Japanese Defense Budget Overview

March 30, 2023 10:46 AM

The following is the English summary of the Fiscal Year 2023 Defense Programs and Budget of Japan.

From the report

Concept of Defense-Related Expenditures for FY2023

Changes in the Strategic Environment:

    • Unilateral changes to the status quo by force and such attempts represent significant challenges to the free and open international order
    • Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has revealed this in a most blatant way. The international community is facing the greatest post-war trial yet, and has entered a new era of crisis
    • Rapid advances in science and technology are fundamentally changing the paradigm of security
    • 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 in ensuring the peace and security of Japan and the peace and stability of the international community, as well as in strengthening the international order based on the rule of law, to which Japan should respond with its comprehensive national power including defense capability and in cooperation and collaboration with its ally, like-minded countries and others.

Regional Military Trends

North Korea has intensified missile launches, and its military activities pose an even more grave and imminent threat to Japan’s national security than ever before.

Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has shaken the very foundation of the international order. Russia’s military activities in the Indo-Pacific region including Japan, together with its strategic coordination with China, are of strong concern from a defense perspective.

Japan would also need to operate in a swift as well as persistent manner to crush the opponent’s will to invade.

Changes in the Strategic Environment

In the “Defense Buildup Program,” in accordance with the “National Defense Strategy,” Japan will fundamentally reinforce its “Multi-Domain Defense Force,” through the synergy of organically integrated capabilities including space, cyber, and electromagnetic domains, and is capable of sustained conduct of flexible and strategic activities during all phases from peacetime to armed contingencies, focusing on the capabilities of our opponents and new ways of warfare. By FY2027 or by five years from now, Japan will reinforce its defense capabilities to the point at which Japan is able to take the primary responsibility for dealing with invasions against its nation, and disrupt and defeat such threats while gaining support of its ally and others.

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