ABSTRACT
History and geography combine to make Japan regard Russia as her permanent rival for the hegemony of East Asia, which is the goal of Japanese ambitions.!
By 1933, diplomatic relations among the great powers relied on a balance of power to sustain the peace in the Far East. Thought long dead and gone after the First World War and the Treaty of Versailles, balance-of-power diplomacy and the shadowy uncertainty of old-style great-power diplomacy were major elements of the day-to-day reality of US and British Far Eastern policy. Between 1933 and 1939, both the United States and Great Britain made certain assumptions about the usefulness of the Soviet Union in their strategies for dealing with Japan. British and US diplomacy utilized Japanese fears both of the Soviet bear and of diplomatic isolation, used to contain Japanese expansion.2 Thus, it is important to understand what role the two Western nations thought the Soviet Union might play in the Far Ease Before this can be done, it is necessary to consider the situation prior to the United States' recognition of the Soviet Union in late 1933.
