Shades of Appeasement
by Grant Montonye
04.22.2025 at 06:00am
The United States finds itself at a political crossroads in its dedication to international involvement. Meanwhile, its predominant strategic adversaries – predominantly Russia and China – have grown increasingly aggressive in their subversion of the international rules-based order emplaced by the U.S. and its allies since the end of World War II (WWII). Whether in taking actions above the point of armed conflict in places like Ukraine, below it in the waters surrounding Taiwan, or through proxies in the Middle East, the world is progressively falling into chaos.
Many, rightly, see the need for change – but there is one option being considered that is grossly misguided. Across the American electorate, there is a quickly growing argument that the United States should make concessions to aggressive foreign powers to prevent armed conflict. These voices are following a concept known as appeasement, which, as the late Henry Kissinger defined it, is a “foreign policy of pacifying an aggrieved country through negotiation in order to prevent war.” But as proven by the countless examples of appeasement’s failures, from the infamous example of the Munich Agreement of WWII to the general indifference more recently displayed by the international community after Russia’s invasion of Georgia, such things lead to further conflict.
History of Appeasement
The classic example of appeasement is the Munich Agreement, which was a treaty between Great Britain, France, and Nazi Germany which gave Germany control over the Sudetenland; territory that belonged to Czechoslovakia, in return for a guarantee by Hitler that Germany would not invade more territory. This agreement was formed without the participation of the Czechoslovak government and forced them to hand over large parts of their lands. The British Prime Minister at the time, Neville Chamberlain said “My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honor. I believe it is peace for our time.” Unfortunately, Chamberlain was wrong, and Germany would go on to invade the rest of Czechoslovakia. In September of 1939, less than a year after the Munich Agreement was signed, Germany invaded Poland, kicking off World War Two. Chamberlain’s appeasement of Nazi Germany failed to prevent another great war; all it did was give Germany more time to build up its military forces without arousing suspicion from the Allies. If Britain and France had threatened to declare war if Germany invaded the Sudetenland, Germany would have had less time to build up its military, it would have lacked Czechoslovak resources at the start of the war, and Czechoslovakia would have still had its heavily fortified border regions from which it could better defend itself against the German invasion. If German aggression was properly deterred, World War 2 may have been much shorter and less deadly.
https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/04/22/shades-of-appeasement/
