Missile defense development is not cheap, especially in a period of flat defense spending. Japan’s Ministry of Defense has requested just under $2 billion for missile defense programs, out of a total defense budget of $53 billion (at current exchange rates). Yet missile defense is also just one part of the larger movement in Japan’s military development over the past decade. The ministry is also in the midst of selecting its next generation air defense fighter and continuing a modernization of naval assets, including more Aegis-equipped destroyers and upgrading its aging P3-C surveillance planes. These are expensive, long-term investments that will shape the Japanese military, and influence the U.S.-Japan alliance, for years to come. And yet, the new government has given almost no indication of what its own security policies will be or how it will structure the defense budget in the coming years.
Like all leaderships, Japan’s new national security team must prioritize its spending plans. Over the last decade, since North Korea launched a Taepodong ballistic missile over Japanese airspace in 1998, Tokyo has aggressively funded programs aimed at emerging threats. In doing so, it has worked more closely with Washington than any other American ally. It has deployed land-based PAC-3 batteries, sharing information with U.S.-operated X-Band radars in Japan, and has installed sea-based SM-3 systems on four Aegis destroyers.
In that time frame, Japan’s neighbors have developed other offensive weapons systems, thus giving Tokyo further incentive to continue defensively based programs. Pyongyang has launched short, medium, and long-range ballistic missiles in 2006 and 2009, as well as set off two small-scale nuclear explosions. Meanwhile, China has introduced the Jin class of nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine, extended the operations of its diesel submarines, and further refined its mobile medium and intermediate-range DF-21 ballistic missiles. Russia has returned to the skies, as well, doing frequent fly-bys of Japanese territory with strategic bombers.
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