The Transformation of Japan’s Security Strategy

Hudson Institute, Jun 28, 2021

Join Hudson Institute Walter P. Stern Distinguished Fellow Kenneth R. Weinstein and Japan’s State Minister of Defense The Honorable Yasuhide Nakayama for a discussion on the transformation of Japanese security strategy and its implications for the U.S.-Japan alliance. The recent declaration by Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi that Japan does not limit defense spending to one percent of GDP but instead peg spending levels to security threats represents the latest development in the evolution of Japanese strategic thinking. Kishi’s announcement followed nine years of increased defense spending in response to China’s military modernization and increasingly aggressive assertion of territorial claims in the East and South China Seas, as well as regular Chinese and Russian incursions into Japanese airspace and the continued threat posed by North Korea’s missile program. What do these changes signal for the future of Japan’s security strategy? Please join Hudson Institute for this timely conversation.

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Washington Examiner June 30, 2021: Japanese official warns US of potential surprise attack on Hawaii — from Russia and China 

… Russia and China are coordinating military exercises to threaten not only Taiwan but also Hawaii, according to a senior Japanese defense official who warned the United States to beware of a Pearl Harbor-style surprise attack.

“We have to show the deterrence towards China, and not just China but also the Russians, because, as I told you, that they are doing their exercises together,” Japanese deputy Yasuhide Nakayama told the Hudson Institute this week.

Taiwan’s vulnerability to an invasion from mainland China has become a preoccupation of Indo-Pacific strategists in recent months, as Chinese Communist forces escalate their military drills around the island. Nakayama, who was unusually frank about the need for democratic nations to ensure Taiwan’s survival, implied that Russia and China are working as allies preparing for a major conflict….

Nakayama emphasized throughout the talk that tensions in the Indo-Pacific have a direct bearing on American security, especially in light of coordination between China and Russia. He drove home the point by raising the specter of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which provoked the U.S. military intervention in the Second World War.

“Seventy years ago, we attacked Pearl Harbor, but now the U.S. and Japan [are] very good allies, one of the best allies all over the world,” he said, noting that Russia is conducting naval drills in the Pacific this week. “I don't want to remind [us of the attack] 70 years ago, but we have to be careful of the exercising of the Russians. They are taking place [off] the western side of that, Honolulu, I mean, in Hawaii.”

Russian officials described their “missile and artillery firings” in the Pacific as an equipment check. “In the course of practical measures, the warships jointly repelled a notional enemy’s air attack,” the Russian Pacific Fleet’s press office said Wednesday per state media. "The exercise was intended to check the reliable operation of shipborne weapons in a hot climate.”

For Nakayama, such operations make clear that Japan and the U.S. have a common problem that needs to be deterred jointly.

“Honolulu to Japan, this zone is becoming — [the] Chinese and the Russians come in this zone,” he said. “So, [for] the United States, the protection line is going to be backwards a little bit.” ….

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