NEWS OF THE WEEK
RUSSIA'S declaration of war on Japan was not unexpected. What is most interesting is the timing of it. According to M. Molotov, a request that Russia should join her two principal Allies in finishing off the remaining war was formally preferred at Potsdam. But that can have been little more than a formality. The whole operation must have been contemplated long before, but time was clearly needed after the end of the war in Europe for Russia to transfer a certain amount of troops and equipment to Eastern Asia to reinforce the well-found and self-contained armies already stationed there. What it would be most interesting to know is whether the declaration of war was designed, as it well may have been, to synchronise with the opening of atomic-bomb attack on Japan, and so bring the final coup de grace near. The dropping of a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki indicates plainly enough what is to be expected, and with Russian airfields available—whether for Russian or for American bombers—on the mainland some sixty miles from Japan, the assault will assume a new volume and a new character. Japan's destruction is now made doubly certain, and in the case of any nation less deeply imbued with the doctrine ot self-immolation immediate surrender would be certain ; with Japan it is only problematic. A Russian attack on Manchuria followed within a few hours of the declaration of war, and it will no doubt be prosecuted with characteristic Russian vigour. Russia's decision will not be without benefit to herself. The Allies have decreed that Japan shall retain no territory except her home islands. That will kave a good deal to be disposed of. Port Arthur and the northern half of Sakhalin may be expected to revert to Russia, and questions of transfer of territory are not likely to be absent from the dis- cussions between Mr. T. V. Soong and the Russian Government now in progress at Moscow. The map of Asia, like the map of Europe, will be considerably redrawn. Meanwhile, even when all due weight has been given to Japan's addiction to Mass-suicide, the ena of the Pacific war is manifestly brought much nearer.
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