Japan Fires Its First Tomahawk From JS Chokai, Joining a Four-Nation Club

Japan's Ministry of Defense announced on July 30, 2026 that the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force had conducted its first live-fire test of a Tomahawk cruise missile, launched a day earlier from the Aegis destroyer JS Chokai (DDG-176) in the Pacific Ocean. The ship had deployed to the United States for the trial, which was carried out with US Navy support.

The ministry said the test confirmed that the ship and its crew could execute the launch sequence, and validated the integration between the missile and Japan's combat system. The firing position was withheld, and officials did not disclose whether the round was a Block IV or a Block V.

The launch makes Japan the third country outside the United States to fire a Tomahawk from a surface combatant, after Australia and the Netherlands, and the fourth overall. The United Kingdom, a long-standing operator, has only ever launched the weapon from submarines.

Japan is acquiring up to 400 Tomahawks through US Foreign Military Sales at a cost of roughly 169.4 billion yen ($1.03 billion). Up to 200 Block IV rounds are being delivered between fiscal 2025 and 2027, followed by up to 200 Block V missiles across fiscal 2026 and 2027. A further 113.6 billion yen, about $694 million, has been approved through fiscal 2026 to modify five Aegis destroyers to carry them: Chokai, Kirishima and Myoko of the Kongo class, Haguro of the Maya class, and Atago.

Chokai is one of four Kongo-class destroyers commissioned from 1993, displacing 9,500 tonnes and carrying a 90-cell Mk 41 vertical launching system already configured for SM-2MR, SM-3 and RIM-162 rounds. GMN inventory data records eight Aegis destroyers in Japanese service across three classes — four Kongo, two Atago commissioned from 2007 and two Maya from 2020 — inside a JMSDF fleet of 46 destroyers. The BGM-109 Tomahawk has been in US service since 1983 and carries a 450 kg warhead to about 2,500 km, a reach that from Japanese waters covers targets across the East China Sea and the Korean peninsula.

The purchase follows Japan's 2022 National Security Strategy, which committed the country to a counterstrike capability: the ability to hold hostile missile launchers, command nodes and other military targets at risk after an attack. It is the sharpest break yet from the postwar posture of a state that ranks eighth in the global military power ranking and had never before fielded a long-range land-attack weapon.

The four remaining conversions are scheduled to follow Chokai, and Japanese officials have signaled that the capability will eventually extend across the whole Aegis force, including the second Atago- and Maya-class hulls. Block V deliveries run through fiscal 2027.