revise the ongoing security and defense policy<\/a> by December 2026 to further strengthen its military.<\/p>\n\n\n\nJapan has been bolstering its offensive capability with long-range missiles to attack enemy targets from a distance, a major break from its post-World War II principle limiting the use of force to own self-defense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The current security strategy, adopted in 2022, names China as the country\u2019s biggest strategic challenge and calls for a more offensive role for Japan\u2019s Self-Defense Force under its security alliance with the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The new budget plan allocates more than 970 billion yen ($6.2 billion) to bolster Japan’s \u201cstandoff\u201d missile capability. It includes a 177 billion-yen ($1.13 billion) purchase of domestically developed and upgraded Type-12 surface-to-ship missiles with a range of about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first batch of the Type-12 missiles will be deployed in Japan’s southwestern Kumamoto prefecture by March, a year earlier than planned, as Japan accelerates its missile buildup in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In part due to Japan’s aging and declining population and its struggles with an understaffed military, the government believes unmanned weapons are essential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To defend the coasts, Japan will spend 100 billion yen ($640 million) to deploy \u201cmassive\u201d unmanned air, sea-surface and underwater drones for surveillace and defense under a system called \u201cSHIELD” planned for March 2028, defense ministry officials said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ABC: TOKYO —\u00a0Japan’s Cabinet on Friday approved a record defense budget plan exceeding 9 trillion yen ($58 billion) for the coming year, aiming to fortify its strike-back capability and coastal defense with cruise missiles and unmanned arsenals as tensions rise in the region. The draft budget for fiscal 2026 beginning April is up 9.4% from 2025 and marks the fourth year of Japan\u2019s ongoing five-year program to double annual arms spending to 2% of gross domestic product. The increase comes as Japan faces elevated tension from China. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said in November that her country’s military could get involved if… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":53694,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53693"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53695,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53693\/revisions\/53695"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/53694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}