Japan’s Deep Dive: Embracing the Underwater Frontier with Partners and Allies
Geoffrey F. Gresh
Professor of International Relations, National Defense University
Key Highlights
- As tensions rise across the Indo-Pacific and law of the sea issues become more salient, we have witnessed more submarine cable cleavages globally, along with new bureaucratic maneuvers by China to slow the laying of submarine cables.
- The importance of undersea and maritime domain awareness, including enhanced intelligence and cyber capabilities, is seemingly not lost on Japan’s defense establishment.
- China’s growing maritime presence, especially in the underwater domain, will continue to be a menace for many smaller nations across the region.
In a new era of maritime great power competition, Japan’s government appears to be pushing forward in its growing embrace of the underwater domain through the sponsorship of new initiatives and other programs that bring together various partners and allies from across the Indo-Pacific. As examined below, Japan has invested significantly in recent years in the following two areas tied to underwater domain awareness: Increased regional and international cooperation and capacity building and more funding and support to grow its abilities to secure and monitor submarine fiber-optic cables across the region. Combined, Japan’s latest activities provide excellent examples and a model for other maritime great powers to emulate, especially as China’s maritime presence grows more significant and threatening in the underwater domain.
Beginning in the mid-2000s, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (or JICA) supported an increase to grant aid programs that provided Coast Guard vessels to like-minded partners and allies. Official Security Assistance (OSA) has only been formally adopted when it was referenced in Japan’s 2022 National Security Strategy (NSS), but the government’s embrace of security assistance has been evolving over the past two decades.[1]
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Geoffrey F. Gresh
Professor of International Relations, National Defense University
Geoffrey F. Gresh is a Professor of International Security Studies at the College of International Security Affairs (CISA) at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C., specializing in maritime and naval affairs. He has held numerous leadership roles at CISA, including Department Chair and Director of the South and Central Asia Security Studies Program. Gresh has an extensive academic background with a previous fellowship at Sciences Po in Paris. He was also a Visiting Researcher at the National Graduate Research Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo. His research focuses on global maritime security, particularly in Eurasia, and he has authored several books, including To Rule Eurasia’s Waves (2020), and contributed to various policy publications. Gresh’s work explores critical geopolitical dynamics, including the rise of subsea warfare and the strategic importance of maritime chokepoints.