Japan and the U.S. concluded a series of meetings aimed at promoting defense industry cooperation in Tokyo on Tuesday in which they agreed to set up working groups on joint missile production, ship and aircraft repair, and supply chain resiliency.
“It is clear that the U.S. military-industrial base cannot meet all the security challenges,” U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel told reporters on Monday. “Japan’s engineering, industrial and manufacturing capacity is a major, significant development” for the U.S. defense industry, he said.
The U.S., which continues to provide military aid to Ukraine as it battles a Russian invasion, faces a shortage of ammunition.
It also faces the challenge of adding to its Patriot missile production capacity. The Patriot, a U.S. air defense system, is manufactured in Japan under license by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. In December, the Japanese government confirmed that it would export the Patriot missiles to the U.S.
The talks, called the Defense Industrial Cooperation, Acquisition, and Sustainment Forum (DICAS), kicked off its first meeting on Sunday in Tokyo. The forum was established based on an agreement between Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and U.S. President Joe Biden during their meeting in April.
The delegations were led by William LaPlante, U.S. undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, and Masaki Fukasawa, commissioner of Japan’s Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Agency.
According to Emanuel, the meeting of the Japan-U.S. Security Consultative Committee, or “two-plus-two,” to be held in July is the “deadline” for achieving concrete outcomes in defense industry cooperation. “The measure of success is how many missiles and [how much] co-production that we can set up in a short period of time. … The goal here is not more meetings,” Emanuel said.
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The allies will also discuss “co-sustainment of forward-deployed U.S. Navy ships and Air Force aircraft,” and “supply chain resiliency for priority defense requirements,” according to a statement by the U.S. Defense Department.
If ships and aircraft can be repaired in Japan, the front line of defense in East Asia, they can be returned to operation quickly.
“China has a major capacity [in shipbuilding]. We already know that they will surpass us,” Emanuel said, adding, “The U.S. military-industrial effort could use a little impatience as a sense of urgency” amid geopolitical uncertainty, including the ongoing war in Ukraine and conflict in the Middle East.
On Monday, the forum held a roundtable with around 10 Japanese defense companies. LaPlante then visited Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ final assembly and inspection facility for the F-35 fighter jet in Aichi prefecture.
The DICAS meeting was followed by its first working group meeting on ship repair on Tuesday. A working group meeting on aircraft repair is scheduled for August, Emanuel said.
