US calls for Japan's help to replenish missile inventory

TOKYO

The United States needs Japan's help to quickly replenish missile inventory and repair warships as conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine continue and Washington seeks to keep its deterrence credible in the Indo-Pacific, the U.S. ambassador to Japan said.

"It is clear that the United States military industrial base cannot meet all the strategic challenges that we have and obligations we have,” Ambassador Rahm Emanuel said. 

He spoke as Japan and the U.S. held their first talks to accelerate military industrial cooperation, two months after an April agreement between Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and U.S. President Joe Biden.

This week’s talks in Tokyo are between U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William LaPlante and his Japanese counterpart, Masaki Fukasawa, head of the Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency.

They agreed to establish working groups for missile co-production and for maintenance and repair of U.S. Navy ships and Air Force aircraft in the region, the Japanese Defense Ministry said in a statement. 

Yesterday, the two countries held the first meeting of the Japanese shipyard repair working group, which will help U.S. shipbuilders focus on new ships while allowing ships to be repaired in Japan for greater efficiency and deterrence.

The industrial cooperation talks come at a time of growing tension in the face of an increasingly assertive China in the Indo-Pacific.

Emanuel said said China’s shipbuilding capacity will surpass the U.S. and that repairs in Japan of U.S. Navy ships and Air Force aircraft deployed in the region can free up U.S. industrial capacity to focus on building new ships.

Japan is the only foreign home port for a U.S. aircraft carrier deployed in the region.