A Sword in a Bouquet of Chrysanthemums
Anton Zhitkov (Антон Житков)
Japan also seeks to upgrade its maritime defenses - the Japanese Defense Ministry recently began a project to upgrade its Type 12 anti-ship missiles, which increased their range to a thousand kilometres and would be completed by 2026, and Japan plans to have hypersonic missiles by 2030.
Electronic warfare is a separate military spending item for the Land of the Rising Sun. According to Yahoo News Japan, the leadership of the Self-Defense Forces decided as early as 2021 to seriously expand the army's capabilities in this area. Last year's military budget envisioned the creation of a new EW station at the Asaka base near Tokyo, where it is planned to house about 80 personnel. In the same year, an EW station was also commissioned at another military base in Kumamoto Prefecture. Interestingly, the Asaka base normally houses the high command of all Japanese ground forces.
Japan's ground forces are also an object of intense scrutiny by its neighbours in the region. The Self-Defense Forces' ground forces now have the most extensive fleet of military equipment in more than impressive numbers: more than a thousand tanks, including Japan's "next-generation tank" called the Type-10, seven hundred BMPs and APCs of all kinds, hundreds of MLRSs and SAMs, and much, much more.