Japan Increases Defense Budget to $56 Billion to Counter Growing Chinese Military Pressure.

Japan has unveiled its FY2026 defense plan, raising military-related spending to roughly JPY 9 trillion as Tokyo moves toward the NATO-style benchmark of 2 percent of GDP. The budget signals a structural shift toward long-range strike, missile defense, and unmanned systems designed to withstand sustained pressure in the first island chain.

According to the Japanese Ministry of Defense, on December 26, 2025, Tokyo unveiled its FY2026 defense plan as the next major step in the Defense Buildup Program, with defense-related expenditures rising to roughly JPY 8.81 trillion ($56 billion), or about JPY 9.04 trillion when related items are included, as Japan accelerates toward the political benchmark of spending near 2% of GDP. This is not a routine year-on-year increase. It is a structural pivot, deliberately funding the weapons, sensors, and stockpiles needed to fight and survive in the first island chain under sustained missile pressure.
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Japan's historic FY2026 defense budget marks a decisive break from its postwar pacifist posture, funding long-range strike missiles, hypersonic weapons, missile defense, and unmanned systems to deter growing military pressure from China and strengthen control of its southwestern island chain (Picture source: U.S. DoW).

The stand-off strike category is budgeted at about JPY 973 billion ($6,2 billion), explicitly framed by the Ministry as the ability to respond from outside the threat zone of enemy air defenses across Japan’s 3,000-kilometer arc of territory and remote islands. Japan is funding domestic long-range missile families, including the upgraded Type-12 surface-to-ship missile in surface- and ship-launched variants, a submarine-launched missile, and two hypersonic paths: the Hyper Velocity Gliding Projectile and a separate hypersonic missile effort, described as flying beyond Mach 5 to complicate interception. Alongside these, Tokyo continues to procure proven foreign weapons, including the Joint Strike Missile for the F-35A, the JASSM for upgraded F-15s, and efforts to integrate Tomahawk-launching capabilities into selected vessels.

This mix matters because it gives Japanese commanders several options in a crisis: stealthy air-launched weapons for opening-night strikes, ship and coastal batteries for sea denial, and hypersonic trajectories meant to penetrate dense air defense umbrellas protecting maritime task groups or key nodes ashore. In plain tactical terms, it is the difference between merely tracking a PLA Navy surface action group and being able to threaten it at range, from multiple bearings, while staying under Japan’s own air and missile defense cover. Japan’s 2022 National Security Strategy made the logic explicit, endorsing counterstrike capabilities leveraging stand-off defense as a minimum necessary self-defense measure. This phrasing would have been politically radioactive a decade ago.

That protective cover is the second big procurement part. Integrated air and missile defense is funded at about JPY 509 billion ($3,25 billion), with spending directed to the Aegis System Equipped Vessel program, upgrades to Patriot, improvements to the Type 03 medium-range SAM to add anti-ballistic capability, and new interceptors including SM-3 Block IIA and SM-6. Networking is treated as a weapon in its own right through radar upgrades and development of the next-generation JADGE command-and-control system, designed for faster decision cycles and better sensor-to-shooter connectivity. For an island nation, this is less about a perfect shield and more about staying in the fight long enough to maneuver aircraft, disperse forces, and keep ports and air bases functioning.

The third pillar, and the one most visibly influenced by Ukraine’s lessons, is unmanned mass. Japan is budgeting for a SHIELD architecture built around synchronized UAV, USV, and UUV packages, including small attack drones, ship-launched UAVs, anti-ship UAV concepts, and unmanned surface and underwater vehicles intended to be bought in quantity and controlled together. The budget also funds four MQ-9B SeaGuardian long-endurance UAVs and associated ground control, a platform designed for over-the-horizon maritime surveillance for more than 30 hours depending on configuration, giving Japan persistent targeting-grade awareness across the Ryukyu approaches. In tactical terms, SHIELD is about forcing an adversary to waste expensive missiles on cheap drones, while SeaGuardian helps ensure that scarce stand-off munitions are fired with credible, current target data.

Classic platforms still appear, but now as enablers of the missile-and-sensor fight. The FY2026 plan funds new hulls and airframes, including a new Mogami-family frigate, patrol vessels, a submarine, and a minesweeper, plus P-1 patrol aircraft and SH-60L helicopters for ASW and surface surveillance. Airpower procurement continues with eight F-35A and three F-35B fighters, reinforcing both air defense and expeditionary options in the southwest, while mobility funding for KC-46A tankers and UH-2 utility helicopters supports rapid reinforcement and sustainment of dispersed island forces.

Why now, and why at this scale, given Japan’s post-1945 identity? The answer is geography and China. Beijing’s gray-zone pressure around the Senkaku Islands has become a routine stress test, while the broader PLA buildup and Taiwan contingencies compress warning time for Japan’s southern defenses. For decades, Article 9 and a pacifist political culture kept Tokyo’s military posture tightly bound, even as the Self-Defense Forces modernized quietly. The FY2026 budget makes clear that Japan still describes its actions as defensive, but it is no longer relying on restraint as a strategy. It is buying reach, resilience, and the capacity to impose costs, a historic break in tempo and intent that will shape Indo-Pacific deterrence for years.