TOKYO — Japan’s defense ministry is aiming for a major boost to its drone arsenal as part of another record spending request made on Friday to deal with a “severely intensifying security environment.”

Japan has been shedding in recent years its strict pacifist stance, moving to obtain “counterstrike” capabilities and doubling military spending to 2 percent of gross domestic product.

The defense ministry’s new budget request for the coming fiscal year starting April 1, seen by Agence France-Presse (AFP), is for 8.8 trillion yen (.9 billion).

It surpasses the world’s fourth-largest economy’s previous record of 8.7 trillion yen, secured for this fiscal year ending in March 2026.

Eighty years after World War II and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan’s constitution still limits its military capacity to ostensibly defensive measures.

But the new budget increase reflects the “severely intensifying security environment” around Japan, a defense ministry official told reporters in the capital Tokyo on condition of anonymity

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The budget request asks to roughly triple spending on various types of unmanned vehicles to 313 billion yen.

The ongoing war in Ukraine, sparked by Russia’s invasion in February 2022, has highlighted the destructive power of drones and their growing role in modern warfare.

Under the plan unveiled on Friday, Tokyo is eyeing the use of drones to strengthen a planned coastal defense system it dubs “Shield,” or Synchronized, Hybrid, Integrated and Enhanced Littoral Defense.

In the worst-case scenario where Japan’s long-distance “standoff” missiles are bypassed by enemy troops, it is hoped that Shield could block any invasion nearer land, the official said.

Japan is hoping that Shield will be completed by March 2028, with no details yet on which part of Japan’s coastline it will be linked to.

Japan govt seeks to triple spending on drones

“There’s a need to catch up with significant changes in the way militaries fight,” the defense official said.

During a visit to Istanbul this month, Defense Minister Gen Nakatani agreed to explore the possible purchase of Turkish drones, Japanese media reported.

Japan, which hosts some 54,000 American military personnel, is also coming under pressure from United States President Donald Trump’s administration to beef up its defense capabilities.

Washington and Tokyo are moving to make their forces nimbler in response to threats such as a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

Japan is also looking to boost arms exports, and this month won a billion order from the Australian navy for 11 frigates.

The budget request will now be vetted by the finance ministry, with the central government expected in the coming months to draw up a comprehensive budget proposal that is anticipated to be a record high.

The Yomiuri Shimbun daily said the overall budget request is expected to be more than 122 trillion yen, a sharp increase from 117.6 trillion yen for the current year.

Much of the money will cover elderly care and managing Japan’s colossal debts, which are among the biggest as a proportion of economic output among advanced economies.