Defense Minister Shinjiro Kono told the upper house Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Thursday that the ministry has no plan to introduce military dogs bred with cloning or gene-editing technology, saying the idea is "not being considered at all."
He was answering a question from Constitutional Democratic Party lawmaker Maiko Tajima.
The exchange followed a dispute on social media over a photograph of Kono shaking hands with Palmer Luckey, founder of the US firm Anduril Industries. Luckey was involved in founding Warhound, a US startup that has announced a military dog development program, and singer Miu Sakamoto posted the photo late last month on X along with her opposition to introducing such dogs.
Tajima raised that post in her question. She said the photograph with the head of a US company breeding dogs suited to harsh missions through gene editing and cloning was the starting point, and asked where the ministry stands on military dogs produced with genetic engineering or cloning. She referred to a photo Kono posted on X in December that recorded a meeting with Luckey.
Kono rejected the premise. "First, the claim that this started with my social media post is a complete misreading of the facts," he said. He said reports about military dog development appeared late last month, and that he had posted the handshake photo with the Anduril founder long before that. Some people then used the photo, he told Tajima.
“Politicians shake a great many hands. Having that linked afterward to a matter that came up later — don't you find that objectionable?”Shinjiro Kono, defense minister, to the upper house Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee
He also said the facts should be stated accurately.
Kono then said plainly that the ministry has no intention of introducing genetically engineered military dogs. He said he sees the current pattern as one in which something the ministry is not considering at all gets tied to people he met in the past on social media, and then everything is connected.
He noted that the ministry keeps security dogs for search and rescue, base security and explosives detection, and that they were deployed in the Kumamoto earthquake in July. Even so, he repeated, genetically engineered military dogs are not being considered.
Tajima thanked him for what she called a very clear answer.