{"id":28605,"date":"2026-05-26T00:42:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T00:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/28605\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T00:42:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T00:42:07","slug":"could-us-tomahawk-missile-delivery-delays-slow-japans-long-range-strike-plans-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/28605\/","title":{"rendered":"Could US Tomahawk missile delivery delays slow Japan\u2019s long-range strike plans?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A reported US delay in delivering hundreds of Tomahawk cruise missiles could slow Japan<\/a>\u2019s plans to give its military a long-range strike option, analysts said, exposing a potential gap between Tokyo\u2019s new defence ambitions and Washington<\/a>\u2019s ability to supply the weapons.<\/p>\n

The missiles are central to Japan\u2019s effort to build a counterstrike capability, giving it the ability to hit enemy bases if the country comes under threat, as Tokyo rethinks its defence posture in response to a more uncertain regional security environment.<\/p>\n

But analysts said the setback, if confirmed, could also give Tokyo an opening to push for a bigger role in producing US-designed weapons, including through licensing deals with Japanese manufacturers.<\/p>\n

The Financial Times reported on Saturday that US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth told his Japanese counterpart, Shinjiro Koizumi, in a phone call earlier this month that deliveries of up to 400 Tomahawk missiles could face delays of as long as two years.<\/p>\n

The report said the delays were linked to US efforts to rebuild missile stockpiles after the heavy use of Tomahawks in military operations against Iran.<\/p>\n

The report followed an April 16 article in the Asahi newspaper that discussed \u201cpossible delivery delays\u201d and quoted officials at Japan\u2019s Ministry of Defence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A reported US delay in delivering hundreds of Tomahawk cruise missiles could slow Japan\u2019s plans to give its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28606,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[22451,12,10348,4138,12262,22452,8,15504,6430,22453,1922,2311,12263,52,21956,25],"class_list":["post-28605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tokyo","tag-asahi-newspaper","tag-china","tag-financial-times","tag-global-combat-air-programme","tag-international-christian-university","tag-james-brown","tag-japan","tag-lockheed-martin","tag-mitsubishi-heavy-industries","tag-nagasaki-prefecture","tag-north-korea","tag-shinjiro-koizumi","tag-stephen-nagy","tag-tokyo","tag-tomahawk","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}