Posted on 06/29/2007 1:59:01 AM PDT by Webby_surfer
When in 1945 the USSR broke the non-aggression pact and occupied Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, it was a time for the Japanese to boil over, although not at once. The disputes over the Kuril Islands have even reflected in geographic maps: for instance, Japanese maps happened to distort the real territories of Russia and showed the Kuril Islands as belonging to Japan. Read full story The Kuril Islands: Japanese Russia or Russian Japan?
(Excerpt) Read more at russia-ic.com ...
Definitely Japanese territory.
And we could use the space ! LOL !
Why? Just curious...
Stolen by Russia in 1945 after the Japanese surrendered. This was despite an international treaty that was signed by both countries after the battles at Nomohan, Manchuria. Russia broke the treaty.
Return the northern territories!
Gee, that wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that the Soviets kicked all the Japanese off the islands would it?
Oh okay. I always thought it had a disputed status going back to the 1800s, changing hands several times.
There was a meeting at Yalta and ... FDR gave ... and Stalin accepted. All elsewhere simply vapors ... FDR doth said!
Interesting to compare, say, and the tenets of the Atlantic Charter and agreements from Tehran/Yalta/ ...
Not to worry, however, ... as Stalin also parts of China for the USSR and Mao got the rest ... Ooops - there went the "Open Door" policy. So, who lost China?
See: Roosevelt's Road to Russia by George N. Crocker
Territories occupied by Russia: Kuril islands, Chechen, and North Prussia. Germany should also request Russia to give back North Prussia.
Truman lost China. Read the book “Mao, The Untold Story.” The lefties in the Truman administration just failed to see what a thug Mao was.
In a related matter - I read a story about Russia making claim to the North Pole area due to an (underwater?) geologic connection to their land. The story noted that there is thought to be more oil there than in Saudi Arabia.
You are correct. The dispute goes WAY back. Japan owned damn near everything on the Komchatka pennisula and around it after the Russo-Japanese scuffle in 1905.
If you look at pictures of those “Russians” on the Kirils, they kinda have that Mongolian look about them.
The Japanese have been sending ngo delegations there for years to keep up the family ties.
Its one of those Gordian Knots that will cause heartburn for forever!
I agree.
But, then, Marshall had to cut short his appearance at the Congressional Hearings on Pearl Harbor, to fly off to where - China of all places.
According to the story, when the Russians complained that the Japanese annexation in 1925 violated the 1875 treaty, Japan told them that wars annulled all treaties and as Russia was defeated the situation must be seen in the new perspective. Turnabout is fair play.
I am reading Winston Churchill’s six volume (now finished third vol) set on “The Second World War.” Churchill highly regarded FDR’s leadership in supporting Britain before the US entered the war, and his leadership during the war. The US and UK were on the same page in planning war strategy, etc. Also in how to handle Stalin (until the end of the war when FDR was not in good health). Churchill and FDR agreed not to legally allow Stalin to absorb the Baltic states, but what could they do once the SU reoccupied them? If they had cut off aid to the SU then Hitler may have defeated SU and the outcome of the war may have resulted in Hitler dominating Europe.
Of Course, we all know from other sources that FDR’s administration, especially the State Department had many communists or communist sympathizers.
FDR fawned over Stalin from the very start. US reaction, or rather FDR's foreign policy reaction to, say, the USSR invasion of Finland was? And, of course, there was the influence of Harry "The Hop" Hopkins - known now from the Venona Project to have been Soviet "agent no. 19" ...
Churchill's objective was to save the British Empire, and was willing to "do a deal with devil" to do that - he needed a "second front" - and the USSR went from foe to friend overnight.
FDR was visibility "ill" in his second term - was a third and four needed to state the obvious? Use that excuse with the Poles, for example. What happened to the Polish Government in exile? Katyn Forest ring a bell. FDR did what, again.
Posit, US remained neutral. No aid to China; no aid to Britain, no aid to USSR. Japan wins - ends communist threat; Britain is at stalemate or exile in Canada with intact Fleet; USSR and Germany bleed each other to death - German technology versus USSR land mass and people. A dollar/mark/yen world ... No Korean "Police Action" or VietNam War, ... But other "problems" clearly ...
But US is not in the role of the policeman of the world.
I do agree that FDR was way too solicitous of Stalin. As you point out his administration (as I stated) had traitors like Hopkins. I seem to remember FDR raising objections to the SU’s invasion of Finland.
To what degree did Churchill participate in writing the work? It is filled with his correspondence, and what appears to be his recollections of events, which only he could have provided.
Have you read the work? It seems to me that if he had help, the heart of the work is still Churchill. Believe me, FDR is not my favorite President. His socialism, somewhat reduced by Presidents like Ronald Reagan, is still our American problem.
Of note perhaps is a more recent text In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War by David Reynolds.
Then, also, as your "recollections" might not be my "recollections" ... See David Irving's Churchill's War Volume Two Triumph and Adversity ... "Gaps in the Archives" ...
What Churchill "provided" and what he didn't ... a large grain of salt ... recall the "D Notice"
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