During 1984, the Japanese Air Self Defense Force launched 944 "scramble sorties" to intercept Soviet recon aircraft approaching their coast. The Russians are no where near as nosy, and Japan had to scramble only 151 in the fiscal year that ended in March, and only 155 the year before. Japan assumes that the Russians are getting more of whatever information they think they need from space-based sources, and have scaled back their overall "requirements" for information on Japanese defenses.--Stephen V Cole