The United States and Japan have agreed to look into how they can speed up efforts to jointly build medium-range air-to-air missiles to shore up America’s stockpiles that were depleted by the war in Ukraine, according to Japan’s Ministry of Defense.
In a meeting held between U.S. Department of Defense Undersecretary William LaPlante and Japanese Ministry of Defense official Takeshi Ishikawa in Hawaii, the two long-time allies agreed to consider the “challenges, necessary lead times, and feasible production activities in Japan,” the ministry also said.
A Japanese official told Nikkei Asia that the two countries aim to conclude the study and have a clear path for co-production of the AIM-120 advanced medium-range air-to-air missile (AMRAAM) by the end of the year.
The United States will provide “hundreds of additional Patriot and AMRAAM missiles over the next year” to help Ukraine defend its cities and its people from Russian aggression.
U.S. President joe biden
The Japanese-made missiles will not go directly to the battlefields of Ukraine but are intended primarily for backfilling depleted American stockpiles, the official added.
The meeting was part of the Defense Industrial Cooperation, Acquisition and Sustainment Forum (DICAS) established by U.S. President Joe Biden and former Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
The integration of defense industries, which is also happening between the U.S. and South Korea, is intended to combat American production shortages and to jointly prepare for any future conflicts, including those in Asia.
Raytheon, the American producer of the all-weather missile with beyond-visual-range capability, hails the AMRAAM as “the world’s most sophisticated, combat-proven air dominance weapon.”
Licensed production in Japan will be conducted by Mitsubishi Electric, the country’s biggest manufacturer of air-to-air missiles, industry sources said.
Mitsubishi will need to expand manufacturing lines to produce AMRAAMs and the study will include discussions on who pays for the additional investments, the sources added.
Japan and the United States had agreed to pursue “co-production opportunities” for AMRAAMs and Patriot PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement at a “two-plus-two” meeting of foreign and defense ministers in Tokyo in July.
DICAS members also agreed to explore the co-production of Patriot surface-to-air missiles in Japan. The production of Patriots in Japan has been delayed by a shortage of a critical component manufactured by Boeing, Reuters reported.
AMRAAMs are expected to assume a crucial role in the Ukraine war.
In September, Biden said the United States will provide “hundreds of additional Patriot and AMRAAM missiles over the next year” to help Ukraine defend its cities and its people from Russian aggression.
Military analysts John Hoehn and William Courtney have written about how Russia has attacked Ukraine’s frontline troops and nearby cities with cheap, free-fall bombs called “glide bombs,” which have pop-out wings and satellite navigation and are difficult to spot on radar.
But if Ukraine’s F-16 fighters were armed with AMRAAMs, they could shoot down Russian combat aircraft in flight before they release the bombs, they added.
