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As Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson gamely fended off questions about antiracism in children’s books during her Supreme Court confirmation hearing, Ukraine continued its defiance of Russia while retaking a Kyiv suburb, and the White House prepared to launch President Joe Biden to Europe to find an offramp for Moscow’s belligerence, another story got buried in the mess.
In fact, while most of Washington watched the World War II-era’s Western Front, the Eastern Front has suddenly sparked some concern. And with recent events between Japan and Russia, Biden may have a sleeper foreign policy crisis on his hands in a place he didn’t expect.
Frustrated by Japan’s sanctions of Russia for its aggression in Ukraine, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow on Monday of this week notified its counterparts in Tokyo that World War II peace treaty talks are over for now. On Tuesday, Japan reacted as expected, declaring such an end to talks “completely unacceptable,” about as strong as you get in diplo-speak.
You see, the Soviet Union and Japan never actually signed a peace treaty after World War II ended in 1945, much like the United States still technically remains at war with North Korea despite active fighting ending in 1953. Moscow and Tokyo signed a declaration of peace in 1956, which allowed cultural and economic exchanges to continue while diplomats hammered out a deal on a series of four remote islands the Soviets had seized in the final days of the war. In Russia—and the Soviet Union before—they are the Kurils; in Japan, they’re the Northern Territories.
Russia clearly doesn’t have the military bandwidth to launch a second front in its…
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Source : time
