Tokyo, February 14 Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada revealed today that Japan plans to purchase from the United States during its next fiscal year all the Tomahawk cruise missiles with which it seeks to implement its new military strategy.
Hamada did not provide details on the exact volume of missiles, but the amount would be around 500 units, according to government leaks to local media, which the archipelago would seek to acquire in its entirety from April and course of the year which runs until April. March 31, 2024, the Japanese fiscal year.
Japan’s draft general budget for this period provides for a reserve of 211,300 million yen (about 1.5 million euros) for the acquisition of projectiles.
It was originally planned that the acquisitions would take place over several years, but as Hamada revealed on Tuesday, the plan would now be to acquire “the full amount required” in taxation which begins in April, although it will not did not explain the reasons for the change, according to the appearance collected by the Kyodo news agency.
The Japanese government would thus seek to accelerate the implementation of its new security strategy, which aims to improve its deterrent power by acquiring “counter-attack capabilities”.
The Japanese autoridades refer así to a potential preventive attack, alleging the actual geopolitical context, con la creciente influence y de las military actividades de China en la región, incluido su hostigamiento a Taiwan, próximo islas de la sudoeste Japonés, y al desarrollo armamentístico de North Korea.
In documents approved at the end of 2022 by the Japanese government, which mark its biggest shift towards rearmament since the end of the Second World War, it is noted that the Tomahawk missiles, with a range of approximately 1,600 kilometers (which would reach China) would support the country’s deterrent capabilities until Japan was able to deploy domestically manufactured missiles.
To achieve this, the country plans to extend the range of the Ground Self-Defense Forces’ Type 12 surface-to-ship guided missiles, but there is still some way to go in this regard.
The missiles developed by Japan are not expected to be deployed until at least 2026, so the Japanese government is considering how to accelerate its deterrence capabilities in an increasingly worrying security environment and resorting to Tomahawk missiles would be one of its paris, according to government sources. EFE
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