Japan Shifts Defence Focus to Asymmetric Capabilities Against China, Drawing Lessons from Ukraine

Analysts detect a notable change in emphasis in Tokyo’s latest white paper which they attribute to lessons from Ukraine. Japan’s latest defence white paper’s emphasis on adaptivity and scale of drones signals its intention to seek asymmetric capabilities against China in the event of a conflict, while drawing lessons from Ukraine, according to experts. The 610-page document released on Tuesday highlights the need to integrate unmanned systems, artificial intelligence (AI) and other advanced technologies across the Japan Self-Defence Forces as Tokyo confronts an increasingly complex security environment. While Japan has invested in drones and AI for years, the white paper marks a notable shift in emphasis, framing autonomous systems not simply as capabilities under development but as an integral part of how Japan expects future conflicts to be fought. Rather than competing with the People’s Liberation Army platform for platform, Tokyo was seeking to exploit China’s vulnerabilities through autonomous systems, long-range precision strike capabilities and faster innovation, defence analysts said. Christopher Hughes, an international politics professor at the University of Warwick, noted that Japan was drawing one overarching lesson from Ukraine: a smaller military can frustrate – and potentially exhaust – a much larger adversary through rapid technological innovation and relatively inexpensive capabilities.