In the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute's (SIPRI) 2008 yearbook, released earlier this month, Japan ranked fifth in military expenditures (valued at $43.6 billion in market exchange rate terms and amounting to 4% of total world military expenditures), behind the USA, the UK, China, and France.But it turns out that Japan also ranked fifth in …
Tag: Japanese defense policy
The LDP and DPJ cooperate on space
The House of Councillors has, as expected, passed a new space basic law on the back of cooperation between the LDP, Komeito, and the DPJ.As noted previously, the law ends the 1969 ban on the use of space for military purposes, permitting the government to deploy high-resolution spy satellites. The law also calls for the …
Schieffer bemoans Japan’s (lack of) defense spending
On Tuesday, J. Thomas Schieffer, US ambassador to Japan, spoke at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan, where he called on Japan to spend more on defense.Judging from the coverage in the foreign and domestic press, it appears that the ambassador spoke bluntly, declaring, "I think the Japanese are getting a bargain in the (US-Japan) …
Continue reading Schieffer bemoans Japan’s (lack of) defense spending
Deflating the F-22
Over at Wired's Danger Room blog, covering defense technology, Noah Shachtman writes of the long, weird history of the development of the F-22, noting that as the price of the F-22 went up, the US Air Force had to derive new roles for what was originally intended as solely an air superiority fighter.In discussing the …
The future of the Japanese RMA
The Yomiuri Shimbun reported today on the release of a report by the Japanese Defense Ministry's Technical Research and Development Institute providing a medium- to long-term technology estimate, essentially outlining the future of the Japanese variant of the revolution in military affairs.The question is, essentially, how will technology impact Japanese force structure and doctrine.I have …
Japan’s unchanging defense budget
Courtesy of Japan Probe, I came across this summary of Abe's interview with the Wall Street Journal, which seems to have focused more on defense matters than the Washington Post/Newsweek interview.Abe apparently told the WSJ that Japan does not plan to raise its defense spending to match China's growing defense expenditures, which, the article reports, …
Tobias S. Harris 