Japan is selling top-of-the-line warships to another key US ally. What that means in the highly contested Pacific

CNN

2 days ago

Australia last week announced a $6.5 billion deal to buy advanced warships from Japan, a move that can go a long way to making Canberra a Pacific maritime power and Tokyo a major weapons exporter, analysts say.
The Australian Defense Ministry said it will buy 11 of Japan's Mogami-class frigates, stealthy, state-of-the-art surface combatants that analysts say are equal to – or in some repects better than – anything China or even the United States is putting in the water.
Announcing the deal with its fellow member of the the US-led Quad defense group, Australia's Minister for Defense Industry Pat Conroy called it 'another step towards delivering a much larger and more lethal navy, with stealth frigates that will reassure our allies and deter our adversaries.'
Australia's main security concern is its growing neighborhood rivalry with China, which was stoked earlier this year when a Chinese naval task force circumnavigated the continent and held live-fire exercises off Australian shores, forcing dozens of passenger planes to divert from their usual flight paths.
Canberra says the vessels will be 'upgraded' Mogami-class ships – bigger than a version already in service with Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force – giving them more firepower and a longer unrefueled range of approximately 11,500 miles (about half the length of the equator).
Japan's Defense Minister Gen Nakatani echoed Conroy's sentiment, calling the deal a 'big step' that will boost Tokyo's security cooperation with a special strategic partner, Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported.
The new warships, built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, will have 32 Mk 41 vertical launch cells, capable of firing surface-to-air missiles and anti-ship missiles, the Defense Ministry said. These will enable the Mogamis to fire 128 air defense missiles, four times the number current Australian surface vessels can fire, Conroy said.
Analysts noted the Lockheed Martin-made Mk 41 launch cells are big enough to carry Tomahawk cruise missiles – which, with a range of 1,000 miles, could greatly extend the warships' target area.
The Mk 41 cells could also be used for long-range anti-submarine rockets, enabling them to better hunt down fleeing nuclear-powered submarines, said Sidharth Kaushal, a research fellow in sea power at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London.
The Japanese-made frigates are also lauded for their lean manning, needing only a crew of 90, compared with 170 on Australia's current ANZAC-class frigates the Mogamis will replace. The smaller crew is important for countries like Japan and Australia that face military recruiting challenges.
'It's a much bigger ship, which is able to operate with a much smaller crew, and that's a reflection of how modern this ship is,' Australian Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said at a press conference on Tuesday.
The Mogami class compares favorably with other frigates in the region, analysts said, and they praised Australia's decision to go with the Japanese design, which was in competition with a German frigate.
'Its stealth, its reduced manning, its modularity – all at a relatively affordable price – make it an incredibly competitive product,' said Alessio Patalano, professor of war and strategy in East Asia at King's College, London.
Carl Schuster, a former US Navy captain and former head of the US Pacific Command's Joint Intelligence Center, called it 'slightly superior' to China's Type 054B frigate, giving it especially high marks for its mid- to long-range air defense systems.
'Compared to a Chinese frigate this is an agile, more technologically advanced solution,' Patalano said.
Kaushal, the RUSI analyst, said the unseen technology on the Japanese-made warship – its software – could make more of a difference than firepower when it comes to combat. For instance, it's possible that the sonar software on the Mogami could be superior to an adversary's in separating ocean noise from an actual hostile contact, he said.
And the analysts noted Japanese industrial reliability.
'Japanese shipyards do outstanding work and deliver their products on time and within the assigned budget,' said Schuster.
'Mogami is state of the art. It builds on Japan's longstanding high-quality pipeline approach to shipbuilding, and clear access to advanced tech both domestic and from the US,' Patalano said, adding that current Mogami-class ships are powered by British engines.
The Australian deal bodes well for what could be a nascent Japanese defense export industry, the analysts said.
For most of the post-World War II era, Japan banned any export of weaponry. But in recent years that policy has been relaxed to allow items related to surveillance, reconnaissance and rescue to be sold abroad.
The Philippines has been the early beneficiary of this change, getting air surveillance radars from Japan over the past two years, according to Tomohisa Takei, a senior fellow at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation.
Last year, Japan sold its first lethal weaponry, Patriot missile interceptors to the US, built under license from Washington to replace Patriots it had sent to Ukraine.
The frigate sale to Australia dwarfs that missile deal.
The Australian Defense Ministry announcement said the first three warships will be built in Japan and the remaining eight in Australia.
Patalano said exporting the warships, but also exporting the technology to build them, represents a challenge for the country's arms industry.
Pulling it off 'would catapult Japan in the space of major defense industry exporters,' he said.
When looking at the Japan-Australia deal, analysts noted that the two US allies may be more advanced and efficient in military shipbuilding than their American partner.
The US Navy has no frigates in its fleet and hasn't had them since 2015 when the last of the Oliver Hazard Perry class, the USS Simpson, was decommissioned.
Washington's effort to build new frigates, the Constellation class, which was authorized in 2020, is at least three years behind schedule as it undergoes design changes despite construction having already begun, according to the Government Accountability Office.
And even then, it may not be able to deliver what the Mogami does, said Schuster, the former Navy captain.
'In my opinion, it is superior to the Constellation class,' he said.
Patalano, too, noted the US naval shipbuilding woes.
'When it comes to shipbuilding the US is not in the innovation space of some of its closest allies, and compared to Italy, France, the UK, the ROK (South Korea), and now Japan, the US has a lot to learn,' said Patalano, from King's College.
The government of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the frigate deal is part of a greater investment in defense that will create 10,000 jobs at home.
Another leg of that is the AUKUS agreement between Australia, the US and the United Kingdom, which will see Canberra acquire and later build its own nuclear-powered submarines.
Australia said the agreement announced this week is non-binding, but the Albanese government expected to have contracts signed by next year.
Canberra expects the first of the new warships to be operational by 2029, a Defense Ministry statement said.
The deal marks a return to the global military market for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, a company with a rich naval history. It was a key force behind the buildup of the Imperial Japanese Navy leading up to World War II and is responsible for making the largest battleships in history, the Yamato and the Musashi, 69,000-ton behemoths with 18-inch main guns.
They were state-of-the-art for battleships and entered the war only after Japan's December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, but the advent of aircraft carriers conveying torpedo bombers made them essentially obsolete before they could ever show their true power.
The Musashi sank during the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944 after being hit by dozens of torpedoes and bombs dropped by US planes.
Yamato was sunk by US carrier-based planes in April 1945 while making a planned suicide run to the Battle of Okinawa. The plan was for the ship to be beached and become a Japanese fort against the US invasion.