Japan is one of many nations who have imposed sanctions on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine, but unlike the others Japan has felt an immediate backlash from Moscow in retaliation. The Russian Federation called a halt to peace talks with Japan over the disputed Kuril Island chain[a̼] which has been an ongoing bone of contention between the two countries since the end of WWII.
Japanese residents on Etorofu Is prior to Soviet takeover (Source: ABC News)On 9 August 1945 in the dying days of the war the USSR invaded Japanese-held territories to its east. Part of the victorious Soviet spoils of war was the Kuril Islands chain§. Since that time successive Japanese governments have tried, without success, to negotiate with Moscow the return of four of the southernmost islands – Kunashir, Iturup, Shikotan and the Habomai islets collectively known to the Japanese as the Northern Territories (Nōzanterotorī). Relations between the two countries have become perpetually strained over the ongoing issue[b̼]. Prospects for resolution of the issue in the three-quarters of a century since the Soviet seizure have been repeatedly stymied…in 1955 Moscow offered to return Shikotan and Habomai to Japan on the proviso that it keeps them demilitarised and not open to foreign vessels, however intervention by Washington effectively torpedoed the arrangement. Secretary of state John Foster Dulles, alarmed at the possible rapprochement of Japan and the USSR warned Japan that if it gave up its claim to any of the southern Kuril Islands, the US might decide to keep Okinawa in perpetuity, squashing the prospect of a peace treaty in 1956. An alternative view from Elleman et al contends that Dulles’ intention was not to sabotage the discussions but to try to give Tokyo a stronger bargaining chip to negotiate with the Russians [Bruce A. Elleman, Michael R. Nichols, & Matthew J. Ouimet. (1998). A Historical Reevaluation of America’s Role in the Kuril Islands Dispute. Pacific Affairs, 71(4), 489–504. https://doi.org/10.2307/2761081].
Kunashir Is (Photo: Reuters)Why is Russia determined to keep the islands?
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There are both geostrategic and economic factors driving Moscow’s resolve to retain the islands seized from Japan. Kremlin military thinking sees the continued sovereignty over the South Kuril Islands as vital to the defence of the RFE coastline against potential threats from the US, China or Japan. The Soviet rulers viewed the archipelago and the Kunashir and Etorofu islands in particular as a “protective barrier fencing off the Sea of Okhotsk from the Pacific Ocean” (Rajan Menon and Daniel Abele). The Kuriles’ economic value is considerable, they are thought to be rich in minerals (manganese nodules and crusts, titanium, magnetite and rhenium) and there is good prospects of offshore reserves of oil and gas in its waters. In addition, the islands are adjacent to rich fishing grounds [Chang, Duckjoon. “BREAKING THROUGH A STALEMATE?: A STUDY FOCUSING ON THE KURIL ISLANDS ISSUE IN RUSSO-JAPANESE RELATIONS.” Asian Perspective 22, no. 3 (1998): 169–206. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42704185; ‘Why Russia will not return the Kuril Islands to Japan’, Nikola Mikovic, The Interpreter, 17-Nov-2020, www.lowyinstitute.org].
The Japanese perspective and strategy
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The Japanese position is that the annexed islands have historically been part of the nation, handed to Japan in 1875 by Tsarist Russia in exchange for Sakhalin Island (Treaty of St Petersburg)[c̼]. In particular the Japanese view the two most southern islands as integrally connected to the adjacent island of Hokkaido. Since the 1980s Tokyo has tended to follow a quid pro quo approach, offering up the carrot of economic assistance, much needed by Russia, but making it conditional upon the resolution of the islands dispute (known in Japan as the seikei fukabun[d̼] policy). A change of approach from recent Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe eschewing all mention of the hot button subject of the Kuriles and emphasising economic cooperation in a diplomatic offensive aimed at wooing President Putin, again came up short in delivering the desired result for the Japanese.
Putin and Abe (Source: dw.com)
Intractable thorn in bilateral relations
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Right up to the contemporary era Japanese and Russian politicians have gotten no closer to resolving the Kuriles dispute. With the passage of time public opinion within both countries has hardened on the issue making it more difficult…the Japanese are distrustful of Russia and its current leader, while the rise of nationalism in Russia post-Cold War has sharpened opposition to making any concessions on the islands. President Yeltsin found that out in the 1990s when he had to back down on his commitment to a peace treaty with Japan including a territorial concession, due to domestic opposition (not least of which came from RFE locals). The Kremlin is keenly aware of the politdownside of returning all or any of the Kuril islands which would be seen by Russian nationalists as a sign of weakness on its part (Mikovic).
Image: OSINTdefenderFollowing Japan’s imposition of sanctions against Russia, prompting the Kremlin to pull the plug on the peace talks, Japanese politicians including current prime minister, Fumio Kishida, have reverted to a hardline position on the dispute, branding Russia as “an illegal occupier” who has militarised sovereign Japanese territories [‘Clash between Japan and Russia looms as Tokyo steps up Kuril Island claims: ‘Russian Army is illegal occupier’, Michael Willems, City A.M., 01-Apr-2022, www.cityam.com]. As a consequence, resolution of the 76-year-old stalemate on the Kuriles’ future now seems further away than ever.
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[a̼] in Japan sometimes called the Chishima Islands or the Northern Islands (Hoppō Ryodo)
[b̼] although relations between Japan and the Soviet Union briefly attained a state of normalisation in the mid-1950s
[c̼] the southern portion of Sakhalin was regained by Japan after victory in the 1904-05 war
[d̼] “the non-separation or politics and economics”
Albania emerged from the Second World War with a communist government led by Enver Hoxha striving to free itself from the clutches of Yugoslavia whose leader Tito was intent on making its smaller neighbour part of the Yugoslav federation, a particularly tricky scenario as Albania, economically stricken after the war, was dependant on Yugoslav for urgently needed aid.
𝒮𝓉𝓇𝒶𝒾𝓉𝓈𝑜𝒻𝒞𝑜𝓇𝒻𝓊
Into this already tense situation in the first half of 1946, a rift developed in UK/Albanian relations. First, in March-April London refused to exchange diplomats with Tirana, citing the latter’s unfriendly and “uncooperative attitude” towards British personnel🅰. In May two Royal Navy cruisers Orion and Superb were navigating through the Corfu Straits (a narrow passageway separating that Greek island from Albania) when fired at by an Albanian land gunnery. The British warships sustained no damage but matters escalating from there…two British destroyers entered the straits in October and hit hitherto undetected land mines, HMS Saumarez in particular was badly damaged and later written off. More importantly there were British crew casualties (44 dead and a similar number injured). The following month the Royal Navy undertook a sweeping operation of the straits and found 22 mines {’Albanian-American Relations in the Fall of 1946: A Stormy End’, (Edward J. Sheehy), Tirana Observatory, 9-Apr-2009, www.tiranaobservatory.com}.
𝐻𝑀𝒮𝒮𝒶𝓊𝓂𝒶𝓇𝑒𝓏𝐼𝒞𝒥𝑒𝓂𝒷𝓁𝑒𝓂
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland v. the People’s Republic of Albania
The UK’s response to the incident was to take Albania to the International Court of Justice in The Hague (the inaugural case brought before the new Court). The protracted case, not concluded until 1949, was a landmark case for the inter-country disputation, helping to lay the foundations for the development of what would eventually become the UN International Law of the Sea (ratified in 1982) {‘Summary of Relevant Aspects of the Corfu Channel Case (Merits)’, www.iilj.org}. The eventual judgements handed down were mixed, the Court found that Great Britain (GB) in entering Albania’s territorial waters did not violate its sovereignty (having a right of “innocent passage”), however it adjudged that GB’s mine-sweeping operation (codenamed “Operation Retail”) was a sovereign violation of Albanian waters, nor did it have permission from the international mining clearance organisations to conduct the operation. Lawyers for the British had argued that it took the action to secure evidence of the minefield’s existence, but the Court threw out GB’s argument of acting in self-protection or self-help {‘The Corfu Channel Case, The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland v. the People’s Republic of Albania‘, UN Environment Program, www.leap.unep.org}.
𝐿𝑒𝑔𝒶𝓁𝒯𝑒𝒶𝓂𝒢𝐵𝒶𝓉𝒯𝒽𝑒𝐻𝒶𝑔𝓊𝑒𝒸𝒶𝓈𝑒
The British legal argument that the mines had been laid by Yugoslavia, acting on a request from Tirana, was denied by Hoxha’s government which blamed Greece for the mines – at the time Albania had involved itself in the civil war in Greece on the side of the Greek communists. The Court determined that collusion between Albania and Yugoslavia in mining the straits could not be proven (www.iilj.org). In a subsequent judgement The Hague ruled that Albania had failed in its responsibility to warn GB of the minefield danger, consequently Albania was ordered to pay GB damages of £843,947 for the material loses of the warships (equivalent to £24.4 million in 2019){‘Corfu Channel Case’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org}. Hoxha rejected the verdict—though in 1950 the regime offered GB a token amount of £40,000 as payment for compensation—making no serious effort to meet its liability.
Monetary gold stolen from Rome
In 1946 the victorious allies (GB, US and France) established the “Tripartite Commission for the Restitution of Monetary Gold” to recover gold stolen by Nazi Germany and return it to the rightful owners. Included in the Nazi loot was 2,338 kg of gold seized in 1943 from the Bank of Rome by the Nazis, a treasure claimed by both Italy and Albania (and indirectly and partly by GB who identified in this a remedy for its still outstanding damages verdict). The Commission was unable to resolve the monetary gold issue so an independent arbiter appointed by The Hague determined that the gold belonged to Albania. Italy contested the matter—it’s claim resting largely on Italians having been the majority shareholders in the National Bank of Albania (which had been seized by fascist Italy)—taking the dispute to the ICJ, Italy v France, United Kingdom and Northern Ireland and United States of America (1954). The ICJ however held that it had no jurisdiction to adjudicate the case.
𝒩𝒶𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃𝒶𝓁𝐵𝒶𝓃𝓀𝑜𝒻𝒜𝓁𝒷𝒶𝓃𝒾𝒶𝐻𝒬
A post-Hoxharesolution
Albania refusal to accept the compensation judgement against it and GB’s blocking the transfer of the gold to Albania occurred as Albania entered a long phase of self-isolation🅱. The recovered Nazi gold sat in the vaults of the Bank of England for over four decades and the diplomatic impasse between London and Tirana was not broken until the eclipse of the communism in Albania. When democracy was established in 1991, diplomatic negotiations began and a deal was done, the new government in Albania agreed to pay GB’s compensation bill from the Corfu episode and in return the British agreed to release 1674 kg, providing the funds that economically weak post-communist Albania needed before it could pay GB the amount owing.
𝑀𝒶𝑜𝒶𝓃𝒹𝐻𝑜𝓍𝒽𝒶
.
Footnote: The Tripartite Gold Commission did not deliver the gold to Albania until 1996 (the lengthy process required the cooperation of the GB, US and French governments) and the amount ultimately paid by the Albanian government to GB in “full and final settlement” was US$2,000,000.
▁▂ ▄ ▅▆▇ █ █ ▇▆▅ ▄ ▂▁
🅰 in relation to war graves identification and limitations on movement with the country, a charge denied by Tirana
🅱 Albania severed its relationships not just with the UK and US (Sheehy), but even within the socialist Second World. Stalinist ideologue Hoxha broke off ties with both USSR (1961) and China (1978) for being too ‘revisionist’
Last month in Geneva the UN brokered an informal 5+1 meeting between the representatives of the Greek and Turkish communities of Cyprus in yet another fruitless attempt to find a resolution to the island’s “Intractable, identity-based conflict (RJ Fisher, Journal of Peace Research 2001). Also in attendance were the foreign ministers from Cyprus’s three guarantor powers, Greece, Turkey and Britain. For ordinary citizens of the country and foreign observers alike, this amounted to a “Groundhog Day” experience. The disputing parties came (with their own agendas), they talked (at each other) while remaining firmly anchored to their core list of non-negotiables. The disputants returned to their bunkers.
No compromise, no progress…the stalemate and the status quo continues. Even the usually “glass half-full” UN head is not sanguine about future prospects…UN secretary-general Guterres emerged from the three-day summit with a ‘realistic’ rather than a hopeful sense of the situation, stating that there was “not enough common ground to resume negotiations” and that new talks were months away (‘Cyprus settlement talks found little common ground: UN chief’, Aljazeera, 29-Apr-2021, www.aljazeera.com).
Photo: www.greekcitytimes.com
The rationales
Both sides restated their entrenched positions…the Greek Cypriots and Greece wouldn’t budge from their Greek Cypriot-majority bi-zonal federation model as the precondition to reunification, a formula ensuring the Greek community would still be dominant in the Federation. Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar insisted that to go forward the standing UN resolutions that sanction this approach should be sidestepped in favour of the alternate Turkish Cypriot proposal for a two-state solution, a formula backed by the Turkish government in Ankara and its controversial president Recep Erdogan.
The British connexion and the Cyprus Emergency
The self-interest of Greece and Turkey is transparent, but some may wonder why the UK was one of the participating players in the Cyprus stalemate talks. The British nexus has its genesis in 1878 when expansionist Britain took advantage of the ailing Ottoman Empire to establish a protectorate over Cyprus and add the Eastern Aegean island to its imperial possessions⌖.
EOKA Emergency (Photo: www.iwm.org.uk)
Lead up to the 1960 compromise and beyond
Fast forward to 1955, overseas colonies around the globe were increasingly asserting a postwar yearning for independence from their European masters. Anyone familiar with Britain’s colonial policy in the 20th century (eg, Balfour Declaration on Palestine, Aden, British Raj in India, etc), will be aware of its track record on disengagement with its colonies is far from spotless. The Cyprus situation in the years 1955-60 continued this pattern. British policy towards the colony was shortsighted and misguided. By rigidly denying the Greek and Turkish Cypriots a right to self-determination in an increasingly heavy-handed way, the colonial power inadvertently fostered Greek and Turkish Cypriot nationalist sentiments¤. The struggle of Greek Cypriots to free themselves of British rule was taken up by a guerrilla group called Ethniki Organised Kyprion Agoniston (EOKA). EOKA’s aims were not for independence but for union (Enosis) with Greece. Turkish Cypriots on the other hand, perceiving that the 1960 power share perpetuated their inferior place in the republic developed the idea of Taksim (‘partition’) in opposition to the Greeks’ Enosis✪. EOKA’s campaign of violence targetted the police (Greek and Turkish Cypriot as well as British) and basically anyone who opposed Enosis. Britain’s tactless use of Turkish police to quell the revolt of Greek Cypriots further inflamed and created new ethnic divisions and hostilities between the communities.
Archbishop Makarios III (Photo: www.pastdaily.com)
Although the British military eventually reined in most of the EOKA activists, the island’s slid towards war prompted Britain and the US to bring some kind of resolution to the conflict. Talks in 1959 led to the establishment of a republic in 1960 with a shared power arrangement—Greek Cypriot president, Turkish Cypriot vice president, etc—leadership of the republic thus fell to Archbishop Makarios (“Cyprus: Why One of the World’s Most Intractable Conflicts Continues’, Sewell Chan, New York Times, 07-Nov-2016, www.nytimes.com).
EOKA guerrillas including leader General Grivas
Cold War considerations
Geostrategic considerations of the Cold War played a part in both Britain’s and the US’ involvement in the Cyprus imbroglio. Cyprus was non-aligned and the western powers were fearful that the USSR could take advantage of the island”s instability with a view to establishing a base there, giving it a much sought-after influence in the Eastern Mediterranean. The activism and appeal of AKEL, the Cyprus communist party, augmented those fears (‘The Soviet Union, Turkey and the Cyprus Problem, 1967-1974’, John Sakkas & Nataliya Zhukova, Les Cahiers Rice, 2013/1 (n°10), www.cairn.info). Washington’s later support for the Greek colonels’ dictatorship as a buffer against communism proved disastrous for Cyprus’s long-term stability.
Cyprus in crisis
Trouble in the bi-communal unitary state surfaced in 1963 when Makarios proposed constitutional changes to limit Turkish Cypriot political influence. A civil war broke out between the two communities (inter communal violence, casualties on both sides, arson, displacement of villagers, intervention by UN Peacekeeping Force – which became permanent). The Turkish Cypriot-controlled area was reduced to a few enclaves and Nicosia, the capital, was divided by a cease-fire line called the “Green Line”.
Greek colonels coup and Turkish counter-strike
1974 was the most momentous year of the Cyprus conflict. Athens’ military junta operating through a paramilitary group overthrew the Cyprus government of Makarios and installed a ‘marionette’ government headed by an ex-EOKA leader and convicted murderer. The schemers’ purpose of the coup was to bring about the desired union with Greece. For Ankara though, it provided the opportunity (and pretext) it was waiting for…five days after the coup the Turkish military invaded Cyprus (Operation Atilla), the Greek coup collapsed and the Turkish invaders captured nearly 40% of the island. A cease-fire was negotiated but not before thousands of casualties and expulsions, particularly of Greek Cypriots from the north. Turkey set up a de facto Turkish entity in North Cyprus, which in 1983 was proclaimed to be the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus (TRNC). TRNC was recognised as a sovereign state only by the regime in Ankara, not by any other country.
Footnote: Megali idea Enosis grew out the Megali Idea (“Great Idea”), an aspirational irredentist concept that posits that all lost Greek territories will be liberated and united with Greece in the future. The Greek colonels launching their 1974 coup d’etat against the Makarios government echoed the concept in their declaration of “the Hellenic State of Cyprus”.
See also the follow-up blog: ‘A Divided Cyprus: Sixty Years and No Resolution on the Horizon, Part II’
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⌖ formal annexation didn’t occur to 1914. In 1925 Cyprus was made a British crown colony
¤ an underlying grievance of Greek Cypriots in British Cyprus was what was effectively a system of double taxation. In addition to the standard taxation on many items, the communities had to contribute to Britain’s tribute payments to the Ottoman Empire in return for ‘leasing’ the island
✪ under British rule the two communities had been allowed to self- segregate, this led to an aggregation of “nationalistic fervour”, resulting in the development of Enosis andTaksim (‘Analyzing the proposed solutions to the Cyprus Dispute’, Oliver Hegglin, Human Security Centre, 13-Mar-2021, www.hscentre.org). See also Footnote above.
The Russian Revolution in 1917 fostered a desire for self-determination within the Ukraine (as with other national minorities inside the empire), setting up the impetus for a conflict in Russia’s ‘underbelly’ which would become economically and geopolitically crucial to Soviet ‘imperial’ statehood. The Ukrainian conflict that followed (1917-21)✱ was a complicated affair involving a civil war, foreign interventions by countries from both the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance, the White Armies (a loose confederation of international anti-communist forces), the Bolsheviks (the Red Army) and from neighbouring countries Poland and Romania with their own territorial ambitions in the Ukraine. The struggle for political control in Ukraine involved the succession (and sometimes the co-existence) of 14 separate governments◘, before the Bolsheviks finally established the country as a constituent republic of the USSR [The Times Guide to Eastern Europe, (Edited by Keith Sword), (1991); Encyclopedia of the USSR, (Warren Shaw & David Pryce), (1990)].
Reds, Whites and Blacks Various social and political groups within Ukrainian society—peasants, Cossacks, nationalists, socialists, communists, anarchists—formed into autonomous partisan detachments and embroiled themselves in the southern front showdown between the Red (Russian) and the White (foreign) armies. Of these groups, the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine, colloquially known as the Black Army, in particular found itself in the middle of the White versus Red warfare.
Makhnovia AKA ’Makhnochina’
Of the assortment of homegrown players in the conflict in Ukraine, the Black Army was the most intriguing ideologically. Led by a brilliant military commander, Nestor Ivanovitch Makhno, and composed of peasants and workers, they were an army of revolutionary anarchists (or anarcho-communists). Makhno was engaging in a social revolution experiment by trying to establish a stateless, libertarian society in “free territory”. The Makhnovist Movement was based on the principle of self-government, a “federation of free soviets” without recourse to a dominant central authority◔ – a defiantly anti-statist position that was of course anathema to the Soviets. Aside from anarchists, the movement’s ranks were also swelled by Left Social Revolutionaries, Maximalists and maverick Bolsheviks [Nestor Makhno, Anarchy’s Cossack: The Struggle for Free Soviets in the Ukraine 1917-1921, (Alexandre Skirda), (2004)]. At its high-water point Makhnovia boasted an army some 100,000-strong [‘The forgotten story of the Free Territory’, (John Dennehy), Contributoria, July 2015, www.contributoria.com].
The Bolsheviks in their Ukraine military campaign alternated between forming alliances with the Black Army against the White Army when it suited them, and warring with them at other times. Makhno’s effective use of guerrilla tactics and his own martial innovation, the tachanka◘, played a decisive role in stopping the advance of Anton Denikin’s White Army on Moscow by cutting its lines of supply. When the Reds eventually got the better of the Whites in the war, Leon Trotsky (Soviet Commissar of War) reneged on the agreement with the Makhnovists, vilified Makhno as a “bandit warlord” and a “counter-revolutionary”, and proceeded to crack down on the Blacks ruthlessly [‘Free Territory of Ukraine’, Libertarian Socialist Wiki, www.libsoc.wiki.fandom.com]. With the Black Army’s strength decimated by the desertion of thousands of soldiers, the Red Army,superior in numbers and better equipped✧, ultimately defeated and dispersed the Blacks, forcing Makhno to flee Ukraine, eventually taking refuge in France.
Footnote: Makhnovia’s geographical base in eastern Ukraine Makhno’s powerhouse was on the left bank of the River Dniepr, in the provinces of Ekaterinoslav and Northern Tavrida and in part of neighbouring provinces…an area forming a rectangle measuring 300 km by 250 km and populated by seven-and-a-half million people (Skirda).
⇣ A 1919/20 pictorial map of Ukraine(Image source: Christophe Reisser & Sons)
Postscript: Ukraine, ‘Malorossiya’ and historic ‘Great Russia’ assumptions of hegemony The perception historically of Ukraine as “Little Russia”—held by by both Russians and the outside world—as a geographic entity falling naturally within the realm of “Great Rus” or even as indivisible from it, has acted as a handbrake on Ukraine’s aspirations for independence❂. In the present Ukraine/Crimea imbroglio, Russia’s military intervention and support for separatism in Ukraine (ie, the 2014 idea of eastern Ukraine as ‘Novorossiya’, (“New Russia”), the encouragement of the separatist “Donetsk People’s Republic”), is the Soviet strategy redux of what happened in 1917 – the setting up of an alternative authority in the country to that of the Ukrainians, namely a pro-Russian regime in Kharkiv. The Europeans in 1917, perhaps with an underlying sense of the vast, sprawling Russian Empire as amorphously heterogeneous, had a poor awareness of the difference between Ukrainians and Russians (the Soviet policy of Russification was designed to further blur those differences)⧆ [‘Illusion of a friendly empire: Russia, the West, and Ukraine’s independence a century ago’, (Ihor Vynokurov), Euromaidan, 02-Sep-2017, www.euromaidan.com].
✱ because of the causal link the conflict in Ukraine is sometimes characterised as the southern front of the Russian Civil War. Invading White Army leader General Denikin referred to the region as “Southwestern Krai”, a name with Russian imperial overtones
◔ Makhnovia relied on the adherents to an anarchist model to self-organise into peasant communes and worker co-operatives (Dennehy)
◘ horse-drawn machine guns
✧ the Bolsheviks routinely and deliberately underarmed Makhno’s army (the Black Army always had more volunteers than guns) (Skirda)
❂ this is a part of a continuum which had its genesis with Muscovy’s supplanting of Kyiv as the centre of the Russian state
⧆ when the Ukrainian war for independence broke out, the western powers, in striking contrast to their ready endorsement of Polish self-determination and independence after WWI, failed to offer the same support to the Ukrainians’ aspirations (Vynokurov)
