The strategic competition between the United States and China is increasingly being decided as much by industrial capacity as by military power — and Japan is emerging as the focal point of allied efforts to build the manufacturing base needed to sustain deterrence in the Indo-Pacific.
The signs have accumulated rapidly.
Over the span of just a few weeks, a European aerospace giant has announced plans to codevelop long-endurance military drones with Japanese industry. Ukrainian companies have begun bringing battlefield-proven unmanned technologies to potential partners in Tokyo. And American defense-tech company Anduril Industries has signaled its intention to establish production in the country, while the Defense Ministry in Tokyo reportedly weighs adopting a U.S. military artificial intelligence system for the Self-Defense Forces’ (SDF) command-and-control operations.
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