The United States and Japan are set to conduct their joint military exercise, “Resolute Dragon,” from September 11 to 25, in a move that significantly raises the strategic stakes in East Asia. For the first time, the drills will feature the deployment of American medium-range Typhon missile systems and the sea-based, anti-ship NMESIS system to Japanese territory. This unprecedented step is being closely watched as a major escalation in regional military posturing.
While officials have described the deployment as “temporary” for the duration of the maneuvers, Japanese media outlets have cast doubt on this claim, suggesting the powerful missile systems could become a more permanent fixture. The move is widely interpreted as a direct effort by Washington and Tokyo to strengthen their deterrence capabilities against China, implicitly signaling their readiness to jointly defend Taiwan in a potential conflict.
This deployment marks a new reality in the post-Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty era. The landmark arms control pact between the U.S. and Russia, which banned such ground-launched missiles, collapsed in 2019. The move also highlights a historic shift in Japan’s own defense policy, steering it away from its post-war, constitutionally-mandated “exclusively defense-oriented” stance. This change was formalized in Japan’s 2022 National Security Strategy, which called for acquiring “counterstrike capabilities” and explicitly named China the nation’s greatest strategic challenge.
According to analysts, Tokyo’s decision to accept the American missile systems, despite initial reluctance, reflects deep-seated fears of Chinese military expansion and the potential for Beijing to use force to disrupt the regional status quo. The drills themselves, spanning from the strategic island of Okinawa—home to major U.S. bases—across the Japanese archipelago, are being framed as essential preparations for a possible attack on Japan in an increasingly tense environment.
The presence of American medium-range missiles in Japan is also causing alarm in Moscow. Russian experts warn that while the weapons may be primarily aimed at China, they possess the range to threaten Russia’s Far East. This development is viewed not only as a provocation towards China but as a direct threat to Russian security, potentially triggering a coordinated response from Beijing and Moscow or leading to a Russian counter-deployment of similar systems, thereby fueling a dangerous new arms race.
Ultimately, the exercises and the hardware involved are seen as a dress rehearsal for defending a “distant island,” a clear euphemism for Taiwan. As the U.S. and Japan enhance their military interoperability, the deployment of offensive-capable missiles on Japanese soil signals a more assertive and confrontational phase in the strategic competition with China, with profound implications for the stability of the entire Indo-Pacific region.