Pacifist Japan eyeing attack drones used by Ukraine as Russian threat rises
- The military has been taken by the impact of what are relatively rudimentary drones in the war, with a defence official noting they are cost-effective and easy to deploy
- While they are useful for reconnaissance and surveillance, an analyst says drones with warheads will likely not fare well against the ‘sophisticated countermeasures’ of nations such as China
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.
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.