National Defense
December 6, 2022

Japan Seeks Deeper Defense Ties with NATO

,,,Tokyo is…seeking a stronger relationship with NATO that benefits Japan’s defense needs and the alliance’s goals….

Japan has been building its collaboration with NATO for a little more than a decade….The country participated in a NATO summit for the first time when Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida attended the alliance’s 2022 event in Madrid.

“As the international community stands at a crossroads in history, the participation of NATO’s Asia-Pacific partners, including Japan, in the NATO Summit expresses the realization that the security of Europe and of the Indo-Pacific is inseparable,” Kishida said during a speech at the summit.

Kishida signaled that Japan is looking to deepen its relationship with NATO further….

…Japan is drafting a new national security strategy and updating policies that would boost defense spending. This will open doors for further cooperation with Japan’s international allies and partners, Kishida noted.

The Japanese Ministry of Defense has requested more than $40 billion for its fiscal year 2023 budget – the largest amount in the country’s history….

The request outlined seven key areas of defense modernization priorities: stand-off defense, air-and-missile defense, unmanned vehicles, cross-domain operations, command and control, logistics and sustainability capabilities.

The technologies are not so different from some of NATO’s high visibility projects currently under development by member and partner nations — including multinational command-and-control systems, the Maritime Multi Mission Aircraft, unmanned sea vessels for mine clearing and tracking submarines and the Modular Ground Based Air Defense system.

[T]he emergence of space and cyberspace as contested environments creates new opportunities for collaboration between Japan and NATO members that is not limited to geographic distance, said Jun Nagashima, adjunct professor at the National Defense Academy in Japan and former liaison officer to NATO and the European Union.

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Japan will need to ensure its interoperability with NATO as it bolsters its own capabilities if Tokyo hopes to strengthen its partnership with the alliance, Nagashima said.

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Japan has tried to achieve interoperability with NATO in recent years. For example, the country has participated in the committee responsible for promoting weaponry cooperation called the Conference of National Armaments Directors, or CNAD, said Liviu Lazar, industry relations coordinator at NATO.

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Japan has also been working with the alliance to address interoperability between platforms as part of NATO’s Partnership Interoperability Initiative since 2014, he said.

As one of the alliance’s interoperability partners, Japan could participate in the NATO Industrial Advisory Group, or NIAG.

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The alliance has also emphasized the need to cooperate with nations in the Indo-Pacific, Lazar noted. At the NATO Brussels Summit in 2021, members agreed to increase political dialogue and collaboration between the alliance and partners in the region, including Japan, Australia, South Korea and New Zealand.

Meanwhile, military partnerships between Japan and individual NATO members – such as the United States and the United Kingdom – could also serve as a foundation for more robust cooperation with the alliance, Nagashima said.

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“From the U.S. perspective, they’re looking East and West to Europe and Japan,” Nagashima said. “I see it as a triangle, with the [United States] at the center for interoperability.”