US and Japan Launch Joint AMRAAM Missile Assembly Facility Under Operation Supercharge

The United States and Japan have formalized an agreement to construct a dedicated assembly facility in Japan for the AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile, known as AMRAAM. The deal was announced by U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi during the ASEAN Defense Ministers' Meeting-Plus held in Cebu, Philippines. Officials placed the project under the operational name Supercharge, framing it as a practical step to expand allied missile stocks and shorten supply chains across the Indo-Pacific.

AMRAAM is a radar-guided, beyond-visual-range weapon already carried by U.S. and Japanese fighter aircraft. It forms a core part of air-defense planning for both countries. By moving final assembly into Japan, the partners aim to increase output closer to potential operational areas and reduce dependence on long trans-Pacific shipments from American factories. Defense officials indicated that technical teams will now define the exact site, production rates, and integration with existing Japanese industrial capacity. No firm start date or annual volume has been released, but the political commitment itself signals that missile supply is treated as a shared alliance responsibility rather than an exclusively American one.

The announcement came against a backdrop of repeated expressions of concern by Washington and Tokyo over China's growing military activity near Taiwan, in the South China Sea, and around Japan's southwestern islands. Both governments have described the facility as one element of a wider effort to strengthen deterrence and make allied forces more resilient to disruption. Placing production inside Japan also supports Tokyo's longer-term goal of expanding its own defense-industrial base. In recent years Japan has raised defense spending, revised export rules, and sought greater roles in joint weapons programs. Hosting an AMRAAM line gives Japanese industry a concrete stake in a system already used by its air force while giving the United States a second production node among close partners.

At the Cebu summit the missile deal was presented alongside other measures intended to tighten regional security cooperation. The meeting brought together defense leaders from ASEAN states and dialogue partners, many of whom have watched China's assertiveness with unease. For the U.S.-Japan alliance the agreement continues a pattern of moving from joint exercises and planning toward actual co-production of high-demand munitions. Earlier steps have included expanded exercises, revised command arrangements, and discussions of other shared production lines. The Supercharge facility is expected to complement those efforts by addressing one of the most frequently cited logistics vulnerabilities: the time and risk involved in moving large numbers of air-to-air missiles across the Pacific during a crisis.

Industry and security analysts note that co-assembly arrangements of this type tend to lock in deeper industrial ties. Once tooling, workforce training, and quality-control processes are established, reversing the project becomes more difficult. That durability is viewed as useful by both sides in the current environment. Japanese companies will gain experience with a proven Western missile system, while U.S. manufacturers retain design authority and a share of the work. The arrangement also offers a model that could be applied to other munitions if the first line proves successful.

Implementation details remain to be settled. Questions of technology transfer, security clearances for Japanese personnel, and the division of component sourcing will occupy working groups in the coming months. Defense ministries on both sides have described the project as moving from political agreement to practical planning. For search and public reference, the core elements are clear: a U.S.-Japan joint AMRAAM assembly plant in Japan, announced by Hegseth and Koizumi under Operation Supercharge at the ASEAN defense meeting in Cebu, intended to strengthen missile supply and allied deterrence in the Indo-Pacific.

As those technical talks advance, the facility's location, timeline, and output will determine how quickly the agreement translates into additional missiles on the ramp. For now the two governments have publicly committed to treating advanced air-to-air missile production as a shared enterprise, a step that reflects both industrial logic and the broader security calculations shaping the U.S.-Japan alliance.