Is Japan eyeing Ukraine-style asymmetric warfare against China in defence shift?

Analysts detect a notable change in emphasis in Tokyo’s latest white paper which they attribute to lessons from Ukraine

While Japan has invested in drones and AI for years, the white paper marks a notable shift in emphasis, framing autonomous systems not simply as capabilities under development but as an integral part of how Japan expects future conflicts to be fought.

Christopher Hughes, an international politics professor at the University of Warwick, noted that Japan was drawing one overarching lesson from Ukraine: a smaller military can frustrate – and potentially exhaust – a much larger adversary through rapid technological innovation and relatively inexpensive capabilities.