A pivotal moment for Japan’s national defense

This article was first published on Noah Smith’s Noahpinion Substack and is republished with kind permission. Read the original and become a Noahopinion subscriber here.

I’ve been writing a lot about the threat of a major war in Asia, but I haven’t written much about Japan’s role in that equation. And yet Japan would be at the very center of such a war. A Chinese seizure of Taiwan would put Japan’s security in grave danger. Here’s a translated quote from a Chinese PLA officer training manual:

And China’s ambassador to Japan recently said that “once the country of Japan is tied to the tanks plotting to split China, the Japanese people will be brought into the fire.”

Given the extreme imminent danger, Japan’s defense policy going forward seems extremely important. I suggested that the country should deploy nuclear weapons, but there are probably plenty of other things the country’s leaders can do with regard to their conventional military capabilities.

One person with plenty of ideas is Jonathan Grady, a founding principal at the consultancy Canary Group, who has done strategic analyses of the Quad’s role in Asian security and who sometimes writes about Japanese defense policy.

In this guest post, he explains some of the economic and political hurdles Japan will have to overcome in order to continue its defense buildup and ensure its own security.

Japan Must Soon Decide on Major Defense Buildup

Japan stands at a pivotal moment, facing urgent decisions about its defense strategy. Positioned to significantly enhance its defense capabilities, Japan is increasing its defense budget by 60% to assert more influence in Indo-Pacific security.

This surge in spending is designed to bolster Tokyo’s deterrence against China and