Japan will increase its defense budget in face of North Korean threat

The budget reflects that Tokyo continues to see Pyongyang as a serious threat to its territory.

The Ministry of Defense of Japan requested a record budget for 2019, which includes the acquisition of a new US anti-missile ground system aimed primarily at countering the threat from North Korea. Defense has asked the Executive for a total of 5.3 trillion yen (about 40,980 million euros) for next year, which is an increase of 2.1 percent over 2018 and the seventh consecutive annual increase, as recorded in the draft of the Ministry.

The budget reflects that Tokyo continues to see Pyongyang as a serious threat to its territory despite the detente on the Korean peninsula and the will expressed by the regime to abandon its nuclear weapons. A significant part of the new endowment will go to two new terrestrial anti-missile batteries Aegis Ashore, which will cost the Japanese coffers about 235,200 million yen (1,793 million euros) without counting maintenance costs.

This system, which would not be operational until at least 2023, would significantly increase Japan's defensive capabilities by adding another layer of protection to intercept ballistic missiles that will be added to existing Aegis batteries deployed on ships and to PAC mobile launchers. In addition, Defense wants to deploy more SM-3 Block 2As anti-ballistic missiles jointly developed by the US and the Asian country, which would reinforce the destroyers of the maritime self-defense forces.

Japan is currently among the largest buyers of weapons in the United States, after significantly increasing its purchases of this type in recent years with equipment such as F-35 stealth fighters or US-made anti-missile systems and the context of regional tensions with North Korea and China.

US President Donald Trump said last November that his Japanese counterpart, Shinzo Abe, had pledged to buy "massive quantities" of US weapons, including poachers and missiles of different types, after a summit held between the two in Tokyo. The Defense budget draft has been published the same week the Ministry released its annual report, which states that North Korea continues to represent a "serious threat" to the Japanese archipelago.

The document indicates that Pionyang keeps deployed "hundreds of ballistic missiles capable of reaching practically any part of Japan", including the medium-range Rodong, for which the perception of the neighboring country as a potential threat "remains unchanged." The White Paper on the Defense of Japan, however, assesses as "significant" the commitment to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula by the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, during his historic summit with the US president held last June in Singapore.