Atlasov Island, northernmost of the Kurils. Image credit – Wikipedia.
This week has seen rising tensions over the Kuril Islands in the Russian Far East, which are claimed by Japan. There was heated rhetoric from senior Japanese politicians and the burning of a Russian flag on Feb 7th at a Japanese protest over Russian officials’ visits to the territories, including that of President Medvedev last November. This spurred a Russian youth group to picket the Japanese Embassy in Moscow.
On Feb 9th, President Medvedev held a meeting with the Defense Minister and the Minister for Regional Development, giving instructions to improve regional defense capacities into order to guarantee Russian sovereignty over the Kurils.
A source in the Defense Ministry told RIA Novosti that the first two of the four Mistral helicopter carriers that Russia has acquired from France are to be deployed to the Pacific Fleet. This is to be accompanied by modernization of the regional 18th Division, and the addition of two S-400 “Triumf” SAM divisions, self-propelled Pantsyr-S1 air defense systems, several modern radar stations, and a Bastion P coastal defense system armed with Yakhont anti-ship missiles. Afterwards there are plans to construct an air base on the islands, with Su-35 fighters and anti-submarine aircraft.
Nonetheless, as noted by Nikolai Tulaev, a member of the Federation Council on Defense and Security, even after the military upgrades the Kurils will remain far less militarized than under the Soviet period.
On Jan 25 this year, France and Russia signed a $1.9 billion agreement signed to sell two of the Mistral helicopter carriers to the Russian Navy and build another two under French license. The vessels can carry up to 16 helicopters, 450 troops, and 40 tanks or other heavy vehicles. The first Mistral is due to be deliver by year-end 2013. Image credit – Defense Industry Daily.
Soviet troops seized the four Kurils islands near Hokkaido as part of military operations against Japan at the end of World War Two. This reversed the Russian Empire’s cession of South Sakhalin to Japan in the treaty following its defeat in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5
We acknowledge that many borders disputes are highly complex. But for a variety of legal and practical reasons, Arctic Progress believes that the case of the Kurils is about as clear cut as they come.
First, in the purely legal sense, Japan had officially forsworn any future claims to the Kurils in the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco.
Second, Japan refused a Russian standing offer from the 1990′s to 2005 to take two of the four islands as part of a final peace settlement. This offer is unlikely to ever reappear. In the “time of troubles” following the Soviet collapse, Russia was an impoverished former superpower; a state whose writ was barely felt on its Pacific seaboard. Now it is flush with oil money, in stark contrast to Japan’s chronic budget deficits and 220%-of-GDP debt. Japan has far less to offer Russia than a decade ago.
Map of the Kurils: Japan wants all four held since the start of diplomatic relations with Russia in 1855; Russia was once willing to offer Shikotan and the Habomai Islands. Image credit – Wikipedia.
Third, surrendering the Kurils would undermine one of the main pillars of the global postwar order – the principle that the territorial changes of World War Two are irreversible. Challenging this principle would open up a whole can of worms not only in Russia, but around the world – Italy and western Slovenia; Germany and Polish Silesia and the Danzig Corridor; etc. And why not? Japan might as well demand back Karafuto, the southern half of Sakhalin it seized in 1905 and lost again in 1945.
Fourth, Russia’s elites have sunk far too much political capital into asserting Russia’s sovereignty over the Kurils in the past few years – culminating in President Medvedev’s visit to the islands in November 2010. This is in addition to the near-universal public opposition against giving back the Kurils to Japan. Territorial concessions will be politically suicidal.
We can state with some certainty that the Kurils will remain Russia for the foreseeable future. The continued Japanese attempts to argue otherwise are most likely a play to popular sentiment under their unstable political situation, and not a realistic appraisal of its foreign policy interests.
