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Old 12-13-2022, 10:00 AM
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Question Japan Plans to Double Its Defense Budget Amid ‘Worsening Security Environment’

Japan Plans to Double Its Defense Budget Amid ‘Worsening Security Environment’
By: Kyle Mizokami - Popular Mechanincs News 12-13-22
Re: https://www.popularmechanics.com/mil...efense-budget/

Is seems: The war in Ukraine has prompted many countries to expand their defense spending.

Photo link: https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod...0&resize=640:*

* Japan plans to double its defense spending by 2027, the largest increase in nearly 70 years.

* The East Asian country is located in an increasingly unruly neighborhood, including missile overflights, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and China’s aggressiveness in the South China Sea and against Taiwan.

* The spending will likely go to a mix of offensive weapons and stockpiling ammo for the future.

Japan is planning a massive increase in defense spending, one that would double what it spends on national security in just five years. The country’s position in East Asia places it uncomfortably close to heavyweights China and Russia and unlikely nuclear power North Korea. The increase will go towards addressing a number of deficiencies, including Japan’s offensive weapons, a new fighter jet, and stockpiling ammo for wartime contingencies.

According to Nikkei Asia, Japanese Prime Minister Nobuo Kishida instructed his cabinet to figure out how to increase Japan’s defense budget from approximately one percent GDP to two percent, effectively doubling it. The five-year build-up program is supposed to take place between 2022 and 2027.

Japan’s pacifist defense policy, instituted at the end of World War II, calls for the country to spend the minimum required to defend the country. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), postwar Japan first began spending on defense in 1952, at 2.07 percent of GDP. That number plateaued at just under one percent in 1962, and the country’s unofficial policy has been to hold spending at under one percent. The number finally broke the one-percent ceiling in 2020, coming in at 1.03 percent.

2nd photo link: https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod...g?resize=768:*
Members of the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force conduct a training event using Howa Type 89 assault rifles during training exercise Rising Thunder on December 4, 2021, at Yakima Training Center, Washington. By: Sgt. Ayako Takei/DVIDS

Japan’s 2022 defense budget is 1.1 percent, or $54.1 billion. Japan is currently in ninth place for defense spending worldwide, with the United States, China, India, the United Kingdom, and Russia consisting of the top five spenders, in that order. A two-percent budget would rocket Japan’s defense spending to $108.2 billion and place it in third behind the U.S. and China. By comparison, U.S. defense spending in 2021 was $801 billion.

Corey Wallace, an assistant professor at Japan’s Kanagawa University, tells Popular Mechanics, “News reports are suggesting a purchase of Tomahawk cruise missiles as Japan considers building out its integrated air and missile defense capabilities to include ‘counterattack capabilities.’ The current rumored tie-up between Japan, Italy, and the U.K. to develop Japan’s F-X fighter is also likely to be covered by the five-year build-up program.”

“Japan is also likely to invest money in accelerating the planned upgrades to its Type-12 surface-to-surface missile to extend its range and enable it to be launched from other platforms.”

The war in Ukraine also looms large in Japan’s contingency planners. The war has eaten up a large amount of NATO ammunition, stressing even America’s ammunition stockpile. “One thing that is likely to be enhanced,” Wallace explains, “is ammunition stockpiles. This has been a long-run issue, and events in the Ukraine have only reiterated the importance of being able to sustain the generation of force beyond an initial strike.”

Not all of the spending will go towards weapons: Nikkei Asia reports that in addition to current defense requirements, the spending boost will also cover “funding for scientific research, cyber technology, infrastructure, and an improvement of the Japan Coast Guard.”

3rd Photo link: https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod...g?resize=768:*
Members of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force disembark from a V-22 Osprey aircraft during a live fire exercise at East Fuji Maneuver Area on May 28, 2022 in Gotemba, Shizuoka, Japan. - Tomohiro Ohsumi//Getty Images

Also: Japan is Building the Biggest Warships in Asia

Why is Japan boosting its defense now? “A worsening security environment around Japan is driving this unprecedented policy change,” Christopher Johnstone, Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, tells Popular Mechanics. “China is undertaking a sweeping military modernization program and increasing maritime pressure on Japan in the East China Sea. North Korea continues to advance nuclear weapons and missile programs and in October launched an intermediate-range ballistic missile that overflew Japan. Following the invasion of Ukraine, Russia labeled Japan an ‘unfriendly’ country and increased military activity near Japan.”

Wallace agrees that Ukraine is driving part of the buildup. “While the sense of threat emanating from North Korea and China, and particularly the recent concerns about Taiwan, have kept the government and the Japanese public on edge,” Wallace says, “it was not until the Russian invasion of Ukraine that there was a substantive and noticeable move in public sentiment regarding defense spending. In this sense, people seemed to have begun asking, ‘What if what we assumed was saber-rattling actually comes to fruition?’”

Japan’s defense budget boom will bring it in line with the rest of the western-oriented countries; NATO suggests a defense spending of two percent GDP for member states. One percent was unsustainable given China’s large and growing military, Russia’s willingness to invade its neighbors, and North Korea’s unbridled nuclear program.

[The remaining question is: If Japan’s neighborhood continues to get rough, will it spend even more?]
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Personal note: The world today is very wary (or leery) causing insecurity.
Weapons suppliers have got to be - rolling over on their money - they are
getting for supplying new waring materials. Plenty of jobs working in the
war departments and suppliers right now. It smells like INSECURITY to me!
(But can you blame them?).
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__________________
Boats

O Almighty Lord God, who neither slumberest nor sleepest; Protect and assist, we beseech thee, all those who at home or abroad, by land, by sea, or in the air, are serving this country, that they, being armed with thy defence, may be preserved evermore in all perils; and being filled with wisdom and girded with strength, may do their duty to thy honour and glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

"IN GOD WE TRUST"
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