The “Flying Forward Observation System” was created for the purpose of observing bullets fired by cannons from the sky. This was modified for reconnaissance use, and was the first drone used by the Ground Self-Defense Force. It weighs 213 kg (photo by Masayuki Kikuchi). The Self-Defense Forces were not slow to start, but… Japan was not slow to start, but one thing it did was to take the wrong direction at the start. Furthermore, why was it unable to change direction from there? What Japan does is inevitably half-hearted. For example, the U.S. has the RQ-4 Global Hawk, a huge high-altitude dwell reconnaissance drone that can go to quite high altitudes, but in the case of the FFOS that the SDF built, it didn’t fly to that high an altitude, but it became huge. Moreover, once the procedure to develop and procure something has been followed, it is difficult to abandon it and develop a new one, due to budgetary approval and other factors. From the public’s point of view, it may seem like they are taking good care of their blood money by not throwing away something once it has been built, but I doubt if it is meaningful to continue to have something that cannot be used. Incidentally, when Japan was using a huge drone-like device made for ballistic observation, the U.S. and other multinational forces were already using drones for military purposes for bombing during the 2003 Iraq War. Kikuchi also gives this simple example as a comparison between Japan and the U.S.  “When I covered the U.S. military in 1996, I saw a system for exchanging e-mail over the Internet being used on board a ship, and I thought it was amazing.” That was the “origin” of what would later become Windows 98 and so on. “As for how things were in Japan at that time, I typed out an application for coverage of the Self-Defense Forces using a word processor, put it in an envelope, affixed a postage stamp, and sent it off. To begin with, there is no comparison between the U.S. and Japan.” By 2010, however, the use of networks had spread to the weapons used by Japan’s soldiers at the end of the line. “We built a new tank called the Type 10 Hitomaru tank,” he said. Until then, tanks communicated with each other by radio, but the Hitomaru-type tank had a monitor screen, and by having fellow tanks look at the same screen, the location of fellow tanks and even enemy information was mapped on a map using GPS, and the system was able to share this information. It was the first time the SDF had networked the system, and one of the first in the world. That system was later installed in the 2016 Type 16 (Hitoroku) Mobile Combat Vehicle. “Before that, however, the U.S. had distributed what would become the basis for the iPad…”