Japan Seeks Record Defense Budget, to Triple Drone Spending

Japan’s defense ministry is aiming for a major boost to its drone arsenal as part of another record spending request made Friday to deal with a “severely intensifying security environment.”

Japan in recent years has been shedding its strict pacifist stance, moving to obtain “counterstrike” capabilities and doubling military spending to two percent of GDP.

The defense ministry’s new budget request made on Friday for the coming fiscal year starting April 1, seen by AFP, is for 8.8 trillion yen ($59.9 billion).

It surpasses the world’s fourth-largest economy’s previous record of 8.7 trillion yen ($59.2 billion), secured for this fiscal year ending in March 2026.

Eighty years after World War II and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan’s constitution still limits its military capacity to ostensibly defensive measures.

But the new budget increase reflects the “severely intensifying security environment” around Japan, a defense ministry official told reporters in Tokyo on condition of anonymity.