NATO and Japan have held their first formal dialogue on defence industrial cooperation and capability development, marking a new step in their growing security partnership, the alliance announced.
The talks took place on Friday at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, bringing together officials from both sides, including NATO Assistant Secretary General for Defence Industry, Innovation and Armaments Tarja Jaakkola, and senior representatives from Japan’s Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
Jaakkola said that “developing the Alliance’s defence industry to fulfil the new defence capability targets, in cooperation with our close partners, is our main priority.” She added that “the current security environment supports our aim to increase our practical coordination and further strengthen our defence industrial cooperation with Japan.”
The meeting focused on shared priorities such as uncrewed aerial systems, counter-drone technology, science and technology collaboration, innovation, standardisation, and supply chain security. NATO said the discussions also explored Japan’s potential involvement in future multinational projects across land, air, maritime and space domains.
According to the alliance, the dialogue builds on commitments made earlier this year between NATO and its four Indo-Pacific partners, Australia, Japan, the Republic of Korea and New Zealand, at the NATO Summit in The Hague. That joint statement, signed in June, underlined that “the security of the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific is interconnected” and called for deeper collaboration on capability development, innovation, and industrial cooperation.
In that statement, Secretary General Mark Rutte and Indo-Pacific representatives agreed to “explore collaboration on projects to deliver capabilities together with interested NATO Allies and partners, including in the space and maritime domains, and in the area of munitions.”
NATO said the new dialogue with Japan represents a concrete step toward that goal, strengthening the alliance’s engagement with Indo-Pacific partners amid what it described as “a more dangerous and unpredictable global security environment.”
What is sad is now in my head I think is Japan actually talking to European NATO or US NATO.. sad times.