Citing regional threats from China and North Korea, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Friday unveiled a major overhaul of the country's defense strategy, including a significant increase in spending and the acquisition of long-range preemptive strike weapons.
At a Tokyo news conference, Kishida said that with "the security environment" around Japan feeling more unstable, his government considered whether Japan's current Self-Defense Force could deter threats to the country based on the capabilities of its opponents and new ways of fighting.
He said after conducting a realistic simulation, it was determined Japanese defense forces were insufficient.
Under the new strategy, the prime minister said, Japan, over the next five years, would implement a more than $320 billion plan to build up its military, with that spending representing 2% of the country's gross domestic product by 2027.
The plan would reportedly include not only upgrading Japanese-made weapons, but also acquiring at least 400 U.S.-made long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles.
The defense strategy announced Friday also cited Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a factor in the defense buildup
