The Sankei newspaper wrote that the Japanese government intends to consider a request for the deployment of American medium-range missiles on its territory if the United States begins official negotiations on this issue.
The newspaper indicated that it could be the deployment of Tomahawk cruise missiles and LRHW hypersonic missiles, which are still under development.
He quotes an informed source: “It could be deployed in Kyushu and elsewhere.” He added that there were no specific proposals on where to place the missiles yet.
The newspaper also emphasized that it does not exclude the possibility of deploying missiles on US warships stationed in the Indo-Pacific region on a rotational basis.
And she stressed that the United States considers the deployment of its missiles on the Japanese islands as one of the elements of the plan to create a weapons system on the islands called the “first chain”, which includes Japan, Taiwan, the northern part of the Philippines and the island of Borneo.
She said that the issue of the deployment of American missiles was not officially discussed either at the Japan-US summit in January last year, or at a meeting of the defense and foreign ministries of the two countries.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, during a meeting with US President Joe Biden in January last year, announced Tokyo’s intention to purchase American Tomahawk cruise missiles. These missiles are expected to be part of a program to improve the ability of the Japanese Defense Forces to retaliate against enemy bases. Japanese media reports that Japan wants to purchase up to 500 of these missiles by 2027.
In mid-December last year, Japan adopted 3 fundamental documents on defense and security, namely the “National Security Guarantee Strategy”, which determines the main directions of foreign policy in the field of defense, the “National Defense Strategy”, which determines the goals and means of protection, as well as the “Plan for ensuring defense capabilities”, which determines the total defense spending and armaments.
These documents also provide for an increase in Japan’s defense spending to 2% of GDP by 2027, which is about $81 billion. In the current fiscal year 2022, Japan’s defense spending amounted to $40 billion (1.2% of GDP).
So far, over the past few years, Washington has only raised the issue of deploying its missiles on Japanese soil on the sidelines of official meetings.
Source: News