Japan eyes deeper defence ties with Australia, India to ease supply chain concerns

Japan is looking beyond the United States to enhance its defence capabilities, as mounting doubt over American munitions supplies pushes Tokyo to seek deeper industrial ties on this front with Australia and India. Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi’s visits to the two countries this week are set to advance cooperation spanning warships to stealth technology and drones, analysts say, pointing to how prolonged conflict in the Middle East and the Ukraine war could drain stockpiles for US allies. Koizumi will embark on his three-day trip from Tuesday, according to Japanese media reports citing defence officials. In Canberra, he is expected to hold a trilateral defence ministers’ meeting with his Australian and New Zealand counterparts to discuss the proposed export of an upgraded Japanese Mogami-class frigate to Wellington. In New Delhi, Koizumi will meet Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh to discuss cooperation on defence equipment, including Japan’s planned export of its Unicorn stealth communication system. Rintaro Inoue, research fellow at the Institute of Geoeconomics think tank in Tokyo, said that until recently, Japan assumed it could rely heavily on America in a contingency. “But given the limits of US production capacity, insufficient stockpiles and long waiting lists, [Washington] may not be able to meet Japan’s demand quickly enough,” Inoue said. “This is why cooperation with like-minded countries such as Australia and India is becoming more important.” He said Tokyo could work with partners to co-produce missiles, drones and other systems that would be depleted quickly during wartime but would be difficult to sustain through domestic peacetime demand alone. According to Inoue, the Ukraine and Middle East wars have shown that modern conflicts can become prolonged and consume enormous quantities of weapons and other equipment. “Japan therefore needs to prepare for a protracted conflict if it wants to maintain credible deterrence,” he said. The US is facing mounting questions over stockpiles amid the conflict with Iran and sustained use of precision-guided weapons and air defence interceptors. The Pentagon has urged defence contractors to accelerate production, but President Donald Trump earlier this month publicly denied any munitions shortages, claiming on social media that the US “has massive amounts of ‘munitions’, especially of certain types”. Mogami match In May, Wellington said it was considering the Japanese Mogami-class frigate – which Australia had chosen last year – to replace its ageing Anzac-class warships. Inoue said there was a “realistic” chance Wellington would select the Mogami as it would allow New Zealand to share a common platform with the Australian Navy. Wellington, he noted, relied heavily on Canberra for warship maintenance and placed strong emphasis on interoperability with its Australian counterpart. “Japan may also be able to offer relatively reliable delivery timelines compared with the other contender,” Inoue said, referring to Britain which was looking to offer its Type 31 frigate, a multi-role surface combatant. Yoichiro Sato, an international relations professor at Japan’s Ritsumeikan Asia-Pacific University, said Tokyo was working on both diplomatic coordination and capacity-building with maritime middle powers in the region. “The move has been driven by both China’s assertive maritime actions and claims in the East China Sea, South China Sea, and the Western Pacific,” he said. “[It’s also driven by] America’s unstable rhetoric, which has damaged credibility of the US commitment to collective defence throughout the Indo-Pacific.” Koizumi’s talks with his counterparts are also expected to focus on the growing security alignment between China, Russia and North Korea and grey-zone threats perceived to be posed by Beijing in the South and East China seas. One possible area of Japan-India cooperation, according to Inoue, is in developing drones, particularly systems designed to protect military bases. “This could become one of the practical outcomes of the visit.” Jets could be another area of interest. Japan plans to dispatch F-2 fighter jets to India for the first time to participate in a joint exercise, according to Japanese media reports citing government sources. Both countries conducted their first bilateral fighter air defence drill in Japan in 2023, which also featured the F-2 jets. “As it is unlikely that India will be buying F-35s, F-2s may possibly attract India’s interest for the model’s versatile ability as a fighter-attack plane,” Sato said. Last year, Delhi told the US it was not interested in buying Lockheed Martin’s F-35s due to its preference for domestic manufacturing partnerships, strict American technology-transfer limitations and the need to protect its own indigenous fighter projects. Inoue said defence equipment cooperation was also likely, including the export and co-development of the Unicorn stealth system used on the Mogami. At the Japan-India summit in July, both sides said they had reached an agreement in principle on the remaining technical details. This development signalled the expansion of bilateral defence-industrial cooperation, said Purnendra Jain, an emeritus professor of Asian studies at the University of Adelaide specialising in Japan. Still, Jain cautioned that defence equipment transfer “is a complicated matter” given India’s large defence procurements from Russia and its insistence on joint development rather than buying ready-made weapons. India continues to buy military equipment from Moscow as more than 60 per cent of its existing defence hardware is of Soviet or Russian origin, requiring ongoing upgrades and maintenance. However, sales have slowed due to delivery delays and an ongoing shift towards domestic manufacturing and Western suppliers. Japan was increasingly pursuing trilateral defence cooperation with Australia and New Zealand, Jain said, citing the China challenge as “the glue that binds them”. This includes Beijing’s test-firing of a nuclear-capable missile in international waters in the South Pacific last month. Jain also pointed to Japan’s defence white paper issued on August 4 which characterised China as “the greatest strategic challenge”. Such considerations culminated in Tokyo seeking to boost defence integration and regional defence cooperation while maintaining its military alliance with Washington, Jain added.

Japan eyes deeper defence ties with Australia, India to ease supply chain concerns

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Tokyo is seeking to mitigate risks linked to potential US munitions shortages and maintain credible deterrence, analysts say

Tokyo is seeking to mitigate risks linked to potential US munitions shortages and maintain credible deterrence, analysts say