New Intelligence 'Command Tower' to Anchor Japan's Security Overhaul

Japan's debate over national security often gravitates to hardware ー missiles, budgets, bases, deterrence. Michio Ezaki, an intelligence expert and leading proponent of intelligence reform, says the more urgent gap is quieter and more dangerous. Japan can collect plenty of information, but it still struggles to turn it into decision-ready analysis at the very top levels of government.

Missing Analysis

Ministeries do not lack information, Ezaki said in an interview with JAPAN Forward. "Each ministry collects and analyzes to some extent," he said. Rather, "The biggest weakness [is that] the analysis is scattered."

In practice, he argued, the prime minister's office receives streams of reporting from different bureaucracies. However, it lacks a professional analytic unit capable of testing, verifying, and integrating those inputs into a single picture.

"Staff working there are not intelligence professionals." What has been lacking, he added, is "a dedicated unit inside the office with intelligence professionals who can analyze and verify what comes in from multiple ministries. And then judge what it all means."

Ezaki's point is that Japanese ministries are so busy doing what they were built to do — foreign affairs, defense, policing, maritime security — each in its own silo. "They are diligently collecting information in their own lanes." The problem is that "aggregation is being done," but "not analysis."

That diagnosis sits at the center of the Takaichi administration's proposed intelligence overhaul. According to Ezaki, the plan is deliberately staged, and the sequence is critical.

A Staged Overhaul

First comes legislation to establish a National Intelligence Bureau and a National Intelligence Council, an intelligence "command tower."

Second, under that command tower, the government would build a foreign-intelligence service and a cross-agency training institution. "This," Ezaki explained, "becomes Japan's version of the CIA."

Third, once the bureau exists, the government could examine "anti-spy" legislation and "quickly legislate it."

Why start with a command tower? Ezaki offered a concrete example: China. Different parts of the Japanese government can see China clearly, but only in fragments.

"The Ministry of Defense (MOD) supplies information about the People's Liberation Army," he said. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs brings a diplomatic lens focused on "Taiwan and the Philippines and the United States, and China's external relations." The Japan Coast Guard focuses on "the Senkaku Islands and Japanese waters near Taiwan," including movements by China's maritime forces. Police, he added, carry a different set of concerns, from the protection of Japanese nationals to the activities of foreign citizens.

Each line of reporting can be detailed. But policymakers still have to decide what the pieces mean together. "You have to judge it in a comprehensive way," he said, which is something no single ministry is designed to do. Defense officials are military experts, not diplomats. Diplomats aren't military analysts, police are security specialists, not geopolitical strategists. Without a dedicated analytic hub, leaders "end up having to make judgments without grasping the whole picture."

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Giving Intelligence the Standing to Push Back

Ezaki argues the new institutions are meant to correct an old temptation: letting policy preferences shape what leaders accept as "true." He cited the Iraq War as a warning about what happens when intelligence is treated as justification rather than a constraint. At the time, the US acted on claims that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. After the invasion, such weapons were not found. "The policy of 'take down Saddam' took priority," Ezaki said, and "intelligence was treated lightly."

He says the point is to prevent analysis from becoming an accessory to a decision that's already made. "Policy can start with the answer and go looking for supporting evidence," he said. Intelligence's job, he added, is to push back when the reporting doesn't support the decision. As he puts it, "Policy and intelligence have to be on equal footing," otherwise leaders can "ignore intelligence and still push ahead."

Power at the Center

Making that equality real requires authority, not just a new nameplate. Ezaki described today's Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office as one that "collects and reports" upward. Under the proposed model, a national intelligence bureau chief would be able to demand underlying evidence and cross-check it externally.

If the MOD submits an assessment about developments in the Taiwan Strait, Ezaki said, the bureau needs the right to ask: "What is the basis for that information, and what is the primary source? Why did you judge it that way?"

With that foundation, he said, the bureau could then validate the picture by checking with allies. "Ask the US and the United Kingdom," he said. "Find out what their services think and how it compares with Japan's interpretation."

Ezaki said ministries "may not comply simply because the new bureau asks for information." Therefore, he argues the bureau should be backed by a ministerial council so requests can be enforced politically. "The prime minister would speak to the defense minister," he said, "and the defense minister would tell the defense intelligence side to provide the requested information."

*Michio Ezaki, Visiting Professor at Reitaku University (©Sankei Shimbun)*

Systems Vs Culture

Ezaki's argument also reaches into infrastructure. He described how the US forces' intelligence is integrated into a discipline. If a defense intelligence unit meets a foreign counterpart, "the record is made into a report." It is then placed in a government cloud, where other agencies and a central authority can access it and assess whether the account is accurate. Japan lacks that kind of "mutual check and balance" system, he said. "Up until now, it wasn't a system where organizations made mutual checks work."

On leaks, Ezaki offered a counterintuitive claim: the greatest risk is casual disclosure by insiders, not cinematic espionage. Ezaki said most leaks don't come from spycraft but from casual judgment calls inside government, including politicians or bureaucrats deciding that disclosing a little is "probably okay."

The fix, he argued, "is not only systems but literacy among those who handle secrets." Even a perfect mechanism fails, he explains, when someone shares an access code or treats sensitive information as gossip.

Will the reforms arrive in time to matter in a crisis?

"Honestly, I don't know," Ezaki answered. But he rejected the idea that intelligence capacity is all-or-nothing. "Even doing a little helps," he said. Once the structure exists, he explained, "Japan's officials and politicians are capable enough to make it work."

Author: Daniel Manning