ABSTRACT
Despite its constrained military stance in the post-war period, Japan has continued to ascribe importance to the maintenance of an effective indigenous defence production base as a tool of statecraft for ensuring a degree of autonomous defence and leverage in the US-Japan alliance relationship. Japan developed a specific model that embeds a defence production capability in larger civilian conglomerates, and this ensured a high degree of domestic self-sufficiency and autonomy, and footholds in sophisticated weapons systems. However, in recent years, due to limited defence budgets and relative isolation from international trends in co-development and export opportunities, Japan’s defence industry has been perceived to fall behind international competitors and risk a ‘slow-death’. Japanese policy-makers and industry have attempted to maintain an indigenous capability by improving procurement, new domestic production projects, and now opening up to cooperation with the US and other partners and lifting the self-imposed ban on the export of military technology. The impact of these policies is yet to be seen, but it is clear that Japan needs to master international cooperation more effectively and also carefully manage its relations with the US and importation of defence systems so as to avoid the potential capture of its domestic industry.
