WASHINGTON ¨C U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi during a telephone conversation early this month that there would be delays in the delivery of the U.S.-made Tomahawk cruise missiles to the Japanese side, the Financial Times reported Saturday.
The Japanese government has signed a contract with the U.S. government to acquire up to 400 Tomahawk missiles between fiscal 2025 and fiscal 2027.
¡°Washington had warned that the delays could add as much as two years to the current delivery schedule,¡± the British newspaper reported in its online edition, quoting one person familiar with the situation.
The U.S. military has used a large number of missiles during its war with Iran, according to the report.
An analysis released in April by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a U.S. think tank, estimated that the U.S. military fired more than 1,000, or about 30%, of its stockpile of about 3,100 Tomahawks in Iran.
Tomahawks have a maximum range of about 1,600 kilometers and are regarded as one of the pillars of Japan¡¯s efforts to improve its standoff defense capabilities to deal with adversaries from outside their firing range.
In March, Koizumi said the delivery of Tomahawks to the Maritime Self-Defense Force had begun.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.