Japan has finalized an accelerated agreement to buy up to 400 Tomahawk cruise missiles, made by Raytheon in Tucson, amid mounting threats posed by North Korea and China in the Western Pacific.
The Japanese Ministry of Defense on Thursday signed an agreement to buy 200 Block IV Tomahawks, 200 more-capable Block V versions and related equipment and services, in a deal worth $1.7 billion.
The deal with Japan comes a year earlier than planned under a missile buy approved by the State Department last November.
Now used solely by the U.S. Navy and the United Kingdomβs Royal Navy, the ship- and submarine-launched Tomahawk debuted during the Gulf War in 1991 and can precisely deliver a 1,000-pound warhead to a target more than 1,000 miles away. Each missile costs about $2 million.
Various versions of the Tomahawk have been fired more than 2,000 times in combat β most recently this month against Houthi missile sites in Yemen that have targeted Red Sea shipping.
With deliveries expected to start in 2025, Japan would be among the first allied nations other than the U.K. to operate the Tomahawk.
Australia last year announced plans to buy 220 Tomahawks, and Canada and the Netherlands also have indicated plans to buy the missile.
The Tomahawk, which has seen action in every major U.S. conflict since the Gulf War, flies low and uses a combination of GPS satellite guidance, inertial navigation and sensors that follow terrain contours and recognize digital scene imagery to achieve high accuracy.
More recent versions of the Tomahawk can loiter over an area and be retargeted in flight, and the Block V can be fitted with equipment including active radar to enable it to hit moving ship targets.
An air-launched Tomahawk fitted with a nuclear warhead was retired in 2013.
The Navy sought to suspend production of new Tomahawks in 2014, citing a large remaining inventory, but Congress turned aside that request and funded minimal sustaining production.
The Tomahawk was subsequently used against targets in Syria in 2018, and Raytheon convinced the Navy to upgrade existing Tomahawks including those undergoing planned 15-year combat re-certifications.
Raytheon delivered the first Block V Tomahawk in 2021, and since then mounting global tensions have only increased demand for the weapon.
Raytheon is the Tucson regionβs largest employer with about 12,000 local workers.
Several weapon systems made by Tucson-based Raytheon Missiles & Defense are helping Ukraine fend off Russia's invasion.
