Japan’s Defense Industry Goes Global: Ambitions and Challenges
The reforms initiated under Shinzo Abe in 2014, reinforced by Fumio Kishida and further accelerated by Sanae Takaichi in 2026, reflect a profound shift in policy: from a restrictive approach to arms transfers toward an explicit strategy centered on industrial cooperation, joint development, and defense exports.
This transformation is driven by industrial necessity. Weakened by a shrinking domestic market, rising weapons development costs, and continued dependence on United States technologies, Japan’s defense industry faced the prospect of gradual decline. Internationalization has therefore become a prerequisite for its long-term viability and technological advancement.
Defense exports, however, serve objectives that extend well beyond commercial considerations. They are intended to preserve a sovereign defense industrial base, strengthen Japan’s economic security, support its strategic autonomy, and reinforce a network of partners sharing common security interests.
This strategy is underpinned by an unprecedented level of state intervention. Financial support for industry, reforms of export procedures, restructuring of the defense industrial ecosystem, and the expansion of defense cooperation agreements all reflect an assertive industrial policy aimed at accelerating the sector’s internationalization. Early export successes and major collaborative programs such as the fighter-jet Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) illustrate this new momentum.
Despite this progress, Japan’s defense industry continues to face significant structural challenges. Limited production capacity, shortages of skilled labor, limited experience in international defense markets, and persistent technological dependencies continue to constrain its development.
Against this backdrop, Europe is emerging as a natural partner. Converging security interests, complementary industrial capabilities, and the growing number of cooperation frameworks are creating new opportunities for collaboration.
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Japan’s Defense Industry Goes Global: Ambitions and Challenges
Céline PAJON
Research Fellow, Head of Japan and Indo-Pacific Research, Center for Asian Studies, Ifri
Center for Asian Studies
Asia is a nerve center for multiple global economic, political and security challenges. The Center for Asian Studies provides documented expertise and a platform for discussion on Asian issues to accompany decision makers and explain and contextualize developments in the region for the sake of a larger public dialogue.
The Center's research is organized along two major axes: relations between Asia's major powers and the rest of the world; and internal economic and social dynamics of Asian countries. The Center's research focuses primarily on China, Japan, India, Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific, but also covers Southeast Asia, the Korean peninsula and the Pacific Islands.
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