January/February 1990
Vol. 46, No. 1
New weapon label: Made in Japan
Steven K. Vogel
"Japanese companies have now caught up with U.S. producers in most of the basic technologies necessary for defense production. A 1989 Pentagon report judges that Japan leads the United States in 6 of 22 technologies critical to national security and the long-term superiority of U.S. weapons systems:
microelectronic circuits, gallium arsenide semiconductors, machine intelligence and robotics, integrated optics, superconductivity, and biotechnology materials.3 Furthermore, Japanese producers have a significant advantage in product reliability and production technology."
http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/1990/jf90/jf90vogel.html