Tokyo is reportedly considering its own operations and has no plans to join a US-led coalition tasked with securing oil shipping routes amid tanker seizures in the region.

NATO has completed a scheduled upgrade of a land-based Aegis Ashore ballistic missile system in Romania, which the military alliance said was purely defensive in nature.

“[Scepticism] has grown louder recently, with the release of satellite images from the European Space Agency showing that the runway for the site’s airport is far longer than is required for civilian aircraft” — Andrew Nachemson, Cambodia-based journalist, South China Morning Post, March 5, 2019.