Japan’s acquisition of the ASEV destroyers will allow it to be a more proactive bulwark against Chinese aggression.

Subsequent to its defeat in World War II, Japan adopted the so-called “Yoshida Doctrine“ and pursued a pacifist foreign policy with a decidedly minimalist military redubbed the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF). This rather euphemistic designation was founded on semantics conformed with Article 9, Paragraph 1 of Japan’s post-WWII Constitution, which declared that “the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes.”

Accordingly, as recently as the mid-1990s, Japan spent less than 1 percent of its gross national product on defense, relying mainly on the United States’ military might (though to add some perspective, when talking about the size of Japan’s economy, that “less than 1 percent” still amounted to one of the top ten defense budgets in the world in terms of absolute dollars spent).

However, in this century, Japan has significantly reasserted itself militarily, an entirely understandable move given the twin menaces of China and North Korea. Along these lines, the Japanese Navy, officially known as the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) is receiving a particularly impressive new boost in capability.

Japan Wants New Destroyers

The latest comes to us from essanews reporter “LMI” (obviously a nom-de-plume) in a story republished on MSN on or about March 9, 2025, titled “Japan unveils super destroyers to counter regional threats.” To wit:

“Japan is building two new, heavily armed ASEV-type (AEGIS System Equipped Vessel) destroyers. These ships, which reportedly surpass even the Chinese Type 055 destroyers in armament, are intended to strengthen the air and ballistic missile defense of the archipelago … A model showing the technical details of the ASEV-type destroyers was presented at the IDEX 2025 fair in Abu Dhabi by Lockheed Martin, the company responsible for the AEGIS system installed on the ships … The land-based AEGIS Ashore system was supposed to complement these forces (similar to the one at the American base in Redzikowo, Poland), but resident protests forced authorities to abandon the construction of these installations. To compensate, the decision was made to build new, large, heavily armed destroyers with the AEGIS BMD system, provisionally named ASEV type.”

The tech specs of these upcoming ASEV warships look quite impressive indeed:

• Displacement: 623 feet
• Hull Length: 15,000 to 18,000 tons
• Armament:
  • 128-cell VLS launcher (two 64-cell modules at the bow and stern), capable of carrying anti-aircraft missiles such as ESSM, RIM-161 (SM-3), RIM-174 (SM-6), and RGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles
  • Separate launchers armed with Japanese Type 12 anti-ship missiles with a range of 250 miles (ultimately extending to 620 miles)

Current State of the JMDSF

According to the World Directory of Modern Military Warships (WDMMW), the JMSDF has 105 total hulls in its fleet, ranking it sixth and thirtieth out of forty national naval powers currently tracked by the website. (For the basis of comparison. China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy has 405 hulls) Of those 105 units, forty-two are destroyers such as the Maya, Kongo, and Asahi-classes (the latter is not to be confused with the delicious beer of the same name), which are of 2020, 1993, and 2018 vintage respectively. (WDMMW notes that the median age of JMSDF hulls is 18.7 years.)

Moving down one proverbial rung on the warship size ladder, the Japanese navy has six Mogami-class frigates, a 2022-vintage class of warships that share its name with a WWII Imperial Japanese Navy heavy cruiser that was severely damaged during the Battle of Midway in 1942 and finally sunk during the Battle of Leyte Gulf in 1944.

The JMSDF also has some highly capable submarines such as Sōryū, Taigei, and Harushio-classes.

Japan’s Changing Defense Needs

Japan’s acquisition of the ASEV destroyers will allow it to be a more proactive bulwark against Chinese aggression in cooperation with allies such as Australia, India, and the United States—as manifested in the “Quad”—and the Philippines.

Meanwhile, given China’s alliance with North Korea, it will be interesting to see if South Korea and Japan will be willing and able to mend fences—and thus overcome an animus that goes back well over 100 years to Japan’s 1910 annexation of and subsequent thirty-five-year occupation of Korea—to strengthen their bilateral ties against North Korean aggression.

About the Author: Christian D. Orr

Christian D. Orr was previously a Senior Defense Editor for National Security Journal (NSJ) and 19FortyFive. He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU). He has also been published in The Daily Torch, The Journal of Intelligence and Cyber Security, and Simple Flying. Last but not least, he is a Companion of the Order of the Naval Order of the United States (NOUS). If you’d like to pick his brain further, you can ofttimes find him at the Old Virginia Tobacco Company (OVTC) lounge in Manassas, Virginia, partaking of fine stogies and good quality human camaraderie.

Image: By 防衛省・自衛隊ホームページ, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

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