ABSTRACT
The problems surrounding the territorial issue highlighted Russian security concerns, which outweighed the desire for economic assistance from Japan. For this
reason, Russian dreams of developing the RFE and integrating with the APR, allowing Moscow to move away from military and security considerations proved unrealisable, for the immediate future at least. In addition, there was a dilemma at the heart of Soviet approaches to Japan. A Japan uncoupled from the US-Japan alliance would be, as Soviet thinkers realised, ‘the best possible present for Japanese militarists and right-wingers. . .’5 Thus by 1991 the prevailing view, one which carried over into the early El’tsin period, was that the US military presence in the APR was a factor of stability and security in the region.6
