By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization
Launching F-35Bs from destroyers, flying Osprey tiltrotor aircraft and Global Hawk drones, sharing ballistic missile target track with Aegis radar and co-developing critical weapons systems with the US such as the SM-3 Block II and Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile Block II ….are all critical elements of Japan’s explosive military build-up and growing war preparation training with the US Navy.
The US Navy’s Pacific Commander Adm. Samuel Paparo recently boarded a Japanese warship in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, to inspire Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Forces sailors and discuss fast-expanding US-Japanese military collaboration.
Paparo boarded the Japan Training Squadron warship called JS Kashima visiting Pearl Harbor on an annual training cruise. While US-Japanese collaborative efforts in the world of defense have been going on for many years, as joint development of the ESSM Block II goes back more than 10-years, the joint defense training is making a massive uptick now. Not surprisingly, Japanese leadership is quite clear and expressive about the specific threat from China as being a reason for the country’s large-scale defense buildup. Japan is not only working on revisions to its long-time Pacifist constitution to further enable defensive training, weapons acquisition and more broadly scoped concepts of operation but also implementing a large scale increase in defense spending and weapons development.
Japan’s Ministry of Defense recently published its Defense of Japan 2023 annual report, a document which specifies dangers related to Chinese aggression, which have included massive increases in PLA-Air Force fighter jet flights over the Sea of Japan as well as aggressive Y-8 early warning aircraft and Y-9 intelligence gathering planes.
“China’s current external stance, military activities, and other activities have become a matter of serious concern for Japan and the international community, and present an unprecedented and the greatest strategic challenge,” the Defense of Japan 2023 states.
The seriousness of Japan’s concerns about Chinese expansionist ambitions were also well-articulated in Japan’s 2022 White Paper essay called “Defense of Japan 2022.”
“Japan’s defense expenditures have set a record for ten consecutive years,” Japan’s 2022 Defense Report stated.The text of the document cites particular concerns with what it describes as Chinese “coercion” and efforts to “change the status quo” in the East China Sea and South China Sea.
Japan Cites China Threat
Of particular concern to the Japanese, China is “relentlessly continuing unilateral attempts to change the status quo by coercion near the Senkaku Islands,” the report says.
These more recent developments are identified in the report as one of several key reasons why the Japanese Minister of Defense cites the country’s move to increase 2022 defense spending through Japan’s “Defense-Strengthening Acceleration Package.”
The text of the breakthrough Japanese document explains that the country’s 2022 budget plan is $55.3 billion yen larger from the previous years. Part of this broad effort includes specific language increasing US-Japanese defense cooperation and war-preparation. The provision in the text of Japan’s 22 report calls for a “realignment of US forces” with Japan.
There is a long-standing precedent for US-Japanese defense interoperability given the history of joint-weapons development. Japan is already an Aegis partner, a technological synergy enabling combined ballistic missile threat tracking. Building upon this joint collaborative history, Japan is also calling for a large-scale specific increase and focus on developing new technologies and weapons systems.
Not only will Japanese warships operate with highly-sensitive, long-range, threat detecting Aegis radar, but the Defense Report 2022 explains that Japanese destroyers have successfully launched F-35Bs from its destroyers. F-35 interoperability, particularly in light of Japan’s massive new F-35 buy, represents another breakthrough step forward regarding US-Japanese defense connectivity.
An ability to launch vertical-take-off and landing F-35Bs from destroyers will give Japan a distinct 5th-generation stealth advantage in the area in a maritime environment. China does operate a limited number of land-based 5th-generation J-20 aircraft, but does not yet have sea-launched 5th-generation aircraft, and its emerging J-31 is being built to take off from a runway on a carrier and cannot perform the kind of vertical-take-off-and-landing needed to place 5th-gen airpower on amphibs and destroyers.
Japan has also in recent years collaborated with the US in the development of several cutting edge weapons such as the now emerging SM-3 Block IIA interceptor missile. Engineered as a follow-on or upgraded variant of the well-known SM-3 missile, the SM-3 Block IIA weapon is larger, longer-range and much more capable than its predecessors. The SM-3 Block IIA introduces an ability to potentially integrate ICBM defenses at sea with expanded intercept range and precision-guidance technology.
Japan has also acquired Osprey helicopters, the Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile Block II and the Global Hawk drone, among other systems.
Japan’s massive, multi-billion dollar F-35 buy has made headlines for months, as it represents a clear and decisive move on Japan’s part to rival if not fully outmatch China’s fleet of 5th-generation aircraft such as the J-20 and J-31.
The acquisition is clearly a move with great consequence for Japan, which has been forced to respond to Chinese fighter jet incursions near their borders and airspace for many years now.
For instance, Japan has broken new ground by now launching its vertical-take-off and landing F-35B variant from its JS “Izumo” destroyer, marking a breakthrough development in the realm of 5th-generation amphibious attack.
“Japan and the United States are conducting Japan-U.S. bilateral activities, such as defense equipment and technology cooperation, expansion of joint/shared use of U.S. and Japanese facilities and areas, and during this fiscal year, verification of F-35B take-off and landing to the MSDF’s destroyer JS “Izumo,” the Japanese report states.
Japanese destroyers and US amphibs, for example, could use the well known, common F-35-specific Multifunction Advanced Datalink (MADL) to share targeting and location information across a multi-national formation in real time … and in large numbers.
Japan’s Intelligence Gathering Increase
The document also includes general areas of focus in the area of accelerated and stepped up or improved intelligence gathering. Japanese progress and modernization efforts in the realm of intelligence, according to the report, include “collecting, processing, and analyzing military communication radio waves, electronic weapons and other radio waves transmitted in the airspace over Japan.” The report goes on to specify that this kind of improved and expanded analysis will also include data from satellites, warning and surveillance aircraft as well as warships.
Kris Osborn is the President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization and
the Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
