I hope Russia is able to protect its Eastern Border including the Kuril Islands, and the United States is able to protect its Western Border including Alaska.. As described some time ago, no one knows of Japan's true Military Arsenal. I ask the question, do some of the old CIA members speak about Japan having a Nuclear Arsenal larger than France? The United States, as an example, is not allowed to inspect the Japanese Defense Force which is one of the largest most modern armies in the world! The United States is keeping Military Bases on Japanese Territory in the hopes of controlling Japan. However we have seen what Tora, Tora means in the past! Per the happenings in history, Japan has never been an ally of the United States as is advertised in the News Media today. Do Samurais really sleep with Paper Stallions?

Whenever circumstances bring Russia face-to-face with its own, shall we say creative slant on Stalinist aggression on the one hand and on the understanding of the wider world, including the victims of those same events on the other, Russian reaction is always predictable. It resembles nothing so much as a kind of Kafkaesque raging against the wind because it blows or against the sun because it shines. Whether the ostensible cause is rocky islands off Russia’s Pacific coast or a bronze statue in a Baltic capital, Russia pointlessly demands that everyone else descend into the same pretend world that it, itself inhabits, and is both puzzled and furious when they decline.

If Russia surrender the kuril based on history, then the Italian can claim the entire Europa based on history. Russia should not relinquish her ownership of kuril because it will open a floodgate of claims for Russian land.

Maxwell’s assertion is meaningless. Japan’s claim to the Kuriles is based on modern treaties between modern nations, and their violation involves events very much in living memory. A little different, most would agree, to contending that events of Roman history of approximately 2000 years ago ought to determine the status of national territory today. If Russia does not relinquish the Kuriles “based on history”, this means it chooses to hold them despite its obligations and commitments of recent history. In such a case Russia’s neighbours can have no confidence in any other commitment that Moscow might make with them today or tomorrow. Russia can either have a mutually beneficial relationship with its neighbours based on mutual trust and on the rule of law, or it can practice the ethic of “might is right”. But it cannot have both. Maxwell is concerned that a resolution of the Kuriles dispute “would open a floodgate of claims for Russian land.” If a territory truly is “Russian land” and not a trophy of Stalinist aggression, then claims against Russia in regard to it would not succeed and Russia need not be concerned. But if potential claims to which Maxwell refers are for land that isn’t truly Russian, perhaps they should succeed.

Marzipan, there wouldn't be a dispute at all if there existed a legal document signed by both sides concerning the status of Kuriles. There are no "modern treaties" Russia is violating here, but there are a lot of documents each side likes to understand in their own way and a whole lot of historical issues to discuss. It's completely understandable that each side wants to stand their ground but Japanese statements about "illegally occupied territories" seem extreme to me.

Jnn writes, “There are no ‘modern treaties’ Russia is violating here.” In 1875 Japan and Russia concluded the Treaty of Saint Petersburg which ceded the 18 islands north of Uruppu to Japan, and all of Sakhalin to Russia. This is certainly a modern treaty in the context of the Roman Empire, to which Maxwell was appealing as justification for Russia’s occupation of the Kuriles. Imperial Russia never claimed that this treaty came to be nullified, and it is this treaty that determined the ownership of the Kuriles. In 1941 Japan and the Soviet Union concluded a 5-year neutrality pact. However in August 1945, three days after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and a week before Japan’s surrender, Stalin violated that pact and entered into war against a Japan that was on the very brink of defeat. This gave Soviet Russia the cynical pretext of occupying the Kuriles, and contrary to the 1907 Hague Convention respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land Stalin then incorporated these occupied territories into Russian territory. Post-Soviet Russia is there still, and in contravention of all of the above international instruments. But one treaty that Moscow has not broken is the peace treaty between Japan and the Allies, signed in San Francisco in 1951. This is because Moscow never signed that treaty, nor any other bi-lateral peace treaty in its place.

Since 1875 there have been two major wars between Russia and Japan, both of them led to different documents considering Kuriles so the paper you mentioned is only one of many. Moreover, the status of Russia itself changed twice since, which complicates the case even more. About that event when "Stalin violated that 5-year neutrality pact and entered into war against a Japan that was on the very brink of defeat" - i believe you know that Roosevelt had to offer a lot to make soviets enter pacific theater with their worn-out military. Yes, he offered Kuriles too, as stated in the Yalta paper, and not for temporary occupation. It may not sound too good now, but that's what wars are about. They change maps sometimes. My personal opinion is that though USSR didn't sign San Francisco treaty, Japan still forfeits it's rights for Kuriles in a unilateral fashion, and all these talks about "by Kuriles we didn't mean 'the Kuriles' we meant 'Kuriles without this island and that one and that one'" don't make for a good argument.

To Jnn: Even after the Russo-Japanese War of 1904, Imperial Russia never claimed that the 1875 Treaty of St Petersburg was annulled; that is the only internationally legal document that assigned ownership of the Kuriles. You are right, the status of Russia subsequently changed and this complicates the matter. But as far as I’m aware, even Soviet Russia never disavowed that treaty. The advent of the Soviet state did not mean that Moscow had to renew treaties of territorial recognition with any country, including Japan; what was legally valid the day before the Revolution remained legally valid the day after. Upon its 1945 aggression against Japan, Moscow it simply chose to ignore the treaty. As for your comments about Roosevelt offering incentives to Moscow to join the Pacific War, (1) After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US didn’t need anyone to join the war, because Japan was finished anyway. And (2), even if Roosevelt had at some time made some clandestine promise to Russia in regard to the Kuriles, that was no more legally valid that the US selling the Baltics into Soviet slavery in Yalta. President Bush, by the way, apologised to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania for that bit of American creativity. Despite Yalta, the Baltics were occupied, and the Soviets needed to get out of there. Eventually they did. Just like despite whatever theoretical American promise that you imagine, the Kuriles are equally as occupied. I agree with you, since there is no formal diplomatic instrument between Japan and Russia in ending WW2, the situation of the Kuriles is not resolved. Japan also agrees that it isn’t, and that it should be. Only Russia thinks that everything is already hunky-dory, and this on no legal basis whatsoever. If Russia wants to have normal diplomatic and commercial relations with Japan it needs to end its occupation of the Kuriles and negotiate a legally valid diplomatic solution that is agreed to by both parties.

First of all, 1956 Soviet-Japanese Joint Declaration signed by Russia states that not everything is "hunky-dory" about the issue, admitting there is a place for dispute in the matter. There hasn't been much progress in the case, true, but Russians are not that evil nor stupid to deny the problem itself, no need to make villains out of them in yet another story. And solving the dispute requires equal effort from both sides, too. Let's put this "legal or illegal" problem aside for a second. I believe if you go to your local book-or-whatever store and buy a world map or an atlas or school textbook on geography you would find out that Kuriles are considered Russian territory, or at least disputed territory under Russians jurisdiction. Except if you live in Japan. Several years ago maps were same in the Land of the Rising Sun, but now Japanese (not Russian!) government is trying to make it look as there is no dispute. Even if the evil Russian Empire is illegally occupying the Kuriles, is printing new maps or making "we are right discussion over" statements really going to solve the problem? Now back to the legal problem - let's take for example 1905 Portsmouth treaty - Japan received the southern half of the Island of Sakhalin from Russia. It is now legally considered a Russian territory. There is no dispute. At all. Japan didn't even mention Sakhalin for over 50 years. Why? I mean except for that territory was annexed as a result of a long-passed war and no sane person would root for Japan in the issue? I mean what Japan and the whole world consider to be the legal basis of Russian sovereignty over Sakhalin? It's San Francisco treaty. So my point #1 - San Fracisco treaty valid, even its part conserning disputed territory. If some issues it SF treaty contradict with 1875 treaty, my vote is to use the document from 1951. Point #2 is about Yalta paper. Well truth is it's a paper signed by leader of the evil empire, leader of the most democratic country ever who didn't really care about territorial integrity of some other states, and one more guy who we don't really care about here. Stalin may have had his evil plans but he was a current leader of USSR. Other sides made some promises they may regret about when Cold War is on. But... the paper is legal. Why are you so fast to discard it as some "theoretical Ameriacan promises"? Because USSR is evil? Because Roosevelt didn't mean it when he signed the paper, or didn't express the will of his electors? Or because Japanese representatives weren't invited to sign it? Well at least you could consider this - Russia made a claim on a territory, so, if it is't claimed by some other state it becomes: (pick one) *territory without an owner *Russian territory so here is the history i believe in: 1875 - some of Kuriles are Japanese 1945 - Russia claims Kuriles: "The leaders of the three great powers – the Soviet Union, the United States of America and Great Britain – have agreed that in two or three months after Germany has surrendered and the war in Europe is terminated, the Soviet Union shall enter into war against Japan on the side of the Allies on condition that: blah blah blah The Kurile Islands shall be handed over to the Soviet Union." 1951 - Japan: "Japan renounces all right, title and claim to the Kurile Islands, and to that portion of Sakhalin blah blah blah ". This is the moment the territory logically should be considered Russian, Japan didn't renounce it's rights just for fun of it. The strange thing is, Japan considers only a part of aforementioned Kuriles to be Russian from now on despite the document. 2008 - Japan is tired of Russian supposedly hunky-dory attitude so it desides to play dumb too and pretend the islands are already theirs with their brand new maps. 2009 - 58 years later dispute continues ... what's next? Maxwell of course is exaggerating but who knows? 20?? - Russia returns "Northen Territories" to Japan. 2??? - Italia paints the entire Europe in its color on its maps. And waits.

Kuriles are the territory or Russian Federation and that is a fact. Japan is just losing it's time or it is trying to provocate Russia. What is international law now? Kosovo is independent, Abhazia, S. Osetia... Kosovo was never in his history an independent state. Serbs capital city was Prizren in Kosovo, center of Serbians Ortodox church was city Pec (also in Kosovo), in 1389. there was the most famous battle in serbian history. Over hundred of monasteries are destroyed in the past years and the world don't care... Some of the churches were for 13th century or even older. Was USA existing then? What do they know about serbian history? It is easy to give what isn't yours isn't it? This is a holy land of one European nation, the nation who won a firs victory over german army in the I World War, but seems that now nobody cares... Maby it's because we don't have money to pay the justice...