Kuril Islands conflict

C

Chrom

New Member
gf0012-aust said:
Correct, Japan has no ties with NATO. In addition, the US is the only country where their military has direct comms with japanese assets. All other friendlies must go through a neutral link when we wargame.

So, as far as force integration is concerned, the Japanese could only directly operate with the US.

I certainly wouldn't want to be taking on the japanese navy, they're more than able to hold the russians to account.

they are the most capable conventional navy in the region, even those navies that have nuke assets would struggle - and nuclear powers are actually response limited rather than the usual assumption that nuke weapons give them ultimate carriage of authority and capability.
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Without a doubt, Japanase navy is very capable and probably surpass russian navy on equal terms. But the point is - there will be no equal fight. Japan lack some very vital military components to be really competitive with Russia - i already named few. Long range ASM's, SSN/SSBN's, long-range bombers, cruise missiles, proper satellite real-time targetting, etc. Even AWACS and long-range interceptors like MIG-31.

And no, i dont believe russians would even attempt to retake the islands by amphibious land operation. It just doesnt make sense.
 
W

Waylander

Defense Professional
Verified Defense Pro
They have a highly capable AWACS fleet consisting of E-2Cs (13) as well as AWACS on a Boeing 767 airframe (4).

This together with their Fighterforce of 178 F-15J, 91 F-4EJ, 27 RF-4E and 61 F-2A/B.

This is defenitely going to be a serious headache for everybody facing them including Russia.
Add to that the capable radar and SAM network of the JSDF.

The Russian subs are going to have a hard day not just because of the Oyashio and Harushio SSKs but also because the JMSDF fields a high number of sub hunter FFGs which are defenitely going to be effective sub hunting groups with the new DDHs adding additonal capabilities. The 80 P-3C and 5 EP-3C add even more sub hunter assets to the mix.

And just targeting the Japanese Fleet assets with ASMs may be not that easy like you may think. Japan also fields 5 AEGIS DDGs with more being in the pipe.

IIRC Japan also has at least two optical and two radar spy birds available.

I have no doubt that Russia could relocate a lot of air assets and with more time also some sea assets (mainly SSNs) to the area.
But I get the feeling that you underestimate Japans air and naval capabilities around their Islands.
 
F

Firehorse

Banned Member
weasel1962 said:
The quote by Firehorse is fairly one-sided in that it only propounds the Japanese side of the story. Don't think the Russians are in the mood for concessions.
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IMO, they have no more right to them than to Karelia, Alaska, or Kaliningrad (Kenigsberg), and Vladivostok (a site of a Chinese fishing village). The Ainus & Japanese were there 1st, and the Russians (more precisely, Cossacks in the tsar's service) reached the Far East only in the 17th century, and the island chain in question in the 18th!
We possess verified evidence that a Russian trading venture, launched from the Ob or the Yenisey, circumvented the northernmost part of Eurasia, Chelyuskin Cape, as far back as 1617-1620. ..The Yakut Cossaks in 1632-1634 began sea trailblazing farther eastward--as far as Yana, Indigirka, and Kolyma. The years 1639 and 1648 witnessed events of paramount geographic importance: Ivan Moskvitin reached by land the Sea of Okhotsk, and Fedot Alekseyev-Popov and Semyon Dezhnev circumvented the Chukchi Peninsula to discover the strait between Asia and North America.
Results of the latest geographic research give evidence that as early as the 1660s Russians visited North America and even organized a settlement on its Seward Peninsula. ..In its exploration of the Kuril Islands, the 1719 expedition under Russian Naval Academy graduates, land surveyers Ivan Yevreinov and Fyodor Luzhin used sailing directions written by Peter I himself.
On January 6, 1725, Peter I also wrote sailing directions for Vitus Jonassen Bering, who led Russia's first Kamchatka expedition. Its primary goal, as set in these directions, was to determine whether Asia and North America were connected by land.
..Bering and Aleksey Chirikov reached America in 1741, discovering the Aleutians and the Komandorskie Islands. The expedition's northern detachments described and mapped much of Russia's Arctic coastline. And on May 20, 1742, Semyon Chelyuskin reached Eurasia's northernmost point. This expedition demonstrated to the whole world how vast Russia's reaches were, and prepared the way for a Russian foothold in Alaska. http://arcticcircle.uconn.edu/HistoryCulture/russianexplor.html
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All this doesn't mean that, aside from the right of conquest, the Russians have any legitimate claim to the islands off Hokkaido that Japan calls "Northern Territories", or "The Southern Kurils". If Vietnam was under China's rule for a 1,000 years in te past, can the PRC claim it back now as a former province? So, if Russia wants to have friendly relations with her Chinese & Japanese neighbors, they'll have to resolve those territorial disputes sooner or later!
 
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F

Firehorse

Banned Member
weasel1962 said:
And as mentioned, Russia has no incentive to negotiate or arbitrate right now. In effect, Russia will continue to own the islands.
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-Until one day they decide that threre is more to gain by handing them over back to Japan to counterbabalance China, or if the RF itself breaks apart and Japan & China seize their chance to reclaim lost posessions. BTW, China may also claim all of N.Korea as well, since during Imperial times they colonised it. The large part of were ancient Koguruo Kingdom stood is already in present-day NE PRC.
 
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