Photo/Illutration The Defense Ministry (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

The Defense Ministry plans to seek a record 8.8 trillion yen ($60 billion) in its budget request for fiscal 2026, emphasizing the deployment of drones and other unmanned vehicles for a new coastal defense initiative, sources said Aug. 18.

The government previously set a defense spending target of 43 trillion yen over a five-year period through fiscal 2027.

While the fiscal 2025 defense budget totaled 8.7 trillion yen, an all-time high, the request for the next fiscal year is expected to exceed that figure.

The government also plans to raise the total of the Defense Ministry’s budget and related expenditures, such as research and development costs at other ministries, to 2 percent of Japan’s gross domestic product by fiscal 2027.

The figure for fiscal 2025 stands at around 1.8 percent.

The Defense Ministry, which is in the final stages of preparing its request for the initial budget for the next fiscal year, plans to include more than 200 billion yen for procurement of unmanned vehicles and other related expenditures, the sources said.

The ministry plans to establish the “Shield” initiative, which will utilize unmanned vehicles in the air, on the sea and underwater to bolster coastal security, by the end of fiscal 2027.

It plans to acquire low-cost, foreign-made vehicles, considering imports from Turkey, the United States and Australia, for example. Its priority is rapid and large-scale deployments.

The ministry, which formed a team to study future modes of warfare in April, has concluded that early acquisition is essential based on lessons from the war in Ukraine where unmanned vehicles have been used extensively.

A senior ministry official said the Shield initiative will allow for a comprehensive overview of the efforts that have been undertaken separately by the Ground, Maritime and Air Self-Defense Forces.

The ministry also aims to capitalize on the initiative to accelerate the pace of procurement of necessary vehicles, the official added.

At the end of 2022, the government announced plans to acquire what it calls counterstrike capability, which will enable Japan to directly attack missile launch sites and other targets within an adversary’s territory.

The government has also been strengthening its “stand-off defense capability” that allows for attacks from outside the range of enemy weapons.

The Defense Ministry plans to include related procurement costs in its budget request for fiscal 2026.

Government ministries and agencies must submit their budget requests for fiscal 2026 to the Finance Ministry by the end of August. The Finance Ministry then reviews requests and compiles the government’s draft budget for submission to the Diet.

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