Ukraine ’s use of drone technology against the Russian onslaught is being keenly watched by Japan ’s military, which has been assessing adding attack drones to its arsenal amid a debate on whether such a move would contravene the country’s position of only operating defensive weapons.
In particular, the military has been taken by the impact of what are relatively rudimentary drones in the war, with a defence official noting they were cost-effective and easy to deploy.
“There is no doubt that reconnaissance and attack functionality using a multitude of low-cost ‘swarm drones’ would be militarily advantageous,” Yoshihide Yoshida, chief of staff of the Ground Self-Defence Forces, was quoted as saying by the Sankei Shimbun on March 17.
Russia has long been considered the least worrying of Japan’s immediate security threats, behind China and a nuclear-armed and unpredictable North Korea , but that is changing given Moscow’s hostility towards nations that have imposed sanctions since it invaded Ukraine two months ago.
That change will be reflected in three security policy documents to be released in the coming months: the National Security Strategy, the updated Defence Guidelines and the Medium-Term Defence Programme.
The Japan Coast Guard has since last year been testing the ability of US-built drones to identify and track ships across vast areas of the Pacific, with the aim of integrating them into search-and-rescue missions. In January, Japan and the US deployed unmanned Reaper drones to a defence force base for the first time, with seven MQ-9 Reapers stationed at the airbase at Kanoya in southern Kagoshima Prefecture.
While Japan has emphasised that the Reapers it is operating are not carrying weapons – although the variants used by the US and other nations have a payload of up to 1,700kg of weapons – and are solely being evaluated for their reconnaissance and surveillance capabilities, analysts say the events in Ukraine may well have an impact on the use of the technology.
“Turkey sold Ukraine the good – but still simple – Bayraktar TB2 drone about three years ago, and it has performed extremely well in Ukraine, alongside what are essentially off-the-shelf hobby drones that have been fitted with small cameras,” said Garren Mulloy, a professor of international relations at Daito Bunka University and an authority on defence matters.
Drones have proved effective in identifying Russian units, permitting Ukrainian artillery to target concentrations of armour, artillery or missile batteries, as well as coordinating attacks on convoys transporting much-needed logistics to front-line units.
There are also reports that Ukrainian forces have modified smaller drones to make them appear bigger and potentially more of a threat, which has prompted Russian units to withdraw from advanced positions to assembly areas that can also be targeted.
“Japan is very interested to learn how these drones are being used and how they are performing in Ukraine, but also their relevance in a potential conflict with China,” Mulloy told This Week in Asia .
“China does not follow Soviet doctrine on military issues – as we are still seeing Russia do in Ukraine – but they do tend to practice large-formation exercises rather than smaller-scale drills,” he said. “If Japan were ever engaged in a ground conflict with China, then there are lessons to be learned.”
As early as 2015, Japanese defence officials requested a private meeting with a number of Israeli drone developers and were understood to have been impressed by what they saw.
The relationship is believed to be growing, although Tokyo is extremely keen to keep the alliance quiet as it does not want to antagonise Arab nations, which continue to supply much of the energy resources that Japan needs.
Ideally, Japan hopes to strike an agreement on the joint development of drone technology, bringing the strengths of Japanese technology firms into a project that would create a drone tailor-made for its own needs.
“Japan’s primary need is for reconnaissance, intelligence-gathering and surveillance, so they need a vehicle with a long loiter time in the air, a significant range and the ability to operate at different altitudes and give it a wider area to monitor,” Mulloy said. “And in the future, I can see them putting Awacs
But armed attack drones may not serve Japan as well as they have for the Ukrainian military battling Russian ground forces.
For instance, “if there was ever a conflict with China, the Chinese navy would very quickly target any drones that came close with their very sophisticated countermeasures”, he said. “And as a drone travels far more slowly than a missile, a drone with a payload would be a relatively easy target in that scenario.”
The other hurdle is whether Japan has the right under its constitution to deploy a weapons system that could be considered offensive rather than purely defensive in nature.
“A lot of the discussions taking place now are focused on the legal framework required for the military to operate drones,” said an analyst from the National Institute of Defence Studies in Tokyo.
“Under Japan’s current peace constitution, discussions need to take place around whether any new technology can be considered aggressive or offensive, and that is what is being considered now,” said the expert, who declined to be identified.
The Ministry of Defence anticipates that the picture will become clearer with the publication of the three new documents on Japanese security policy due before the end of the year, the analyst said.
This article was first published in Asia One . All contents and images are copyright to their respective owners and sources.
