseas trip destinations not only included G-7 members Canada, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom, but also a visit to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a surprise morale-boosting trip to Ukraine. In Tokyo, he welcomed German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and capped it all off with a recent fence-mending visit by South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, following an agreement between the two countries meant to (again) try to patch up relations despite Japan’s wartime abuses. The deal has been widely panned in South Korea, but it appears that Yoon feels he has more pressing worries at the moment.

Kishida’s globetrotting has paid off at home, with recent opinion polls showing his image again on the rise with an approval rating above 40 percent, forestalling whispers of another turn in Japan’s revolving-door leadership. Concerns over China, as well as Russia, have helped to push up support for new defense measures, with two-thirds of Japanese respondents saying they were in favor of a stronger defense force and more than 80 percent saying that China and Russia were security threats.

One question is why Kishida seems in such a rush. While Japan’s leaders have been talking of a “worsening security situation” for more than a decade, the reworking of the core defense strategies and funding plans have security experts wondering if something is up.

“I’m surprised by the fact that the Japanese government made this decision to boost defense capabilities so significantly,” said Narushige Michishita, a professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo and a noted defense expert. “There must be something that indicates that we have to make a response swiftly and decisively,” he said. The likely reason? “China, China, China.”

Government officials have tried to paint the changes as evolutionary amid a worsening security environment, not a fundamental change in Japan’s strategy nor a violation of its war-renouncing constitution. The official national defense strategy released in December 2022 pointedly stated, “Needless to say, preemptive strikes, namely striking first at a stage when no armed attack has occurred, remain impermissible.”

But Japanese officials have been somewhat less direct on the question of offense vs. defense. Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada said last December that preparations showing a likely imminent attack would potentially be enough for a Japanese strike. That fuzziness has raised concerns, even within the LDP. “If Japan has enemy base attack capabilities, how much will it enhance deterrence, and how much will it enhance Japan’s peace and security?” said Shigeru Ishiba, a senior figure in the party and former defense minister. “I don’t think it is … right to [only] stir up a sense of crisis.”

China has meanwhile raised the specter of Japan’s invasion of China and other aggression during World War II to warn that Japan is again on the road to militarism, a theme that sparked a diplomatic spat between the Japanese and Chinese ambassadors to Australia. “Once somebody threatens you, he might threaten you again,” Chinese Ambassador Xiao Qian said during a January news conference. “China has been your friend; we will continue to be your friend.” Xiao clearly hoped that Australians would forget the import bans imposed by Beijing in 2020 for alleged insults from Australia over COVID-19 and other matters. (It even issued a list).

Even the affable Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi, who had been in the LDP’s more pro-China camp, had tough words for Beijing in his April visit, the first by a top Japanese diplomat since late 2019. Aside from protesting the late-March detention of a Japanese national on suspicion of espionage, he criticized the sailing of Chinese vessels around islands claimed by both countries as well as China’s recent joint military maneuvers with Russia, and called on Beijing to play a “responsible role” in the Ukraine-Russia war—echoing calls from Europe and the United States that have already raised hackles in a China that dislikes being told what to do.

But the big question is where Tokyo will find the money for all this. Doubling the defense budget will likely mean tripling the primary budget deficit by 2025. Kishida’s initial idea of higher taxes was quickly shot down when polls showed strong public opposition. A December poll by Kyodo News found that 64 percent were against paying more tax for the defense effort.

While extra debt is no small issue for any government, it is a potential disaster for Japan, which already carries the world’s largest government debt burden, at approximately 220 percent of annual GDP in 2021. It is one of the world’s economic miracles that this debt coexists in a country with a smoothly running economy, a steady balance of payments and among the world’s lowest interest rates (home loan rates are around 0.5 percent to 0.8 percent).

Even before any defense spending increase, 34 percent of government spending is directly financed by issuing new debt. Although the long-predicted crisis from this never seems to arrive, some officials are sounding increasingly worried. “After taking steps to cope with the novel coronavirus pandemic and drawing up supplementary budgets, we face a fiscal situation that is increasing in severity at an unprecedented level,” Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki said in a policy speech to parliament in January.

These constraints have raised questions about whether Japan can sustain the course on a military expansion. “The question is what will Tokyo actually spend, particularly given all the public policy challenges that the Japanese people are very concerned about,” said Jennifer Lind, associate professor of government at Dartmouth College, at a recent seminar on Japan’s security strategy.

Another worry is whether Japan’s Self-Defense Forces are up to the job. While China’s lack of real combat since 1979, save for small skirmishes in the mid-1980s with Vietnam, is often noted, Japan’s forces have not fired a shot in anger since 1945. In addition, the Self-Defense Forces are facing increasing challenges recruiting in a country that has renounced not only warfare, but a strong military tradition. The forces have not met their recruitment target since 2014, and with Japan’s declining birthrate the situation is expected to worsen.

And while the main vision is of a conflict with China, another foe waits in the wings. Michishita sees the North Korea and Taiwan issues as increasingly entwined. “We have two theaters of operation to take care of,” he said. “If I’m [Chinese President] Xi Jinping, I would definitely create a crisis situation on the Korean peninsula before I started a campaign to take Taiwan.”

Kathleen Benoza contributed reporting to this article.