ABSTRACT
Land gives an illusion of permanence: governments try to preserve stability in the international system by pretending to regard the boundaries of other nations as fixed. Interventions in matters of land tenure have to be justified in every case; and the variety of ethical, economic, humanitarian, and security grounds offered for this purpose is testimony to the human imagination. Economically, governments justify intervention in favor of land reform as a means of increasing production of domestic food supply and thus reducing dependency on imports, especially if they have to be financed through prolonged foreign aid. The United States force-fed land reform to Japan in 1945 because the American military thought that a thorough change-over would contribute to peace and stability in the postwar world. The United States government officially defines land reform to include four kinds of activities: Redistribution of land ownership; land tenure reform; land consolidation; and settlement.
