US Considers Purchasing Japan's Mogami-class Frigates in Historic Shift

Japan’s Mogami-class warship is turning out to be a hot item among global navies. Australia is buying 11, New Zealand is considering putting in an order – and now, even the United States is showing interest.

According to a US Naval Institute report published on Tuesday, government and naval planners are looking at three possibilities: Japan’s Mogami-class frigates, South Korea’s Chungnam guided-missile frigate and Turkey’s Istanbul-class warship.

This is the first time since World War II that a major foreign design will be built for the US Navy. Until recently, US law prohibited foreign-built warships from entering service with the navy, but the White House last month instructed the Pentagon to consider obtaining foreign designs by invoking a national security interest waiver.

Washington was contemplating having two of the vessels constructed in foreign shipyards before construction would be transferred back to yards in the US “as part of the Trump administration’s push to rapidly expand the fleet”, the report said.

If Washington decides on the Mogami-class fleet, this will be a significant development in Japanese sale of advanced military systems to the US, according to Masayuki Masuda, a senior official at the Ministry of Defence’s National Institute of Defence Studies.