Abstract
The issue of the Northern Territories has often been described as the “centerpiece” of Soviet-Japanese relations, and this is seemingly reflected in the forty-five years of postwar diplomatic history between the soviet Union and Japan. At the same time an examination of the actual legal and strategic problems surrounding the islands sheds little light on why they have been so persistently unamenable to resolution, unlike, for instance, the Sino-Soviet border dispute, or the Sino-Japanese islands dispute. This article suggests turning the argument on its head—that is, that the islands dispute is a symptom, not a source, of the tension that has been generated by the timing and course of modernization taken by these two neighbors in the context of the contemporary international situation.
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