The latest, probing look at the 1905 Portsmouth Peace Treaty, the last peace agreement between Japan and Russia

Theodore Roosevelt's interest in foreign affairs was no less intense than his zeal for domestic reform, as Eugene P. Trani demonstrates in this new study of the Portsmouth Conference which in 1906 brought an end to the Russo-Japanese war. Conscious of America's growing stature as a world power and concerned lest continued hostilities disrupt further the political and economic composition of East Asia, Roosevelt proclaimed himself peacemaker. With characteristic energy—and with considerable tact—he initiated the conference and successfully brought about a treaty. It was no easy task. Trani, who has made extensive use of Russian, Japanese, and American archival material, shows that the Tsarist government, mortified by Russian defeats, wished to renew the conflict. This last of the personally managed peace conferences greatly enhanced the prestige of both the United States and its ebullient chief executive.

The Russo-Japanese War was fought for 19 months (8 February 1904– 5 September 1905) between the empires of Japan and the Russia over the southern part of Manchuria and the Korean Peninsula. While essentially a colonial conflict, the war became a major engagement both in scale and innovation unseen until then. In recent years there has been a growing awareness that this event marks a historical juncture far more important than it was usually taken to be. This second edition of the Historical Dictionary of the Russo-Japanese War offers a major revision of the highly praised first edition, which, by all accounts, has been the standard work on this conflict in any language during the last decade. The book contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. Moreover, the dictionary section has some 800 new or fully revised cross-referenced entries on the battles, weaponry, and major personalities of the war, as well as various international events and conflicts, agreements, schemes, and projects that led to the war. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the Russo-Japanese War.

The Russo-Japanese War was in essence a colonial conflict between the expanding interests of Russia and Japan in East Asia. However, while appearing regional, the war itself in fact had a major global impact. The conflict and Japanese victory stimulated the Russian revolutionary movement in 1905 and hence the Russian Revolution of 1917. In addition, the Peace Treaty of Portsmouth created a tension between the United States and Japan that would establish the starting point for the road directly leading to Pearl Harbor in 1941. Eventually the war had a major impact on Germany, whose diplomats wanted to use the war to bind St Petersburg to Berlin, and whose military planners closely observed the events to prepare themselves for the next possible conflict. This book makes a strong argument for the consideration of initially minor events in the analysis of global history. By describing and analyzing the interrelationship between the events in East Asia and the major developments in Europe and the United States, it shows the significance of the Russo-Japanese War as a key factor in determining the most momentous historical events of the twentieth century: The First World War, the Second World War, and the Cold War.

In September 1951, Japan signed a peace treaty with forty-eight countries in San Francisco; in April 1952, the treaty came into effect. The San Francisco Peace Treaty is an international agreement that in significant ways shaped the post–World War II international order in the Asia-Pacific. With its associated security arrangements, it laid the foundation for the regional structure of Cold War confrontation: the "San Francisco System" fully reflected the strategic interests and policy priorities of the peace conference’s host nation, the United States. The treaty fell far short of settling outstanding issues in the wake of the Pacific War or facilitating a clean start for the "post-war" period. Rather, critical aspects of the settlement were left equivocal, and continue to have significant and worrisome implications for regional international relations. This book examines the key developments of the contentious political and security issues in the Asia-Pacific that share a common foundation in the post-war disposition of Japan, particularly the San Francisco Peace Treaty. These include both tangible and intangible issues, such as disputes over territories and "history" problems. Taking the San Francisco System as its conceptual grounding, the authors examine how these issues developed and have remained contentious long after the San Francisco arrangements. To provide bases for producing solutions, the chapters offer comprehensive accounts that explain and deepen our understanding of these complex regional issues and the San Francisco System as a whole. By closely and systematically examining the legacy and various ramifications of the San Francisco System, this fascinating book adds to our understanding of current and growing tensions in the region. As such, it will be of great interest to students and scholars of Asian studies, history, international relations and politics.

Mediation has become a common technique for terminating violent conflicts both within and between states; while mediation has a strong record in reducing hostilities, it is not without its own problems. In The Mediation Dilemma, Kyle Beardsley highlights its long-term limitations. The result of this oft-superficial approach to peacemaking, immediate and reassuring as it may be, is often a fragile peace. With the intervention of a third-party mediator, warring parties may formally agree to concessions that are insupportable in the long term and soon enough find themselves at odds again. Beardsley examines his argument empirically using two data sets and traces it through several historical cases: Henry Kissinger's and Jimmy Carter's initiatives in the Middle East, 1973–1979; Theodore Roosevelt's 1905 mediation in the Russo-Japanese War; and Carter’s attempt to mediate in the 1994 North Korean nuclear crisis. He also draws upon the lessons of the 1993 Arusha Accords, the 1993 Oslo Accords, Haiti in 1994, the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement in Sri Lanka, and the 2005 Memorandum of Understanding in Aceh. Beardsley concludes that a reliance on mediation risks a greater chance of conflict relapse in the future, whereas the rejection of mediation risks ongoing bloodshed as war continues. The trade-off between mediation’s short-term and long-term effects is stark when the third-party mediator adopts heavy-handed forms of leverage, and, Beardsley finds, multiple mediators and intergovernmental organizations also do relatively poorly in securing long-term peace. He finds that mediation has the greatest opportunity to foster both short-term and long-term peace when a single third party mediates among belligerents that can afford to wait for a self-enforcing arrangement to be reached.

A Companion to Theodore Roosevelt is the first comprehensive anthology to encompass Roosevelt as whole, highlighting both his personality and his skilled diplomacy. Revitalizes and internationalizes scholarship on this most popular and highly-rated American president Covers many aspects of Roosevelt’s personality and his policies, domestic and foreign, to create a complete picture of the man Provides scholarship from both sides of the Atlantic, from established Roosevelt specialists, respected scholars, and a new generation of historians A new and fresh historiographical exploration of Roosevelt’s life and ideas, political career and achievements, and his legacies