Japan's security document revisions signal accelerated military expansion

Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has approved draft revisions to the country's three foundational security documents later this year. The draft is highly aggressive, calling for a substantial increase in defense spending, the complete removal of restrictions on arms exports, and a major expansion of offensive military capabilities.

This represents far more than routine policy adjustments. The revisions indicate a deliberate effort by Japan's right-wing forces to shift away from postwar security constraints. The potential implications for regional stability warrant close attention.

The Japanese government's push to revise the three security documents is a crucial step toward breaking through the country's postwar principle of an exclusively defense-oriented policy. The three documents, namely the National Security Strategy, the National Defense Strategy, and the Defense Buildup Program, are widely regarded as the overarching guidelines for Japan's security and defense policies.

The proposed revisions mark a historic departure from Japan's postwar exclusively defense-oriented policy. Notably, the administration of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has accelerated previous timelines—moving a 2% GDP defense spending target from fiscal year 2027 to 2025, and now seeking to replace strategic documents implemented less than four years ago.

A close reading of the draft leaves little doubt about Japan's impulse toward remilitarization and the dangerous direction of its new security policies.

The draft openly advocates further strengthening standoff defense capabilities and counterstrike capabilities, calls for ensuring a necessary and sufficient number of missiles and enhancing their range and performance, and even seeks to build submarines capable of carrying vertical launch systems and firing long-range missiles.

It also calls for addressing new forms of warfare by establishing integrated all-domain operational capabilities encompassing outer space, cyberspace, and the electromagnetic spectrum. The draft further promotes the need to maintain and ensure sustained combat capabilities, proposes institutional reforms in an unprecedented manner, and aims to transform Japan's defense capabilities within five years.

On the surface, these proposals appear to concern defense adjustments. In reality, they amount to a blueprint for offensive military expansion.

Akihiro Sado, vice president of Osaka Seikei University and a security policy expert, pointed out that although Japan still verbally portrays itself as a "peaceful nation," it has in practice already abandoned that ideal.

This radical draft is an inevitable product of the dangerous impulses of Japan's neo-militarism.

Since taking office, Takaichi has overseen a series of moves to expand Japan's military capabilities. These include accelerating the deployment of medium- and long-range offensive missiles and rapidly advancing the construction of "counterstrike capabilities"; significantly expanding drone forces and introducing large numbers of unmanned systems; promoting the transformation of the Air Self-Defense Force into an "Air and Space Self-Defense Force" and speeding up the militarization of outer space; and continuously strengthening military deployments in the Southwest Islands by adding missile bases and radar facilities in places such as Okinawa.

On the policy front, Japan's latest defense budget has exceeded 9 trillion yen ($55.66 billion), setting a new record for the fourteenth consecutive year after World War II. The outline of the 2026 edition of Japan's defense white paper explicitly calls for deeper application of "new forms of warfare," including drones and artificial intelligence. Japan has also begun restructuring its intelligence system, with the apparent intention of creating a "new prewar-style intelligence system" that serves military expansion.

Budget figures can be calculated precisely, but the boundaries of ambition are far more difficult to measure. From weapons and equipment to institutions and mechanisms, Japan's remilitarization process is accelerating continuously, racing ever further down a path of offensiveness and expansion.

To justify its accelerated rearmament, Japan's right-wing forces have repeatedly exaggerated the regional security environment and made groundless accusations against and smears of China's normal military activities.

Under the pretext of "strengthening defense" and "responding passively" to threats, Japan is in fact vigorously developing medium- and long-range offensive weapons, enhancing force projection capabilities and forward deployments, and attempting to embed military expansion and war preparations deeply into its national institutions, economy, industries, and public discourse.

Step by step, it is pushing beyond the constraints imposed by Japan's constitution and international law and openly challenging the postwar international order, thereby creating genuine threats to regional security.

History never forgives adventurers who ignore its lessons.

As a principal aggressor and defeated nation in World War II, Japan should remember the immense suffering brought about by that war and faithfully uphold its pacifist Constitution.

Yet the rush to revise the three security documents reflects the ambition of Japan's right-wing forces to break free from postwar constraints and return to the path of militarism.

Any form of remilitarization pursued by Japan would not only undermine regional peace and stability; it would also represent a profoundly reckless betrayal of its own future.

(Zhong Sheng is a pen name often used by People's Daily to express its views on foreign policy and international affairs.)