35 
19th Centuries.”° Relevant, too, is the fact that Japan has continually 
pressured the Soviets in the post-World War II period for the return 
of the four Northern islands seized by the U.S.S.R. in 1945. 
The pressure on the Soviets for territorial satisfaction, added to 
their perception of other common interests of Germany, Japan, and 
China such as economic affinity and the trio’s historical antipathy 
toward Russia, shapes the Soviet image of possible future parallel, 
if not common, military policy against the U.S.S.R. Having itself 
formed strange, seemingly incompatible alliances with these very same 
nations in the past, the U.S.S.R. attributes to them the ability to 
similarly unite for reasons of expediency. 
Finally, overarching all these combinations is the possibility, in the 
Soviet view, that the United States could join the above-noted trilateral 
combination, either voluntarily or by entrapment of previous commit- 
ments. This would lead to the most traumatic Soviet strategic 
nightmare: U.S. nuclear-missile power linked to Chinese, German, and 
ultimately Japanese groundforces. 
Soviet concern over each collusion possibility, however unrealistic 
or unimaginable it may appear to an outside observer, has already 
been articulated by them. Indeed, it has served as part of the Soviet- 
asserted rationale for the need of the sizeable military capabilities 
the U.S.S.R. has developed to date. On this score, the Soviets have 
asserted that no nation in the world has suffered the war ravages 
that the U.S.S.R. has; moreover, no nation potentially confronts more 
threats than the U.S.S.R. or has more cause to seek strategic insurance 
against suffering a repetition of the damage it received in World 
War II. 
Euphemistically, the Soviets describe the danger to the U.S.S.R. 
as stemming from the need to safeguard the “gains of socialism” 
since World War II, which are now threatened by an ‘“‘adventurist” 
policy of “imperialism.” The latter is losing its grip under the pressure 
of the socialist world, led by the U.S.S.R. Given its social and 
economic superiority, socialism is leading to large-scale social break- 
up of the capitalist world. Unable to face this, the latter is making 
a tremendous effort to undermine the U.S.S.R. The military danger, 
say the Soviets, is heightened because for the first time in history, 
“imperialism” has succeeded in creating military-political alliances on 
an international scale, even though these alliances have sharp internal 
contradictions. Moreover, the “imperialist camp” possesses modern 
weapons which threaten all. And, despite U.S.S.R.’s ‘“‘peace-loving”’ 
policy, not a single socialist state has escaped persistent efforts of 
capitalist interference up to and including open military attack.”! 
It is in this context that the Soviets imply that they need forces, 
including oceanic capabilities, stronger than that of anyone else to 
meet the range of potential threats arrayed against them. 
20Soviet concern over Chinese pretensions has triggered not only a massive transfer of military 
power (45 divisions) to the China border but also an elaborate defense of the legitimacy of their ter- 
Titorial annexations under the Tsar. The latest and one of the most detailed Soviet rebuttals of Chin- 
ese claims is contained in a 288-page volume by A. Prokhorov, ‘“k Voprosu O Sovetsko-Kitaiskoi 
Granitse” (On the Question of the Soviet-Chinese Border), Moscow, 1974. This work is described as 
an analysis of the legal groundlessness of ‘Maoist territorial pretenses.” 
21For an example of Soviet rationale on the threat to the U.S.S.R., see E. Sulimov, “‘Zashchita Sot- 
sialisticheskogo Otechestva”’ (Defense of Socialist Fatherland), Moscow, 1970, in particular p. 14 
and p. 17. 
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