Japan’s Increased Defence Budget Will Escalate “Security Deficit”: KCNA Commentary

Pyongyang, August 22 (KCNA) — Japan’s sinister intention to accelerate its drive for turning itself into a war state while deceiving the international community has been brought to light.

It was reported on Aug. 18 that the Japanese Defence Ministry is going to request about 8.9 trillion yen as the fiscal 2027 budget for “defence cost”.

But the final amount of the “defense cost” will reportedly increase to 10 trillion yen at the time of budgeting at the end of the year, for there exist more than 150 “items required” without specific cost.

Such increase in Japan’s “defence cost,” which will hit an all-time high, means the expansion of the dangerous war budget that will bring new turmoil to the region and other parts of the world.

Historically, Japan has increased the “defence cost” to a record level every year and turned the “Self-Defence Forces” into modern preemptive attack forces in a crafty way of adding to the budget, hyping “threat from neighboring countries”.

According to three security documents, including the “national security strategy” published at the end of 2022, the Japanese reactionaries set the “defence cost” for 2023-2027 totaling about 43 trillion yen and assert that it is adjusted and spent by yearly installments. This is no more than a lame excuse and deceptive farce.

As for the “defence cost” for 2026 only, the present Japanese regime claimed it is 9.0353 trillion yen, 3.8 percent increase from the initial budget in 2025, but in fact it has made the biggest “leap” by exceeding 10 trillion yen.

It is not difficult to imagine the tremendous scale of next year’s military spending, which will further expand at the end of this year, and it is clear that such huge military spending will lead to arms buildup for rounding off the preparations for a war of aggression.

In fact, Japan is to spend the money for the development of underwater-launched hypersonic missile, massive deployment of attack drones, such strengthened response to “new warfare” as the introduction of AI into the SDF command system and additional deployment of long-range missiles “capable of attacking enemy bases”.

What merits attention is the fact that Japan’s military spending, the highest in the world, is accompanied by the astronomical amount of state debt.

As known, Japan’s state debt exceeded 1 343 trillion yen at the end of 2025, an increase of 1.5 percent from the previous year’s, consecutively breaking records over a decade.

Meanwhile, Japan renewed the previous record in its “defence cost”, thus becoming the world’s sixth largest weapon importer in 2021-2025.

Despite such deteriorating financial situation, the Japanese reactionaries are spending a huge amount of money, collected from the people as taxes, for massively securing various long-range strike means like the U.S.-made Tomahawk cruise missiles and developing offensive weaponry. It is as clear as noonday that this is not for building a “pacifist state”.

It is a foolish dream to think that their vicious militarist nature, characterized by aggression and war, can be concealed with the veil of “defence” and “self- defence”.

With such reckless arms buildup, it is impossible to guarantee the future of the archipelago and the record-breaking war budget will only escalate its “security deficit”.

The righteous regional community will never overlook the military evolution of the descendants of the war criminal nation disturbing peace and security of the world but thoroughly counter it by concerted efforts. -0-

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