Japan Launches National Intelligence Bureau, First Centralized Spy Agency Since WWII

Japan stood up its National Intelligence Bureau on July 31, 2026, replacing the Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office with a roughly 730-staff body under veteran police official Kazuya Hara that — unlike its predecessor — holds statutory authority to compel the Defense Ministry, Foreign Ministry, National Police Agency and other agencies to share intelligence. The NIB reports to a new National Intelligence Council chaired by Prime Minister Takaichi, marking Japan's first centralized foreign-intelligence coordination body since 1945. The launch follows a July 13 New York Times investigation revealing that Russia's GRU military intelligence service ran a 17-month weapons-component procurement network out of a Tokyo office building, exposing gaps in Japan's fragmented counterintelligence system.