Tokyo: Japan’s Defense Ministry has a growing sense of crisis over its shortages of ammunition, including missiles, and aircraft parts, which could affect the country’s capabilities to continue fighting in the event of a contingency.

The ministry has made public its sufficiency rate for ammunition in a rare move to obtain people’s understanding for the situation, while seeking a budget increase to resolve the problem.

“The Self-Defense Forces’ ability to continue fighting and the amount of workable SDF equipment are not necessarily sufficient,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said at a plenary meeting of the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the Diet, Japan’s parliament, on Oct. 6. “It’s important to secure sufficient quantities of ammunition and increase the number of workable defense equipment.”

The ministry hopes to include sentences to make sure a budget increase for purchases of ammunition and other equipment in the government’s three key national security documents, set to be updated late this year.

On Oct. 21, the ministry disclosed that it only had about 60 pct of the estimated necessary number of interceptor missiles.

In case ballistic missiles are launched toward Japan, the country has two means of interception–by Aegis ships deployed at sea and by the Patriot Advanced Capability-3, or PAC-3, surface-to-air missile defense system.

The shortages of ammunition reflect the fact that the overall budget for ammunition including missiles has not increased although prices of interceptor missiles keep going up as they become more sophisticated.

One interceptor missile now costs hundreds of millions of yen.

The annual budget for ammunition and other items has been almost flat at around 200 billion to 250 billion yen.

In addition, the number of companies that produce ammunition is decreasing.

“We have prioritized the purchases of new defense equipment while having been slow to procure ammunition,” a senior Defense Ministry official said.

The shortage of aircraft parts is also serious.

In fiscal 2021, which ended in March this year, there were about 3,400 cases of parts taken from aircraft not in operation being used for other aircraft.

This reduced the proportion of usable aircraft, which in turn is slashing training hours of pilots.

Against this background, the ministry aims to secure necessary funds, including under the government’s fiscal 2023 budget as the first step.

Meanwhile, lawmakers in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party who have strong influences over the ministry are criticizing it for having failed to allocate its budget in a well-planned way.

JIJI Press