The Government of Japan has reportedly concluded final negotiations to purchase a ‘Tomahawk’ cruise missile from the United States, the ‘Yomiuri’ newspaper has learned.
The Japanese executive is pursuing a plan to upgrade domestically produced missiles as a means of «counter-attack capability» in the face of rising tensions in the region over North Korean missile launches.
In this regard, the Japanese Prime Minister’s Office, Fumio Kishida, has determined that the ‘Tomahawk’ is «essential to strengthen deterrence», ‘Yomiuri’ has learned.
The U.S. side has reportedly shown a positive attitude towards the sale and negotiations, which have entered the final phase, reports the newspaper, which indicates that the Japanese government is approaching Washington with the aim of improving its defense system.
The Tomahawk cruise missile, which is the United States’ main precision-guided cruise missile with a range of more than 1,250 kilometers, destroys targets using satellite location information from the global positioning system (GPS).
This type of missile costs between 100 million yen and 200 million yen (between 686,000 and 1,369,000 euros), so the Kishida Administration is considering introducing it through the Foreign Military Assistance program, which purchases equipment through the U.S. government.
Japan is thus considering — through the purchase of U.S. missiles — its largest arms buildup since World War II, amid North Korean nuclear and missile threats, as well as China’s assertive military activities, Japanese media claim.
This move is controversial in the Asian archipelago, as the country’s security policy has been, for the past decades, exclusively oriented towards self-defense, according to the renunciation of war enshrined in its Constitution.
