The arrival of two Japanese F-15 fighters, accompanied by C-2 transports, and KC-767 and KC-46A refueling aircraft at Britain’s Coningsby Royal Air Force Base on September 18, followed by their deployment to Germany’s Laage Air Base earlier this week, marked the first ever such deployment of Japanese aircraft to Europe.
The Japanese Self Defense Force, describing what it termed a “friendly visit” and designating the effort “Atlantic Eagles,” stated that the deployment was “based on the recognition that ‘the security of the Euro-Atlantic and of the Indo-Pacific are interconnected.’”
The deployment was by no means the first such manifestation of increasingly closer ties between Japan and Europe. In December 2022 Britain and Japan confirmed plans jointly to develop the Tempest fighter as a follow-on to Britain’s Typhoon. The following month, the two countries signed a reciprocal access agreement that provided nor only for the deployment of each country’s forces to the other’s territory, but also for joint planning for larger scale exercises, and accelerated military cooperation in other domains.
Again, in May 2023, Prime Ministers Rishi Sunak and Fumio Kishida signed yet another agreement, the “Hiroshima Accord’ providing for wide-ranging cooperation. As an example of the heightened security ties between the two countries, in January 2025 over 100 soldiers from Britain’s 16 Air Assault Brigade conducted two weeks of drills with Ground Self Defense Force units in a mountainous area on the island of Kyushu.
Japan has also expanded its security relationship with the European Union. In November 2024 the two sides jointly announced the establishment of “a tailor-made, mutually beneficial Security and Defense Partnership, underpinned by a series of dialogue mechanisms to provide steering and oversight.” The agreement provides for naval cooperation such as joint exercises: a dialogue on space security; enhanced exchanged on cyber security; and joint research on hybrid threats.
Japan’s agreement with the EU has fewer teeth than its arrangements with Britain, which the British government has termed “the most important defence treaty between the two countries for over 100 years.” Nevertheless, like the Ango-Japanese treaty, the EU and Japan also state that Europe and the Indo-Pacific “are highly interconnected and interdependent.”
The emphasis on interconnectedness reflects both Europe’s growing apprehension over Chinese intentions in the Pacific and Japan’s open concern regarding not only an aggressive China but also an expansionist Russia. After all, Russia is as much a Pacific power as it is a European power.
There is no knowing how Vladimir Putin’s appetite for territorial expansion might manifest itself, were Russia to emerge victorious from its invasion of Ukraine. Putin’s obsession with Czarist history and treaties, as manifested by his decision several years ago to transfer the Russian archives from the ministry of culture to his presidential office, could just as easily lead to renewed pressure on Tokyo over the disputed Kurile Islands as on Ukraine’s Black Sea neighbors.
In that regard it is noteworthy that at the Alaska Summit with President Trump. Putin’s remarks reflected his strong sense of Czarist history. He emphasized the state’s “tremendous cultural heritage back from Russian America.” And Putin spoke of the state’s “Orthodox churches, and… more than 700 geographical names of Russian origin.”
Japan’s efforts to tighten its security relations with Europe parallel Britain’s efforts in particular to strengthen its Pacific ties, not only with Japan, but with Australia, both through the AUKUS agreement, and through its long-time membership of the Five Power Defense Arrangements. This 1971 agreement also includes Malaysia Singapore and New Zealand. Coupled with France’s own security posture in the Pacific, where about 1.5 million French citizens live on several territories that are part of Metropolitan France, Britain’s defense arrangements underscore the reality that European statements about the interdependence between the Indo-Pacific and Europe are not merely diplomatic hyperbole.
As both an Atlantic and Pacific power, the U.S. clearly benefits from the strengthening ties between its European and Asian allies. In this regard, Washington should do all it can to allay the fears of its allies in both regions that America is abandoning them. President Trump’s recent statement that NATO countries should shoot down Russian aircraft if they violate their airspace is a welcome step in that direction.
America’s allies urgently need to hear more such pronouncements, and even more explicit statements of support from the administration. The more Washington is seen as standing behind its allies, the more likely both Beijing and the Kremlin will think twice before contemplating aggression against them.
Dov S. Zakheim is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and vice chairman of the board for the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He was undersecretary of Defense (comptroller) and chief financial officer for the Department of Defense from 2001 to 2004 and a deputy undersecretary of Defense from 1985 to 1987.