U.S. Backs Japan In Looming Confrontation With Russia by Rick Rozoff  http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2011/02/25/u-s-backs-japan-in-looming-confrontation-with-russia-by-rick-rozoff/

Last week Kamitsuki Toyohisa, the Japanese Foreign Ministry counselor for European Affairs, said that the relationship between his country and Russia is “at its worst point in decades.”In fact the dramatic ratcheting up of rhetoric – and corresponding actions – on both sides over the Kuril Islands are more evocative of the situation preceding the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 and the two nations’ conflict on the Manchurian border in 1938-1939 than any previous developments after the Second World War.