Brilliant and straight article. Individual or national dignity cannot be solved intellectually as “conflicting koan”. It is like entering highway orthogonally or entering power network without synchronizing. Economy is the common sense set point of negotiating the moral interface. You talk one concrete thing and your unconscious part is on another side. This is OK and you keep yourself engaged. Creating the conflict is not a starter. Why do you need it now? Streltsov knows that sticking to the rhythm of history – the history changes. This is the outlet for Japan, to give history a chance without attacking it.

I heard that the Japanese government retracted that statement and said the memo was "draft" and was released in error. Perhaps it was a diplomatic "trial balloon", to see what Russia would say or do.

Who is Japan to talk abou"ILLEGAL OCCUPATION". Japan lost these islands because they had illegally occupied other people's lands in WWII. Had Japan not started the pacific invasions of other countries starting the pacific war, they would have never lost those islands. Kiss those islands goodbye and learn from the experience. Be thankful that your country didn't lose the rest of your islands.

"Populist politics" ! One of the most dangerous trends effecting the modern world. A brilliant article!

If only the Japanese had admitted their mistakes after WW2, like the Germans did, and abandoned racist nationalism they would not care so much now about the islands because they would be too humble to think they deserved them. As the article says, there is no plausible scenario in which Japan would regain the islands, so it does seem as though this is nothing more than self-indulgent posturing that comes at what amounts to a mild practical cost in commerce. The mainstream of Japanese civilization never extended that far north. Until pretty recently, it never even extended to Hokkaido. In terms of cultural ancestry, the Kuril islands share their identity with their natives and with no one else. That having been said, the Japanese could probably make better use of those islands than Russia because Russia's Eastern population is too small to give that area as much attention and utilization. It would therefore make more practical sense for Japan to have the islands. I am not sure that is a slippery slope I would like to go down, but it does make sense.

@ William, I read somewhere that Russia considered the Kurils to be their gateway to the Pacific ocean. Not sure about that, but I did check a map of ocean depths and it looks like the deepwater channels are through the Kuril Islands. If Russia gave all of the islands back to Japan, the remaining channels in Russian territory would be pretty shallow in comparison. I'm wondering if that is one reason why Russia has wanted to keep at least one of the islands. They offered before to give two or three of them back, but Japan insisted on all four and the negotiations broke down.

When a country universally believes itself to be, or to have been, occupied, its belief is almost always correct. When a country thus accused of being an occupier denies it, its denial is almost always incorrect. This should be accepted as a law of geopolitics, and known as the Moscow Principle.

@Marzipan ... it could also be called A NATO denial syndrome or freedom - democracy syndrome ...

OR The Russian Federation could yield the islands back to Japan; All this is just opinion thank you; I’ll just state the reasons and circumstances as to why I think this is of benefit to Russia, then obviously the conditions that would make it acceptable. Cost to Benefit Ratio: Benefit 1. No Cost There could possibly be no cost, if any existing agreement was to be ongoing, that is to say any rights to passage and also any excising infrastructure or joint developments or single developments would be agreed to be ongoing indefinitely, essentially the Map colour will change and Japanese residents would have free access to the islands, and dictate anything outside the aforementioned agreed. 2. Political Capital; How could The Russian Federation be painted as an aggressor when clearly they are ready to deal in a normal and lawful manner with other nations when it is to both of these nations benefit, when that nation is not acting with arrogance or threatening Russia’s existence. 3. Psychological 3A. Hold a ceremony have a big show to 'give back the islands' bring BOTH Japanese and Russian cultural symbols, singers dancers etc. It would explain clearly to the world that when the New Russian system is treated with lawful decency that they will not annihilate you, they are ready to deal and act in goodwill. there are other important factors that can't immediately be measured with regards to this aspect of the benefit. 3B. Something like this could be a real separator with regard to the to Past; old Russian system and the New; ‘free information’ Russia under development, I notice recently people commenting how some Russian online news services (RT and others) cover subjects that won’t be covered in ‘other’ places, this would Stamp on the world that this is a New system, ready to co-operate (within mutual interest).

Benefit cont…. 4. Economic Russian will gain a 'New Best Friend' in the world community, along with the normal essentials to the agreement further agreements could be made with Japan for this act of good will. 5. Acting to avoid stagnation on this position; a time Benefit. Although it is silly to say that anything is an 'illegal occupation' and one could only assume that all such mildly aggressive statements would have to be withdrawn, the act of doing something is a benefit in its self and the time value should be measured, because clearly this is an issue for the Japanese Nation/public there is no such thing as populist politics , politics is for the people so both nations must do what is acceptable for their public the only main variable is how well informed that public is on the matter at hand. No nation is exempt from this principal.

Costs: 1. This agreement May not be acceptable to the Russian Public; 2. If it is not , there could be possible disgruntle feeling or alienation. (engagement is obviously how this is remedied, communications, informed decisions, feedback.) 3. Probable domestic resistance from veteran political figures, as they would see it as a slippery slope to concessions. Even though “You talk one concrete thing and your unconscious part is on another side.” there are no other costs I can think of. Please I welcome anyone to tell me of any I might of overlooked. Summary: there are lots of, seen and unseen, obvious and less obvious benefits to this situation occurring; Of course one would assume any new agreement would be not bound by any previous occupier of the Japanese nation, that is to say the agreement would be with the entity that is the Japanese nation , and exempt any other influence from any previous agreement or occupation, I’m sure there would be a million lawyers that could work out the provisions. the economic benefits are the obvious ones, the less seen are the good will, the information spread of psychological benefits and the domestic 'separator' from and old past system to a new uniquely Russian system. Just my opinion.

Japaneses politicians seem to forget that they have lost the war. They also do not realize that without the US' fear of communism's expension; and their dream to make every human: a consumer, Japan will not even exist any more; its citizen will have become slaves. They are not whites, consequently, in the 1945 average american mentality, they were not even considered humans (The USA did not hesitate to drop atomic weapons to end the war)...In te 21 first century being japanese, russian, american or french does not mean much. WE are, just all Earth' citizens, facing tremendeous challenges. Sorry Future Generations. Sincerely...Jean-Claude Meslin