U.S. and Japanese Ground Forces Reforge Their Alliance for the Counter Drone Fight.

Japan Ground Self Defense Force units and roughly a battalion-sized U.S. Army contingent wrapped up Exercise Rising Thunder 25 at Yakima Training Center after two weeks of live fire and counter-drone training built around small UAS threats. The rotation signals that the Japan-US alliance now treats unmanned systems as a central problem for ground forces, blending jamming, directed energy, and conventional fires into a layered air defense approach relevant to the Indo-Pacific.

In a statement released on 12 November, the Japan Ground Self Defense Force framed this year’s Rising Thunder exercise at Yakima Training Center as a test bed for “various threats such as UAS,” a notable shift from earlier rotations that focused more narrowly on combined arms gunnery. About 500 U.S. soldiers and some 440 JGSDF personnel trained together in central Washington from 27 October to 12 November 2025, using Yakima’s deep maneuver corridors and unrestricted airspace to practice full counter-drone kill chains: detection, warning, tracking, and live engagements against drones in flight, something that is difficult to reproduce over Japan’s densely populated archipelago.
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On the ground, Japanese infantry and ground based air defence specialists train in the combined use of sensors, conventional weapons, and man-portable electronic warfare equipment (Picture source: Japan MoD)

During Rising Thunder 25, the units involved operate in a high intensity scenario that combines conventional live firing with sequences dedicated to unmanned aerial systems (UAS). Around 500 U.S. soldiers and 440 Japanese personnel share the firing ranges and training areas at Yakima, whose depth and airspace volumes make it possible to conduct engagements against drones in flight that the constraints of the Japanese archipelago make difficult to reproduce. For General Arai Masayoshi, Chief of Staff of the JGSDF, this ability to run a complete series of detection, alert, tracking and live engagements against unmanned platforms is, in itself, sufficient to justify the regular presence of his troops on U.S. soil.

On the ground, Japanese infantry and ground based air defence specialists train in the combined use of sensors, conventional weapons and man portable electronic warfare equipment. U.S. Army Stryker units employ jammers from the Dronebuster family, man portable electronic attack systems capable of disrupting a drone’s radio control link and its GNSS signals over several hundred metres. When the data link is saturated, the aircraft is forced into a safety mode, to hover or to return to its point of origin, which opens a window to destroy it with small arms or cannon fire. The portability of these jammers makes it possible to integrate them at platoon or company level, whereas Japanese ground based air defence still relies largely on higher echelon, longer range batteries.

Japanese authorities also refer to the use of electromagnetic wave devices intended to damage the internal circuits of drones. These systems, which form part of the Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency’s work on high power microwave solutions, project an energy volume over a given sector and can neutralise several light platforms at the same time, which directly reflects swarm scenarios. In parallel, Japan continues to test a laser based ground based air defence system mounted on an 8x8 vehicle, delivering a beam of around 10 kW provided by a Denyo DCA 125LSIE generator set. Combined with a surveillance radar, this system can engage small drones at short range, with a reported reach slightly above one kilometre, by concentrating enough energy to degrade sensors or the airframe within a few seconds. The interaction between these directed energy layers and conventional weapons is a central focus of the lessons sought at Yakima.

At tactical level, Rising Thunder 25 prompts headquarters staffs to reconsider how they build a common operational picture (COP). Small fixed wing reconnaissance drones and quadcopters act as opposing forces, seeking to detect and target Stryker columns and Japanese mechanised elements. Counter drone action becomes a guiding thread of the manoeuvre, with alert procedures, radio emission windows adjusted to emission control (EMission CONtrol, EMCON) constraints and the gradual integration of friendly mini drones into the fire support network. The data provided by these platforms, combined with ground based sensors, also feeds into the recognised maritime picture (Recognised Maritime Picture, RMP) in scenarios involving the protection of forward operating sites and the escort of medium altitude long endurance (Medium Altitude Long Endurance, MALE) drones in support of ground forces.

The dynamic set in motion by Rising Thunder 25 fits into the evolution of Japan’s defence industrial base and into the offset posture sought by the alliance in the Indo Pacific. Man portable jammers, ground based lasers and microwave systems still account for only a limited segment of Japan’s inventory, but they reflect Tokyo’s aim of acquiring air defence layers with controlled costs in the face of rapidly expanding adversary drone stockpiles. For Washington, the issue is to disseminate technological building blocks and shared procedures that enable allied forces to protect forward bases, ports of debarkation and logistical hubs, while maintaining interoperability with U.S. command architectures. From the perspective of Beijing, Pyongyang or Moscow, the message is that ground forces no longer focus solely on conventional manoeuvre and now treat counter drone operations as a key component of deterrence and of the allied posture in the Indo Pacific.