Japan Boosts Defense Budget to Record High

By Alexandra Sharp

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Japan’s record-high defense budget request, a mass hostage crisis in Ecuador, and Ukraine’s new long-range weapon.

On Thursday, Japan’s Defense Ministry requested nearly $53 billion for its next defense budget. The 13 percent increase is the largest request in the agency’s history and the 12th consecutive raise. According to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, the spending boost is part of a five-year, nearly $295 billion plan to strengthen the country’s defense capabilities amid increasingly aggressive Indo-Pacific threats.

Japan hopes to make defense spending 2 percent of its GDP despite decades of a self-imposed 1 percent cap. In this year’s request, more than $5 billion will be allocated toward building a fleet of standoff missiles, nearly $9 billion will go toward enhancing the country’s air and missile defense systems, and around $500 million will be invested in next-generation fighter jets as part of a larger deal with the United Kingdom and Italy.

“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,’” journalist William Sposato argued in Foreign Policy.

In December 2022, Tokyo published a new national security strategy that effectively overturned 60 years of military pacifism, though Kishida said the country would remain committed to its self-defense stance. In the report, Japan’s Defense Ministry called China its “greatest strategic challenge.” Kishida has since said that obtaining a “counterstrike capability will be essential to deter an attack” from China.

Tokyo’s pivot toward a more aggressive defense strategy in the Indo-Pacific comes as Chinese and North Korean threats have escalated to dangerous levels. Over the last year, Beijing has increasingly threatened Taiwan’s sovereignty, boosted its number of overseas naval bases, and expanded its Belt and Road Initiative. Pyongyang appears to be following in Beijing’s footsteps. On Wednesday, North Korea simulated a scorched-earth nuclear strike on South Korea and launched two short-range ballistic missiles into waters off its east coast, spurring Kishida to call Pyongyang’s actions a threat to “peace and stability” in Japan, the Indo-Pacific, and the world at large.

• The G-7 Becomes a Power Player by G. John Ikenberry
• China Is Closing In on Itself by Howard W. French
• How U.N. Peacekeeping Accidentally Fuels Africa’s Coups by Jamie Levin and Nathan Allen

Hostages in Ecuador. More than 50 prison guards and police officers were taken hostage across six prisons in Ecuador on Thursday, underscoring the rampant violence that has engulfed the South American nation. The kidnappings coincided with two car bombings in Quito, Ecuador’s capital, targeting the country’s prison authority. At least six people have been arrested in connection with the spike in violence, and no injuries were reported.

The reason for the slew of criminal activity is unclear; however, local authorities believe one of the bombings could have been in retaliation for a weapons search at one of the country’s largest prisons. In recent years, hundreds of inmates have been killed by drug trafficking gangs due to overcrowded, under-resourced prisons. Cartels rule large stretches of the nation’s capital, and assassinations have become commonplace.

Ukraine’s new weapon. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Thursday that his country has developed a new, advanced long-range weapon that can strike a target 435 miles away. The reveal comes just days after Ukrainian drones hit a Russian airport near the Estonian and Latvian borders, damaging four military transport planes in the process. The airport is roughly 400 miles from the Ukrainian border.

This week’s drone assault was Ukraine’s largest on Russian territory since the war began 18 months ago. The development of this new longer-range weaponry could enable Ukrainian forces to launch even more devastating strikes inside Russia. The last major success Kyiv claimed in its counteroffensive campaign was the capture of Robotyne, a key settlement in Zaporizhzhia, on Monday.

Special privileges. Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra secured a surprise legal win on Friday, when Thai King Maha Vajiralongkorn commuted the long-exiled leader’s prison sentence. Instead of eight years behind bars, Thaksin now faces only one year in prison. The news comes one day after Thaksin submitted a royal pardon request.

Thaksin returned to Bangkok last week following the Thai parliament confirming Pheu Thai Party candidate Srettha Thavisin as the country’s next head of government. Upon his arrival, Thaksin was immediately escorted to the nation’s Supreme Court to face charges for abusing power while in office. The timing of his return suggested that Thaksin may have made a deal with the ruling military regime and political elite to shorten his sentence—although Thaksin and the Pheu Thai Party have denied these allegations.

Following last weekend’s World Bog Snorkeling Championships, Britain hosted another unique competition: the World Gravy Wrestling Championships. Every year, wrestlers don elaborate outfits and spend two minutes vying for a slippery win in a pool of gravy. Points are awarded based on entertainment value as well as wrestling skill. “Once you get in there, it’s a totally different beast,” said competitor Tommy Jupiter. “My opponent’s eyes and ears were full of gravy and he was completely disorientated, but we got through it.”