Why Japan’s 3 Upcoming Security Documents Are So Important

The government of Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio plans to revise the nation’s most important defense and diplomacy documents in mid-December in reaction to what he described as an “increasingly severe security environment surrounding Japan.” Specifically, the Kishida administration will update the nation’s three key security documents – the National Security Strategy, the National Defense Program Guidelines, and the Medium-Term Defense Program – which all need to be approved by both the National Security Council and the Cabinet. The NSS is the basic policy for national security centered on foreign and defense policies, and is positioned at the top of the three documents. Second, both the NDPG and the MTDP were originally introduced mainly for the purpose of slowing the growth of defense spending during the post-war period, in keeping with Japan’s identify as a pacifist nation, according to Shimada Kazuhisa, a special adviser to the Cabinet and a former vice minister of the Ministry of Defense and secretary to late Abe for about six and a half years in the second Abe administration. Speaking at the Japan National Press Club on November 7, Shimada pointed out that as an example of such cost-containment efforts, the “Basic Defense Force” concept, which was introduced by the first NDPG, espouses the idea that Japan should maintain the minimum necessary basic defense forces, rather than preparing to directly counter a military threat.