#taiwan-contingency

#taiwan-contingency

The draft defence budget for the next fiscal year approved on Friday is more than 9tn ($58bn) and 9.4% bigger than the previous budget, which will end in April. The increase comes in the fourth year of Japan's five-year program to double its annual arms spending to 2% of GDP. The budget plan focuses on fortifying strike-back capability and coastal defences with surface-to-ship missiles and unmanned arsenals.

The authors of the analysis at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) in London obtained around 800 pages of documents, including contracts and lists of equipment to be supplied by Moscow to Beijing, from the Black Moon hacktivist group. The group, which previously published some of the documents online, does not identify its members but describes itself in a manifesto as opposed to governments that carry out aggressive foreign policy.

In a war with China, US forces could be overwhelmed by swarms of drones unless the military more aggressively invests in the systems needed to stop them, a new report warns. The report, released Wednesday by the Center for a New American Security, argues that while the Pentagon has long talked about the need for counter-drone technologies, it has failed to prioritize them at scale, risking leaving troops vulnerable in a high-end fight.