Japan Moves Into Warship Exports, a Market South Korea Has Spent Decades Building

Japan's growing appetite for overseas sales of defense equipment will put it into markets South Korea has cultivated for decades, The Japan Times reports, with warships the most contested category. Tokyo relaxed its export rules in stages after 2014, and Japanese yards now compete for frigate and submarine programs against Korean builders who have won contracts in Europe, Southeast Asia and the Middle East on price and delivery speed.

India is buying at the same time. New Delhi plans to acquire the Javelin anti-tank system, the shoulder-fired weapon that is standard equipment in United States Army and Marine Corps brigade combat teams, The Hindu reports. Indonesia's Marine Corps deployed its Vampire multiple launch rocket system during the Super Garuda Shield exercise, according to Antara, the annual drills that have expanded from a bilateral American-Indonesian event into a multinational one.

Read together, the three items describe a region converting economic weight into military procurement. Japan and South Korea are becoming suppliers rather than only buyers. India is diversifying its sources away from a Russian inventory that the Ukraine war has strained. Indonesia is buying from several suppliers at once and keeping its options open between Washington and Beijing.

The competition between Tokyo and Seoul is the notable part. Two American treaty allies now bid against each other for the same contracts, which lowers prices for buyers and reduces the leverage that any single supplier government holds over a customer's alignment.