Japan plans to improve communications between the Ground Self-Defense Force and U.S. military forces by using smartphone-type terminals, a Defense Ministry source said Sunday.
The government start developing a software prototype from April with the aim of rolling it out in fiscal 2018, the source said.
The Self-Defense Forces are trying to improve coordination with U.S. troops at a time when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is keen to promote debate on rewriting the Constitution, or the government's interpretation of it, so Japan can exercise its U.N. right to collective self-defense, or coming to the defense of an ally under armed attack.