How Japan Biffed Selling its Soryu Submarine to Australia

As the dust settles on Japan’s unsuccessful bid to sell its Soryu-class submarines to Australia, Tokyo has a lot to think about. The failure in Canberra was Japan’s second strike in its politically-led push to export its homegrown weaponry.

The joint bid by the Japanese government on behalf of two defense heavyweights — Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Kawasaki Heavy Industries — lost out to a conventionally-powered variant of France’s Barracuda-class nuclear submarine. Germany was also in the running with its Type 214.

Australia wants 12 new long-range, non-nuclear submarines to replace its current six Collins-class boats starting around 2030. The program could cost more than $15 billion.

While Tokyo’s hopes of selling Soryus to Australia and P-1 maritime patrol aircraft to the United Kingdom have been dashed, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s dream of a healthy defense export market survives—but only if Japan can learn from its failure down under.

link.

Profiling the Emerging Japanese Defense Export Industry

The recent relaxation of Tokyo’s ban on arms exports has introduced Japan as a budding player in the international arms market. The government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has given the go-ahead for Japanese firms to compete internationally for arms contracts.

The entry of Japan into the international arms bazaar could shift the balance of power in the Pacific, equipping Asian navies and air forces with affordable, technologically advanced ships and aircraft. It will also upset the status quo among defense exporters, as Japan will carve a niche among American, Chinese, European and Russian firms.

China is unhappy with the export loosening process. An editorial published in PLA Daily warned Southeast Asian countries that Japan was “going all out to break [its] Pacifist Constitution,” and that Japanese arms exports to the region would “deteriorate economic conditions and undermine social stability.”

link.

How Corrupt is the Russian Military Industrial Complex?

Since President Vladimir Putin appointed Sergei Shoigu to be Russia’s defense minister in November 2012, the defense ministry leadership has resorted to Soviet-era “snap inspections” of its Armed Forces to raise combat readiness and gain additional insight into the condition of various units. Such an approach, however, long abandoned by the member militaries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), illustrates the total absence of a culture of continuous assessment and professional development within Russia’s armed forces. Nonetheless, the motif of a “snap inspection” is also being applied as part of a wider effort to understand or try to curb the dangerously high levels of corruption within the Russian defense sector.

link.

Boeing ought to be able to teach them a thing or two.