Shaping the Way Ahead for Japanese Defense

11/02/2026
By Robbin Laird

Japan is rebuilding its security architecture around “denial,” and in the last week of October the concept acquired its doctrine, its industrial foundation and a wider circle of partners.

On 27 October, the government gave its expert panel a Defence Industrial Base Strategy and announced a new state body to support private defense firms. On 28 October, Tokyo worked two partnership tracks at once. In Cebu, on the sidelines of the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting-Plus, Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi took the denial concept to U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. In Tokyo, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi hosted German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. The two leaders issued a joint statement that welcomed Japan’s arms-export review, named uncrewed systems as a field for defense-industrial cooperation and called for an early meeting of foreign and defense ministers.

These events belong together.

The year-end revision of the National Security Strategy, the National Defense Strategy and the Defense Buildup Program is reportedly organized around one idea: make any state considering an attack conclude that it cannot carry out its military operations. That is a claim about weapons, but it is equally a claim about stockpiles, production lines and partners.

Cebu and Tokyo show the partner element running on two tracks: the ally on the first island chain, and a European partner reached first through industry.

The way ahead for Japanese defense runs through all three.

The Industrial Base Becomes a State Project

At the panel’s fifth meeting on 27 October, the government presented a Defence Industrial Base Strategy aimed at a “virtuous cycle between defence and the economy.” It named two sources of strength: the ability to mass-produce items such as munitions that have little peacetime demand, and continuous development of dual-use technology and equipment (Jiji Press via nippon.com).

The new corporate body would combine three tasks: building domestic production capacity, promoting transfers of defense equipment abroad, and supporting technological innovation. Jiji reports it is planned as an independent administrative agency that would also back start-ups and dual-use firms, with a founding bill aimed at next year’s ordinary Diet session. A further report, which the government has not confirmed, says it would launch in October next year with about 300 staff, grow to about 600 within five years, and take on government-owned, contractor-operated production facilities so that output can rise in a contingency.

The idea moved from caucus to cabinet table in a day. On 26 October the LDP’s defense industry caucus, chaired by former defense minister Yasukazu Hamada, gave Koizumi a proposal for an independent agency to expand equipment production through public-private cooperation. It asked for a budget in the trillions of yen, about 1,000 staff, and a near doubling of the acquisition agency to about 3,500 people. The government’s version, reported the next day, is smaller in scale.

Japan’s industry has been shrinking because peacetime demand cannot sustain it. A state body that can own production lines, finance start-ups and broker exports is Tokyo’s answer to a market that will not hold surge capacity on its own.

Exports are part of that answer, which is why a European leader’s welcome for Japan’s export review, issued the next day, matters to the industrial strategy and not just to diplomacy.

Denial in Three Parts

The Yomiuri Shimbun, as relayed by Taiwan’s Central News Agency, reports that the year-end documents will be organized around “denial capability.” The aim is to deter attack by making an aggressor conclude it cannot execute its operations, so that it abandons the plan before an invasion begins.

The reported concept has three parts:

  • Expanded development and deployment of long-range missiles and drones, able to hold an invader’s ships at risk at a distance.
  • A stronger domestic defense industrial base that keeps producing ammunition and missiles through a prolonged conflict.
  • Wider cooperation with countries that oppose changing the status quo by force, so that an attack on Japan means facing hostility from many states.

The framing aligns with the U.S. National Defense Strategy released in January, which sets out deterrence by denial alongside allies and partners. Government sources also present it as consistent with Japan’s “exclusively defensive defense,” and one suggested it would help audiences at home and abroad read Japanese policy as a response to threats, as China and Russia continue to call the buildup “new militarism.” In a 23 October speech Koizumi said Japan “will not launch an attack ourselves” but needs denial capability “to respond to threats approaching us.”

Two Partners, One Day

In Cebu, Koizumi and Hegseth agreed to strengthen defense cooperation along the first island chain, from Japan’s southwestern islands through Taiwan to the Philippines. They judged that greater defense investment is needed to establish a denial-type posture there and agreed to keep cooperating closely on producing key munitions in case of a long war (Kyodo, via Newspim). NHK reports they also agreed to set up a facility in Japan for final assembly and inspection of medium-range air-to-air missiles as part of joint production, and to deepen cybersecurity cooperation. The Kyodo account does not mention the missile facility or name a munition.

In Tokyo the same day, the Merz–Takaichi summit carried the third element of denial beyond the alliance. The Japan-Germany Joint Leaders’ Statement reaffirms the two countries as “Premium Partners” and records that both sides “will work to enhance their preparedness and defence industrial base.”

Its regional language echoes the coalition logic of the denial concept almost word for word. The leaders reiterated “their strong opposition to any unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force or coercion anywhere in the world,” expressed serious concern over the East China Sea and the South China Sea, and named the Taiwan Strait directly. China itself is not named.

The defense items are concrete in subject and cautious in form:

  • Merz “welcomed Japan’s review of the Three Principles on the Transfer of Defence Equipment and Technology and its Implementation Guidelines,” and both leaders expect the review to deepen defense-industrial cooperation.
  • Uncrewed systems. The leaders agreed to promote defense industry and technology cooperation “in areas of mutual interest, such as uncrewed systems,” and welcomed initiatives to encourage start-up cooperation.
  • Building on the existing acquisition and cross-servicing, information-security and equipment-transfer agreements, they will “further explore opportunities and frameworks” for operational cooperation, “such as joint exercises” between the Self-Defense Forces and the Bundeswehr. The text welcomes past “mutual dispatch of assets” but makes no new deployment commitment.
  • They decided on the “early convening” of the next foreign-and-defence 2+2, noting that both governments are developing or revising their National Security Strategies.
  • Information and cyber. Both sides will share threat assessments and methods on countering foreign information manipulation, and will strengthen cyber deterrence and the resilience of critical infrastructure.

The statement also expresses “grave concern over the increasing use of economic coercion such as, arbitrary export restrictions and retaliatory measures on critical minerals,” and the summit produced a separate declaration on economic security. For a strategy that depends on munitions output through a long war, critical-mineral supply is part of the industrial base, not a separate trade file.

Fighter aircraft came up outside the text. Merz told reporters that Germany is examining whether it could play a role in GCAP, the program led by Japan, Britain and Italy, and that the defense ministers would meet soon (Reuters). He said Japan was seeking a decision by early next year but that he was not sure things would go so smoothly (Jiji via nippon.com). Takaichi did not mention GCAP at the joint briefing. Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara later confirmed the leaders had discussed it and said the government would “proceed while taking into account the development schedule and the impact on the defense industry.” Jiji reports that Tokyo has acknowledged German participation could cause delays and jeopardize plans to begin deployments in 2035.

From Kill Chain to Kill Web to Production Line

The 2022 documents were headlined by “counterstrike capability.” That word is absent from both accounts of the new framing, yet long-range missiles remain central. What changes is the explanation: strike becomes one element of a larger effort to make aggression fail, rather than a capability that stands alone.

This is the logic of the kill web applied at the level of national strategy. A kill chain is a sequence of platforms and weapons; a kill web is a networked, reconfigurable set of sensors, shooters, partners and, here, factories.

Denial in this sense is not a platform count. It is the ability to keep fighting, to involve many partners and to regenerate combat power faster than an adversary can attrit it.

That is intelligent mass rather than exquisite scarcity, and mass of that kind lives in production capacity and magazine depth as much as in force structure.

Four consequences follow.

  • A shared vocabulary along the first island chain. Matching the language of the U.S. strategy gives Tokyo, Washington and Manila a common conceptual frame for investment decisions.
  • Industry on the same level as weapons. Endurance and coalition are co-equal with equipment. The Cebu agreement on munitions production, the Tokyo announcement of a state industrial body and Berlin’s welcome for the export review read as one policy: the first two build supply, the third widens demand.
  • A coalition defined by what partners build, not only where they sail. Germany makes no new force commitment to the region in the text. What it offers is industrial partnership, start-up cooperation, shared threat assessments and cyber work. In a kill web, those are contributions to denial in their own right.
  • A political answer to the “militarism” charge. Denial lets Tokyo argue that its buildup responds to others’ threats and fits exclusively defensive defense. A European partner’s endorsement of the export review adds outside weight to that argument.

Two concrete tests now sit on the table.

The first is the missile assembly facility. If final assembly and inspection of a medium-range air-to-air missile move to Japan, denial becomes a question of production lines, throughput and allied supply chains. Neither account gives the missile type, the schedule or the production rate.

The second is uncrewed systems with Germany. The denial concept’s first element calls for drones in quantity, and the joint statement names uncrewed systems as the lead field for industrial cooperation. That pairing is where a Japan–Germany project is likeliest to start.

GCAP poses a different trade-off. A fourth partner could bring money and industrial scale to a program Japan is also counting on for its own industrial base. Tokyo’s own caution points to the cost: denial rewards schedule and volume, and a 2035 deployment target is easier to hold with three partners than to renegotiate with four.

The Way Ahead: Money, Missiles, Partners

The harder constraint is fiscal. Panel members agreed that defense spending must rise, and one said the current level is “greatly insufficient in relation to the threats,” calling for more on missile defense and unmanned aircraft. Others proposed widening the defense-related budget to include economic security and artificial intelligence, and some asked for funding that does not rely on government bonds. Arguments raised included “a tax increase is also an option” and that “international confidence in fiscal discipline will be central to security policy.”

The 2022 strategy set a target of 2% of GDP for defense and related spending by fiscal 2027, which the Takaichi government reached two years early. With the Trump administration pressing allies toward at least 3.5%, the Finance and Defence ministries are examining the size of the next increase and how to fund it stably. Raising taxes for defence has been politically difficult in Japan.

The calendar is short and now has two tracks. The panel is expected to report as early as the beginning of December, with cabinet adoption of the revised documents targeted for mid- to late December. On the German track, the 2+2 is to meet early, Japan is seeking a GCAP answer by early next year, and the leaders agreed to bring forward their next intergovernmental consultations, aiming for Berlin next year. Five things will show whether denial is a strategy or a slogan:

  • Whether the documents carry a stable funding plan and a new spending target.
  • The new body. Its legal form, staffing, budget and whether it takes over government-owned production facilities.
  • The missile line. The missile type, schedule and rate for the Japanese final assembly line.
  • The first island chain. How cooperation with the United States, the Philippines and others is turned into shared production and logistics rather than statements.
  • The German track. Whether “explore” becomes decisions: the 2+2 agenda, a first uncrewed-systems project, a first SDF–Bundeswehr exercise under the new framework, and Tokyo’s answer on GCAP.

The lesson for allies, including Australia and the Europeans, is that denial is built in factories and budgets before it is demonstrated at sea, and that the coalition behind it includes those who build as well as those who deploy. Tokyo has now named the concept, sketched the institutions and widened the circle of partners. December will show whether it has paid for them.

Sources

Jiji Press via nippon.com (27 October panel meeting); Jiji via Yahoo! Japan News (new agency, LDP proposal); FNN (caucus request); Yomiuri Shimbun via Taiwan’s Central News Agency (denial capability); NHK via CNA and Kyodo via Newspim (Cebu meeting).

Japan-Germany Joint Leaders’ Statement, 28 October 2026 (Federal Government of Germany): https://www.bundesregierung.de/resource/blob/992814/2458850/f8df7cd25c44e51829148867a181326b/2026-10-28-japan-germany-joint-leaders-statement-data.pdf?download=1

Prime Minister’s Office of Japan, Japan-Germany Summit Meeting and Working Dinner (Summary): https://japan.kantei.go.jp/105/diplomatic/202610/1028meeting.html

Reuters, “Germany weighs role in GCAP fighter jet program, says Merz on Japan visit,” 28 October 2026: http://rmb.reuters.com/rmd/rss/item/tag:reuters.com,2026:newsml_KCN3W829Z?channel=BEQ259

Jiji Press via nippon.com, “Germany to Accelerate Study on Joining Japan-Linked GCAP”: https://www.nippon.com/en/articles/-/56521

Jiji Press via nippon.com, “Japan Weighs Response to German Interest in GCAP Fighter Program”: https://www.nippon.com/en/articles/-/56667