The Liberal Democratic Party-Komeito ruling bloc is expected to agree that the Cabinet should be allowed to approve Self-Defense Forces deployments by phone to speed up responses to "gray zone" national security incidents, a senior source in the administration said. With Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ...
New Japan-U.S. defense guidelines will stress global reach
Japan and the United States released an interim report Wednesday on revising their bilateral defense cooperation guidelines by the year's end, in which they call for more global military cooperation between the two countries that will "benefit the (Asia-Pacific) region and beyond." The defense guidelines, ...
Government compiling defense guidelines to deal with 'gray zone' scenarios
The central government has begun drawing up guidelines intended to deal with so-called gray zone contingencies that do not allow the government to immediately mobilize the Self-Defense Forces but could pose a serious security threat, a government source said on Wednesday. Legal constraints permit Tokyo ...
Ruling bloc spars over defense shift
The Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito are in the midst of wading through a number of thorny scenarios relating to national defense, including one that has sparked outrage from the coalition’s junior partner.
Abe may get freer hand to deploy SDF in 'gray zone' incidents
The government wants prime ministers to have a quicker way to mobilize the Self-Defense Forces in “gray zone” incidents, but some lawmakers fear moves like that will be misinterpreted as war.
Defense talks with U.S. look at 'gray zone' clash scenarios
As Japan and the United States start talks on how to respond to armed incidents that fall short of a full-scale attack on Japan, officials in Tokyo worry that their ally is reluctant to send China a strong message of deterrence. Military officials meet this ...
