Japan’s planned defense spending surge is already leading to unrealistic projects that could be detrimental to the protection of the nation, a retired vice admiral of the Maritime Self-Defense Force said.

The government is moving to lift its decades-long policy of limiting defense spending to around 1 percent of  the nation’s gross domestic product. It aims to increase the defense budget to 2 percent of GDP in fiscal 2027.

The significant spending expansion--43 trillion yen ($331 billion) over five years from fiscal 2023--is intended to strengthen the SDF’s capabilities to respond to growing challenges from China and North Korea and other contingencies involving Japan.

However, Yoji Koda, a former commander in chief of the Self-Defense Fleet, said in an interview with The Asahi Shimbun that the programs proposed so far would prove too much for the SDF to handle.

The new national security policy is creating such a huge pool of funds that various parties are rushing to grab their share, bypassing the SDF’s usual realistic approach toward procurement of defense equipment, he said.

Excerpts from the interview follow:

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Question: What is your assessment of the new defense spending plan and the content of the programs?

Koda: The spending plan does not seem to reflect front-line voices built up from within the SDF. Will it lead to compiling programs that the SDF has long deemed absolutely necessary and highly effective to protect Japan? I doubt it.

What has been unfolding over the past months is a swarm of ants trying to get any piece of the 43-trillion-yen mountain of sugar that has emerged almost out of nowhere.

Q: Are you opposed to the increased defense budgets?

A: No, I am not. I am a longtime advocate for a spike in defense outlays. When I was with the MSDF, I was tasked to compile budget requests for 10 years or so.

I recall we were often left with little money to buy sufficient ammunition after purchasing the vessels and aircraft we needed. That was because of the government policy of keeping defense expenditures around 1 percent of Japan’s GDP.

As a result, we were even forced to forgo projects that would make aging SDF housing facilities quake-resistant.

Japan needs to make a considerable defense investment to dramatically beef up the SDF’s capabilities to continue fighting by building stocks of ammunition and other means. The nation also needs to develop and procure defense equipment so we don’t lag behind other countries.

The needs are even more clear now, given the situation surrounding Taiwan, North Korea’s repeated missile tests and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Q: Then, what is the problem with the new spending plan?

A: The plan appears to be shooting for the moon, going far beyond the SDF’s capacity.

The plan includes an upgrade of the Type 12 surface-to-ship missile to allow the SDF to gain first-strike capabilities, development and mass production of hypersonic missiles that fly at more than five times the speed of sound, development of next-generation fighter jets, setting up a cyberwarfare unit of 20,000 members, a satellite constellation tasked to gather intelligence, and so on.

It’s as if a child just listed all the things that came off the top of their head.

Can the SDF do all of these things? Are they even allowed to do them?

It is questionable whether the government had closely examined these aspects before it announced the programs. No sufficient explanations have been provided to the public, either.

The Type 12 missile’s range is expected to expand from 200 kilometers to 1,000 km under the new defense plan. That means the missile must be redesigned, including the engine, by assuming five times more on-board fuel. The SDF should also craft a new operation system. It won’t be easy.

In addition, does the SDF have a clear idea about when to deploy the Type 12 missiles instead of the U.S.-made Tomahawk cruise missiles, and vice versa?

As for the introduction of hypersonic missiles, even the United States has yet to see their deployment despite spending the equivalent of 2 trillion yen.

A satellite constellation is something that the United States has also set its sights on. If Japan intends to bolster efficiency and effectiveness of its defense capabilities, it should consider joint development and operation of defense systems with the United States as an option, since Washington has a solid defense industry.

I am skeptical about the feasibility of setting up a cyberwarfare unit. How can the SDF secure as many as 20,000 personnel for it while simultaneously maintaining current troop levels in other fields? We need to remember that the SDF has long struggled to fill the required manpower.

Q: Why did the new programs turn out this way?

A: It is because they were not the product of the SDF’s traditional bottom-up approach. Each SDF branch usually spends five or so years to craft a new defense plan. They select defense equipment and decide on the volume only after carefully studying purchases of other countries and weighing options.

The culmination of this well-thought-out approach by each SDF branch is a spending plan totaling trillions of yen.

But now, the government set the target of 2 percent of the GDP for defense outlays like a bolt out of the blue, allowing for a “mountain of sugar” to emerge. The scale of the increase is so huge that I could not have drawn up so many programs in such a short period of time if I had been with the SDF.

Q: NATO members have the minimum 2 percent goal for defense spending.

A: It was 2014 when NATO countries set the goal to achieve that percentage within a time frame of 10 years at a U.S. request. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine came when they had made substantial preparations to achieve the goal.

But Japan’s case is different. The country just rushed to meet the 2 percent target with little time on hand, and the proposed programs turned out to be a far cry from what the SDF is ready for.

Q: Doesn’t big investment guarantee strengthened defense?

A: If defense budgets include wasteful programs, they would be detrimental to overall defense capabilities. Once new defense research is undertaken, it would be difficult to abandon the project halfway through, with manpower already assigned to it.

Japan purchases most of its defense systems through loans and also must cover the expensive costs of upkeep for many years. If Japan picks wrong defense equipment, the consequences would be grave, likely leaving the country with not enough funds to buy what it really needs nor to secure the necessary manpower.

Q: The ruling Liberal Democratic Party pushed for a sharp spike in the defense budget. What do you think of politicians’ role in the defense buildup?

A: It is necessary for lawmakers well-versed in the field to closely check defense programs by having the Defense Ministry and the SDF disclose relevant information. But politicians should not go deeper into the content of programs.

The government’s continued flip-flop in the introduction of the Aegis Ashore missile defense system exemplifies how politicians can screw up a project. It was changed from land-based to sea-based and now from large vessels to small ones.

A surge in the defense budget is something I appreciate as a former SDF member. But the Defense Ministry and the SDF went too far this time amid the lawmakers’ 2 percent slogan, laying out all sorts of programs imaginable.

What is imperative here is sticking with the SDF’s incremental approach to defense buildup. One option could have been to raise defense spending to 1.5 percent of the GDP, instead of the 2 percent, five years later.

Q: Lawmakers are divided over whether to raise taxes to fund the expanded defense spending. How should Japan pay for it?

A: Japan can build up necessary defense programs only when voters accept their tax burden to fund them.

I cannot believe some lawmakers are pushing for the issuing of government bonds to bankroll the larger defense budgets.

As history shows us, any country would be forced to borrow a considerable amount of money after a real contingency arises. What is going on in Russia and Ukraine are good examples.

But in peacetime, financing defense spending with taxpayer money is the only way to go. Since the SDF is fully aware of the public’s painful tax burden, members are determined not to waste even a single penny and to fulfill accountability for how the money is used.

Before World War II, Imperial Japanese Navy Adm. Tomosaburo Kato signed the Washington Naval Treaty in 1922 to limit naval construction and prevent an arms race, despite fierce opposition at home.

Kato, who later became prime minister, did so because he grew extremely concerned that the navy’s peacetime budgets had become larger than those when Japan was fighting the 1904-1905 war against Russia.

Kato said the nation’s defense should not be the exclusive jurisdiction of the military. Having a sense of perspectives is crucial to the SDF.

In July, a senior SDF official in western Japan said he was not sure whether the government’s special treatment for defense budgets should be welcome wholeheartedly, given the ballooning social security costs.

He was criticized for the comment, but I am proud of the fact that the SDF has an officer who commented from a broader perspective, taking into account the nation’s fiscal and economic conditions.

Q: Members of the public are split over the expanded defense spending.

A: Some are in favor and others oppose, which is only expected in a democracy.

A media report said the Defense Ministry is seeking to embark on research that aims to sway public opinion in a certain direction.

Measures should be taken to counter psychological and information warfare. But goading the public into a certain direction should never be allowed for the SDF as it was born in the postwar years.

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Yoji Koda, born in 1949, joined the Maritime Self-Defense Force in 1972 after graduating from the National Defense Academy and became the 41st commander in chief of the Self-Defense Fleet. He served as a senior fellow at Harvard University after retiring from the MSDF.

(This article is based on an interview by Kuniaki Nishio.)