Japan's 'Northern Territories' at the southern end of the Kurile chain, which Russia seized at the end of the Second World War, are strategic backwaters now, even if they represent unfinished business between Japan and Russia. In contrast, those islands were strategically vital during the Cold War.
As long as the United States remained in strategic paralysis as a result of the Vietnam War, the Kurile chain represented an asset for the Soviet Union. From the late 1970s onwards, the 4,000 n.m. range of the Soviet Delta missile-firing submarines (SSBNs) turned maritime choke points such as the Kurile chain into defensive advantage, and hence into increased security for Moscow. The Sea of Okhotsk provided a bastion for Soviet SSBNs whose missiles had the range to reach most of the United States on a polar trajectory.
But President Reagan's Maritime Strategy signaled the end of strategic retreat, and threatened to take the fight to the enemy. The Maritime Strategy showed that the Kurile island chain could not protect the Soviet SSBN 'bastions' in the Sea of Okhotsk. The Japanese complement to America's maritime buildup meant that the Soviet Union was faced with a credible threat of two front war.
Japan's strategic geography meant that Japan had the ability to control the exits from Vladivostok. By controlling the sea lanes through the Sea of Japan, Japan and the United States made it impossible for the Soviets to support their bases at either Petropovlask or in Cam Ranh Bay. Thus the United States and Japan turned the Kurile chain into a liability rather than an asset for Moscow.
As a consequence of the collapse of Soviet power, the southern Kuriles have much less relevance now to Japan's security. Visceral instincts continue on both sides because Russia and Japan have fought four wars this century. But Japan's strategic problems lie further south, and Japan should not neglect opportunities to develop relations with Russia, to Tokyo's net advantage.
With the end of the Cold War, the locus of strategic tension has moved down the island chain, to the Korean peninsula, the Taiwan strait, the Senkakus and the South China Sea.
Korean peninsula： ever the locus of strategic tension
Projecting from the East Asian littoral, the Korean peninsula continues in its historical role as the focus of tensions between the continental and maritime powers. North Korea, the last Stalinist state, is an orphan of the Cold War. Having lost its security guarantee from Russia, Pyongyang is no longer able to play off Russia against China to its own benefit.
