News Analysis: Japan's record defense budget detracts from Abe pledge to prioritize economic reboot

The Cabinet of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Wednesday approved the nation's largest- ever defense budget, marking the third successive year of increased spending and a new post World War II record, following more than a decade of spending cuts amid a stalled economy and as public debt has surged to the highest in the industrialized world.

Abe's Cabinet endorsed a 4.98 trillion yen (42 billion U.S. dollars) budget for defense spending for the year beginning in April, with the amount marking a 2.0 percent rise from the previous fiscal year and the third annual increase under the hawkish prime minister who took office in December 2012. Abe, after assuming office, drew a line under 11 consecutive years of defense spending cuts, despite the nation struggling with economic malaise, including decades of deflationary pressure and mounting public debt.

The budget, part of the government's record 96.34 trillion yen (814 billion U.S. dollar) general-account budget for fiscal 2015, is yet to be approved by parliament, but as Abe's ruling coalition hold the majority in both chambers of parliament, an approval is seen as a foregone conclusion, pundits attest.

While the government has forecast economic growth of 1.5 percent this year in real terms, or 2.7 percent in nominal terms, following a 0.5 percent contraction in 2014 in inflation-adjusted terms for fiscal 2014, the economy here is still in a technical recession, the latest indicators reveal.

The recession has been triggered by Abe's unpopular tax hike from 5 to 8 percent in April 2014, which zapped corporate investment, curbed industrial production and hence exports, and, has seen consumer spending, which accounts for around 60 percent of Japan's GDP, likely contract 2.7 percent in fiscal 2014, according to leading economists.

With a second controversial consumption tax hike delayed until April 2017, with Abe pledging the increase will go ahead regardless of the economic situation at the time, observers have expressed concern that with rapidly swelling social security costs -- which will account for about one third of the budget -- along with falling wages and price increases, and the government's plans to cut corporate tax, such a monumental increase in Japan's defense spending is as untimely as it is irresponsible, considering the current economic predicament here and the geopolitical climate in the broader region. "With the ruling coalition now bossing parliament with no resolute opposition to speak of, we're now on the cusp of witnessing something this nation once thought impossible and firmly rejects,"political watcher Teruhisa Muramatsu told Xinhua. "This is not just the previous unilateral move by Abe's Cabinet to reinterpret Japan's pacifist Constitution, but Abe's current plan to use his two thirds majority in parliament to amend the nation's charter and see the country remilitarized,"he said.

Muramatsu went on to say that the announcement Wednesday of a record-high increase in military spending adds to the contradictory notions of Abe's own New Year address to the nation, which highlighted economic revival and a pacifist ideology.

The prime minister stated that"This year we will once again make the economy the foremost priority as we undertake political administration, delivering the warm winds of economic recovery to every corner of the nation..." He simultaneously vowed that as this year"marks the milestone of the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.." and"based on feelings of deep remorse regarding World War II,"Japan will walk"the path of a free and democratic nation and of a consistently peace-loving nation, while contributing to global peace and prosperity.." "It's economic revival, or a military buildup. Japan's economy is not vigorous enough to support both. The prime minister 's saying he is prioritizing the nation's fiscal health and economic resurgence, while allocating 5 billion yen in military spending, is utterly paradoxical,"said Muramatsu.

But both political and military analysts close to the matter here have maintained that Japan's continuing to bolster its military spending comes as little surprise considering the increasingly bellicose disposition Abe and his government have adopted since their rise to power three years ago, and the move runs contrary to hollow"calls" from the premier and his administration to better ties with neighbors in the region, who Japan remains at odds with over its whitewashing and revisionist attitude towards its historical wartime atrocities, as well as issues pertaining to territory.

To this end, Japan's Defense Minister Gen Nakatani, who was appointed in December, said in a recent press conference that"The situation around Japan is changing,"and "The level of defense spending reflects the amount necessary to protect Japan's air, sea and land, and guard the lives and property of our citizens."

The Cabinet's defense budget has been earmarked for the purchasing of military hardware including P-1 surveillance aircraft -- widely regarded as benign reconnaissance aircraft, but is in fact equipped with an array of weapon systems, including anti-ship missiles, air-to-surface missiles, torpedoes, mines, depth charges and bombs, with the aircraft also capable of deploying sonobuoys while conducting anti-submarine warfare missions.

Japan's Ministry of Defense (MOD) also reiterated Wednesday that the purchasing of Lockheed Martin's F-35 Lightning stealth fighter jet is intended to help bolster Japan's Air Self-Defense Force's (JASDF) towards achieving"superior air-combat capability, "with the fifth-generation jet replacing the aging mainstay F-15 fighters.

The MOD here has previously stated that the stealth fighter, the Pentagon's most expensive weapons system in history, can be configured for air-to-air engagements, as well as air-to-ground and air-to-sea engagements and developments have been underway for the fighter to carry next-generation weaponry, including the possibility of a solid state laser and a High Speed Strike Weapon (HSSW), which is a hypersonic missile.

Allocations will also be made for fast-response-amphibious vehicles, similar to those used by the U.S. Marine Corps. and the purchasing parts of "Global Hawk" drones.

Two Aegis radar-equipped destroyers and missile defense systems have also been appropriated, the MOD said Wednesday, with the technology meaning that, with the exception of the U.S., Japan will be the only country possessing both low-level and upper-tier defenses capable of intercepting ballistic threats beyond Earth's atmosphere.

"The defense budget is designed to achieve seamless and mobile defense capability that can respond to various contingencies,"the Cabinet-approved budget statement said. "It will provide effective deterrence and contribute to stability in the Asia- Pacific region and improvement of the global security environment." "Defense and diplomacy are the pillars of national security, but as long as Abe overly-prioritizes the former, relations with Japan's closest and most important neighbors will, at best, remained strained, and, at worst, hypothetically, create an unnecessary arms race or potential skirmish in the region," concluded Muramatsu. Endi