What Does Taking the PRC Threat Seriously Look Like?

Japan isn't playing

The post-Cold War era ended in September 2001.

The post-911 era ended in February 2022.

I’m not sure what we can call this era yet, but we’re well in to it.

I’m also not sure what what Francis Fukuyama or Jesus Jones may say about where we are today, but history is back and she has issues with all of us.

As reported by Mike Yeo over at Defense News, there can be no question that the Japanese have decided that a few generations of being at the mercy of good luck and the US military have come to an end.

We should be so lucky if all our allies would sober up like this;

Japan will spend more than double on defense over the next five years compared to the previous five amid a host of security challenges in the Indo-Pacific region, according to the country’s latest defense whitepaper.

[NB: stop what you’re doing and review the link about to the white paper. This is VERY well done…as one would expect from the Japanese]

… Japan will spend $309.75 billion on defense between fiscal 2024 and fiscal 2028, compared with $122.48 billion between fiscal 2019 and fiscal 2023.

That is a 153% increase in defense spending. Let’s play that out a bit using 2023 numbers from SIPRI but on an annual as opposed to a 5-year block.

As a benchmark, the USA spends $877 billion on defense from a $23.3 trillion economy.

Japan this year is expected to spend $46.0 billion in a $4.9 trillion economy. A 153% increase in today’s dollars would be a defense budget of $70.3 billion.

Like her natural ally the United States, Japan is a natural maritime and aerospace power. As such much of that budget would be spent on exactly what is needed to help secure northeast Asian and northwest Pacific waters.

From what I’ve seen, it looks like they’re spending correctly;

Projected spending on the integrated air and missile defense system mentioned in the document will likely primarily go toward two Aegis system equipped vessels that Japan plans to build in lieu of the scrapped Aegis Ashore missile defense system.

The ships, which are due to enter service in 2028 and 2029, will feature Lockheed Martin-made SPY-7 radars that Japan originally procured for its Aegis Ashore program. Local news agency Jiji Press previously reported that the vessels will each have 128 vertical launching system cells for missiles.

Static defenses and unnecessarily static military infrastructure well under the reach of the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Forces is folly. I hope they do their best to squelch the high-warble of accountants and those who light incense at the alter of “Lean.” Much of the crap their spreadsheets spit out will be militarily ineffective by D+0.5.

Other areas expected to see a large investment boost over the next five years include sustainability and resiliency, as well as cross-domain capabilities. The former encompasses ammunition stockpiles, sustainment and maintenance costs, and improving the resiliency of defense facilities. Funding for that is to jump from $42.73 billion to $106.8 billion.

They’re paying proper attention to the lessons so far of the Russo-Ukrainian War.

“…sustainability and resiliency…” translates properly in to more, deeper, and distributed stockpiles of weapons.

This is good. Now, if we could rotate the globe to another of our allies who happens to be a natural land power, Germany. If she would leave the ghosts of the 20th Century behind and take her rightful place as a mature partner of free nations in the 21st Century, what would that look like?

Germany presently spends $68.5 billion on defense from a $4.2 trillion economy. Using the Japanese benchmark, that would be a defense budget of $104.7 billion.

Regardless of what happens in the Russo-Ukrainian War, combined with the military Poland is building, that would keep Russia well inside whatever borders she will wind up with.

Maybe.