Japan’s new national security strategy: background and challenges

Abstract

On 16 December 2022 the government of Japan released its new National Security Strategy (NSS),1 National Defence Strategy (NDS)2 and Defence Build-up Programme (DBP).3 In Japan these are seen as one set of documents and they are usually called the ‘three national security documents.’ The NSS is a revised version of the 2013 strategy document, the NDS is a revised version of the national defence policy established in 2018 called the National Defence Programme Guidelines (NDPG) and the DBP is the medium-term defence programme to achieve the aims established in the NDS. The government had been working on these three documents since the start of the current Kishida Cabinet in October 2021. The documents contain some bold unprecedented decisions, including a number of new capabilities and a sharp increase in the defence budget. In the new NSS the government declares “While maintaining the fundamental principles of Japanese national security, … the strategic guidance and policies in the strategy will dramatically transform Japan’s national security policy since the end of WWII in terms of its execution.” It is unusual for the government to admit a dramatic transformation when it changes its national security and defence policy. Previously, it tended to emphasise the continuity in the policy in order to minimise the impression of a drastic shift and avoid a political backlash, but now the Japanese public is more security-minded than before due to tension in the region, particularly between China and Taiwan and on the Korean Peninsula, and also because of the impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on East Asia.