The will, but not the way, to increase Japan's defence budget

Following Japan’s defeat in World War II, the United States took pains to ensure that Japanese militarism could never again pose a threat to the Asia-Pacific or the world. As in Germany, these efforts were profoundly successful. For almost eight decades, Japan has eschewed foreign adventures and violent conflict. Pacifism was not only enshrined in its constitution; it also became deeply rooted in its political culture. By relying on America and its network of alliances and global partnerships, Japan could focus on itself, building economic strength rather than military, emerging as one of the world’s largest and most advanced economies.

But over the past decade or so, the geopolitical environment has grown more dangerous, and Japanese leaders have increasingly recognized the need for a change. Some have proposed abolishing Article 9 of the constitution, which stringently limits the use of force to self-defence. This has been a contentious topic, owing to sharp divisions on the matter within the Japanese electorate. Nonetheless, in the face of threats such as North Korea’s nuclear program and Chinese revisionism, public support for deepening Japan’s defence-policy coordination with America has grown.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Japan ranked tenth globally in 2022 military spending (in current US dollars), putting it behind not only the US, China, and Russia, but also India, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and South Korea. In relative terms, Japan spends only around 1 per cent of its GDP on defence, leaving it at 106th in the world, far behind the US (3.45 per cent), the UK (2.23 per cent), France (1.94 per cent), Italy (1.68 per cent), Germany (1.39 per cent), and Canada (1.24 per cent).

But Japan now aims to catch up. In Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s 2023 budget, defence will receive 26.3 per cent more than it did in 2022, and this will be merely the first increase in pursuit of a larger program known as the Fundamental Reinforcement of Defence Capabilities. Over the next five years, defence expenditures are projected to increase to a total of ¥43 trillion ($298 billion), up from about ¥26 trillion over the previous five-year period.

The Japanese public supports such a change. According to a December 2022 Nikkei survey (conducted in the middle of the 2023 fiscal-year budget discussions), 55 per cent of respondents supported the Fundamental Reinforcement, whereas 36 per cent opposed it.

Sensing that there are growing threats to Japan and its neighbours, the public recognises the need for developing a greater deterrence capacity, even if doing so is expensive. Russia’s unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine may be playing out on the other side of the Eurasian continent, but it nonetheless sent a shock wave through the Japanese polity. Suddenly, a major military power with the world’s largest nuclear arsenal had taken it upon itself to redraw the map of Europe, brazenly violating the United Nations Charter.

Takatoshi Ito, a former Japanese deputy vice minister of finance, is a professor at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and a senior professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo.