The Russians debate the Kuril Islands territorial dispute: an aspect of Russo-Japanese relations in the post-Cold War world.

Abstract

Both Japan and the Russian Federation still claim rightful ownership of a small group of islands between Japan's Hokkaido Island and the Russian Federation's Northern Kuril Islands. Russia seized the islands in the course of World War n. The disposition of the islands has prevented the two countries from signing a peace treaty. The objectives of this thesis will be to analyze Russia's political, economic, strategic, and social perspectives of the Kuril Islands debate, during 1992, as an indication of the post-Cold War international relations between Moscow and Tokyo. It is the hypothesis of this thesis that although the breakup of the Soviet Union has eased tensions between the "West" and "East," international relations between Moscow and Tokyo continue to reflect Soviet philosophies and policies. This not only hurts the Russian Federation's future development in the Pacific Rim but acts as an obstacle for cooperative, interdependent ties between all the countries of the world.