Japan considers preemptive missile strikes to defend against an imminent attack

That document will be considered in a revision to the country’s national security strategy ahead of the 2023 budget, the report said. Political parties advocating revisions to Japan’s pacifist constitution hold more than two-thirds of the seats in the country’s diet.

The Liberal Democrats refer to a “counterstrike capability” – what others call a preemptive strike – as a self-defense measure. Its use is constitutional if in response to evidence of an imminent enemy attack, according to the government, AP reported.

Japan’s government is seeking to deploy more than 1,000 long-range cruise missiles with a Taiwan contingency in mind and to close the gap with China’s arsenal, according to sources quoted in an Aug. 21 Yomiuri newspaper report.

Japan is working to extend the range of Type 12 surface-to-ship missiles from slightly over 60 miles to about 600 miles, putting North Korea and China’s coast within range, the report said.

Japan is also negotiating to buy U.S.-made Tomahawk cruise missiles, the Yomiuri reported Oct. 28, citing multiple unnamed Japanese government sources.

The Tomahawk is “a precision weapon that launches from ships and submarines and can strike targets precisely from 1,000 miles away, even in heavily defended airspace,” manufacturer Raytheon states on its website.

Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force conducted a non-live-fire test Monday of its Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missile defense system in the central prefecture of Fukui, which is home to a number of nuclear power plants, Kyodo reported that day. The PAC-3 missile has a range of just over 18 miles and is designed to shoot down ballistic missiles, according to the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance.

Earlier this month, a pair of Japanese destroyers shot down targets with the Standard Missile 3 Block IIA, commonly called the SM-3, at a missile range off Hawaii.

The exercise proved that SM-3s are capable of a long-distance strike from Japan’s Aegis-equipped destroyers, Riki Ellison, founder of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, said in an email Monday.

The means to strike enemy bases would make Japan a more capable ally of the U.S. that could act autonomously, if necessary, according to James Brown, an international affairs expert at Temple University’s Japan campus.

“Yet, in almost any conceivable scenario, Japan would be coordinating its actions with the US,” he said in an email Monday. “As such, it makes perfect sense that Japan would work with the US to understand how this new capability can contribute to the alliance.”

For the foreseeable future, Japan’s strike capability is likely to be Tomahawk missiles, Brown said.

“Since this is a US system that the US has used for decades, it is natural that Japan should seek to draw on US expertise and experience,” he said.

U.S.-Japan cooperation on missile defense has been successful but there doesn’t appear to have been cooperation on missile offense, retired Marine Col. Grant Newsham, a senior researcher with the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies in Tokyo, said in an email Monday.

“It looks as though Japan is looking to put together a jury-rigged system with whatever missiles are readily available,” he said. “How effective will this be? Who knows? But probably only marginally.”

It’s logical for Japan and the U.S. to combine know-how, technology and resources, but Japan will find that counterstrike capability is more than just buying some missiles, Newsham said.

“There’s also a requirement for electronic sensor and targeting networks, and this is of course complex and expensive – even if it is within Japan’s existing technological capabilities,” he said.