Daily Brief: 28 December 2025

Japan | Defence | Constitutional constraints undermine $58B military buildup’s deterrent effect

Situation

Japan’s Cabinet approved a record ¥9 trillion ($58 billion) defence budget, marking four consecutive years of aggressive military expansion. By 2027, Tokyo will spend 2% of GDP on defence—a figure politically unthinkable a decade ago.

The spending targets genuine capabilities: Tomahawk cruise missiles, extended-range Type-12 standoff weapons, and integrated Aegis missile defence systems. These purchases give Japan theoretical ability to strike Chinese mainland targets for the first time.

However, Article 9 constitutional constraints prohibit preemptive strikes. Japan’s counterstrike doctrine requires waiting until “an armed attack against Japan has been initiated”—creating a temporal paradox where retaliation is only legally authorized after absorbing the first blow.

Context

The constitutional limitation creates strategic uncertainty that may paradoxically serve Japanese interests. Active Self-Defence Force officers prefer constitutional ambiguity over explicit amendment, as vagueness allows incremental capability expansion while preserving post-war political settlements.

Japan’s defence industrial base cannot sustain wartime production rates. Unlike China’s command economy, which increased artillery production 200-300% since 2022, Japan’s manufacturing is optimized for cyclical peacetime maintenance rather than surge capacity.

The cost-exchange mathematics favor attackers. Standard interceptor missiles cost $2 million versus $2,000 drones—a 1,000:1 ratio. Even with 90% intercept rates, China’s mixed precision-strike and saturation-attack capabilities can overwhelm Japan’s finite magazine depth faster than replacement production.

Trajectory

Japan is purchasing strategic ambiguity rather than conventional deterrence. The $58 billion creates capabilities Japan cannot fully utilize, constrained by constitutional limits and dependent on alliance integration with uncertain American commitment levels.

This ambiguity may prove either invaluable or catastrophic. Chinese military planners must calculate not just Japan’s technical capability to retaliate, but whether Japan’s legal and political systems will authorize strikes during actual conflict fog.

The buildup’s success depends entirely on decisions outside Japanese control—making it less a deterrent than an expensive hedge against multiple uncertain futures.

Africa | Conflict | Sudan’s peace agreements function as violence redistribution systems rather than conflict resolution mechanisms

Situation

Sudan has signed over a dozen major peace accords since 1972, each promising transformation but delivering reconfiguration of existing power structures. The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement ended Africa’s longest civil war yet created conditions for current fighting that has displaced ten million people in eighteen months.

The 2020 Juba Peace Agreement integrated rebel commanders into government, then watched those same commanders choose opposing sides when war erupted in April 2023. These outcomes represent successful operation of Sudan’s franchise governance model rather than implementation failures.

Context

Sudan operates as a franchise system where Khartoum licenses violence to peripheral actors in exchange for loyalty and resource shares. This model predates independence, originating from British colonial “native administration” that criminalized traditional pastoral mobility by creating fixed territorial boundaries.

Gold production has fundamentally altered conflict economics since South Sudan’s 2011 secession stripped 75% of oil revenues. The Rapid Support Forces now control an estimated 70% of Sudan’s gold production, generating revenues exceeding many African state budgets. UAE customs data shows 97% of Sudan’s official gold exports flow to Emirates, with volumes increasing 70% during active civil war.

Peace agreements cannot compete with this arithmetic, as wealth-sharing provisions only distribute what central government chooses to count—excluding informal gold trade that generates real power.

Trajectory

Sudan’s conflicts operate on incompatible time horizons where international mediators work in months while armed groups plan generationally. Agreements remain in permanent future tense, creating temporal sovereignty that prevents binding commitments.

Integration provisions consistently backfire by expanding rather than reducing total armed capacity. The franchise model makes durable peace structurally irrational for armed actors who benefit from perpetual reconfiguration rather than resolution.

Future interventions must recognize that current peace processes serve the interests of those designed to constrain, making fundamental structural change prerequisite to meaningful conflict resolution.

Yesterday’s Assessments

• Daily Brief: 27 December 2025
• China’s Nine-Carrier Cathedral: Monument or Miscalculation?
• Japan’s $58 Billion Defence Budget: The Power of Useful Ambiguity

Until tomorrow.