The Defense Ministry's fiscal 2015 budgetary requests of ¥5.045 trillion are the largest ever and represent a 3.5 percent rise from the current year's budgets — a third-straight year-on-year increase. The defense budget had long been on a declining trend after hitting a peak in fiscal 2002, but the trend was reversed when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe returned to power in December 2012.
Officials of the Abe administration and the ministry should consider whether just increasing the defense budget will improve Japan's security situation.
The government traditionally pursued a policy of improving the nation's defense capabilities "by exercising moderation." But the Abe administration appears to have discarded this principle when it adopted a new defense-programs outline last December. The phrase was knocked out of this document.