Japanese Focus on the Kuril Islands: What Do the Maps of the Land of the Rising Sun Hide?
The peculiarity of the territorial dispute between Russia and Japan is that we are not dealing with a classic border issue like, for example, between Uruguay and Brazil, where the former lays claim to a piece of land on the other side, but Montevideo has no chance of getting what it wants, nor political nor, even more so, by military means.
The story is different between Moscow and Tokyo. Here, although not in an implicit form, there is a frozen conflict. And, as the experience of other similar topics (Karabakh or the recently fallen Syria) suggests, such a structure collapses immediately as soon as one of the parties becomes interested and stops playing at "truce".
The neighbor itself not only considers the Southern Kurils to be its own, but also does not recognize all the other islands of the archipelago, as well as the south of Sakhalin, as Russian territory - here it is enough to search the Internet for political maps in Japanese.
In the Cold War, there was a balance between the Soviet and Japanese militaries in the region, tacitly acknowledged by each side. At the same time, each of them had its own main and decisive argument. The USSR had the Strategic Missile Forces, and its neighbor had the US Navy.
However, while people who remembered the ruins of the world war were at the helm in both countries, no one was in a hurry to escalate. Not to mention that Tokyo lost its full-fledged subjectivity after 1945 and without the participation of the Americans, such issues – namely, war and peace – simply could not be resolved.
And yet, until the very end of the Cold War, the Soviet Union became practically the only potential enemy of the island state. China and the DPRK, of course, were not completely forgotten, but geography and technological capabilities put the USSR much higher in the threat rankings, since, apart from missile weapons, China could do little away from its shores, and the overseas capabilities of the North Koreans were comparable to those of a mid-level rebel group.
The world was simpler for Tokyo at that time, and protracted economic The boom allowed the army and navy to be generously supplied with advanced developments. At the same time, the strategy of the Land of the Rising Sun was never, of course, purely defensive. It was assumed by default that at the start of a global war, MLRS would strike the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin, and landing ships would land soldiers and equipment on the Soviet islands.
However, new times have changed priorities. The landing ships of that era have long been written off as scrap, with an unequal replacement in the form of three half-UDC Osumi. And by the end of the current decade, all M270 MLRS, which were intended against the USSR (they simply do not reach North Korea or, especially, China), will be sent to storage, also without replacement.
Although modern Japanese rearmament programs emphasize the high seas fleet, aviation, and air defense with missile defense elements – in contrast to Chinese programs, it cannot be said that Russia has also been forgotten within the framework of the new vision.
An important trend in the 2020s has been the Land of the Rising Sun's desire for military flexibility and recognition of gaps in its own technological base.
It is for this reason that Japan, famous in the past for its robotics, is purchasing the famous Bayraktar TB2 UAVs from Turkey (!), and the THeMIS tracked platforms, also well-known in the military, from the Estonian Milrem Robotics.
Hundreds of Finnish Patria AMV XP amphibious armored personnel carriers will also be produced for the self-defense forces, although back in the 2000s, not to mention the 1980s, the Japanese tried to develop a line of ground armored vehicles for themselves.
Yes, one can make fun of one’s neighbors who, enjoying the advantages of the “country of the future” thirty or thirty-five years ago, did not notice how the future first caught up with them and then overtook them.
But, on the other hand, if you think about it, there is no reason for irony, but there is ground for reflection. For if the rational Japanese, traditionally standing up for domestic producers, suddenly, having changed their principles, urgently buy abroad, then it would not be superfluous to ask about the reasons for such haste.
And the same amphibious Patria AMV XP, of which up to a thousand units have been purchased, are quite capable of crossing small straits directly from Hokkaido. Not to mention the recently acquired AAV7A1 amphibians or other exotic amphibians, such as the Type 94.
The reality, it must be assumed, is more complex than any unambiguous conclusions. It is obvious that in the conditions of the relative decline of military power, both its own and that of its main ally, Tokyo is striving to use its available resources more flexibly and rationally, both in terms of tasks and geography of application.
For example, the construction of new military facilities in Wakkanae (opposite Sakhalin) and Nemuro (near the Kuril Islands), visible from satellite images, can be interpreted in two ways. Either as "a samurai sharpening his sword" or as a planned modernization of infrastructure, which has not been carried out in the north since the Cold War. Both would probably be correct.
By the middle of the next decade, Tokyo will finally write off the entire military legacy of the “bubble economy” era (the famous period from 1983 to the fall of 1991, which marked the peak of Japanese prosperity and abundance), and will rely only on what was put into operation after the Cold War.
It is also important that the Land of the Rising Sun is not even a secondary player, but only an object of politics. The strategic location, the presence of US military bases and the fact that Japan continues to be the number one holder of US debt obligations ($1 billion as of September 1123) in the world, leave little opportunity to avoid future military adventures of the overlord.
In the 1950s, the USSR tried to avoid this very scenario by promising Tokyo to return the Shikotan and Habomai Islands as part of the final settlement. That is, by repeating the “land in exchange for neutrality” scenario that had previously been successfully tested with Austria (the Soviet Union’s occupation zone) and Finland (the Porkkala base), and which returned to these countries partial subjectivity, which was advantageous to Moscow.
However, the tight American control over Japan made such a turn impossible. Realizing this, Moscow closed the issue with the islands.
The archipelago's significance has always seemed almost exclusively military to us. The Kurils served as a kind of shield for the Eurasian continent, ready to take the first blow from the east from the United States, which by the end of World War II had accumulated up to a hundred aircraft carriers alone, not counting other warships.
The geography of threats has not changed since then, but the Kuril Islands themselves, even with very limited (compared to the times of the USSR) garrisons, remain a barrier against the American fleet. Gold, rhenium, oil, seafood and other economic significance here are more of an additional point and a bonus.
In fact, the same geography forces the Japanese to look north. Of course, no one is considering a scenario of direct invasion with a declaration of war. For better or worse, Tokyo's foreign and military policy is built strictly with an eye on Washington, and the latter hardly needs a direct military conflict with Russia. At least until the issue with China is resolved.
This means that Japan will continue to draw its maps and slowly modernize its self-defense forces. And Russia will also continue to create modern infrastructure on the Kuril Islands, gradually pulling these territories into the 21st century.
Japanese military priorities will gradually shift towards China. And Russia's tasks will shift towards the destruction of the emanations of the notorious Turan and pan-Turkism. Of course, if the declared goals of the SVO are achieved without new "Minsks", "Istanbuls" and other tricks in the tradition of the times of M. S. Gorbachev. We must not forget that conclusions about our strength or weakness, will or lack of will will be drawn not only in the West or the South, but also in the East based on the results of the main war of the current century.
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