A majority of Americans continue to support providing Ukraine with money and weapons to defeat the Russian invasion now in its 10th month, although support is sliding among Republicans. With the GOP set to take control of the House next month, this is raising the possibility that future Ukraine aid may not so easily sail through Congress.
In the eyes of some historians, refusing to back Ukraine for as long as it takes would be a betrayal tantamount to the sacrifice of Czechoslovakia during the Munich Conference in 1938, during which Great Britain, France and Italy agreed to appease Hitler’s territorial demands by handing him the Sudetenland.
As Yale historian Timothy Snyder wrote in Foreign Affairs, “Unlike Czechoslovak leaders, Ukrainian leaders chose to fight and were supported, at least in some measure, by other democracies. In resisting, Ukrainians have staved off a number of very dark scenarios and bought European and North American democracies valuable time to think and prepare. The full significance of the Ukrainian resistance of 2022, as with the appeasement of 1938, can be grasped only when one considers the futures it opens or forecloses.” Mr. Snyder argues that whether Ukraine survives will determine the fate of democracy globally. This is, he contends, the “appeasement test” of our own time.
In this episode of History As It Happens, military historian Cathal Nolan dismantles the notion that today’s democracies are facing an existential challenge similar to the one posed by Hitler during his 1930s expansionism. This is not the first time the specter of Munich and failure of appeasement have been used to make a political argument about a current problem, thereby painting one’s opponents as weaklings or “appeasers.”
“Appeasement is a rhetorical device used primarily against one’s internal political enemies. Speaking historically, appeasement is one of the arrows in the quiver of diplomacy. The turn of meaning the word appeasement has received is associated with the Munich Conference of 1938, and ever after nobody wants to be cast as an appeaser because it has taken on a moral content it never had,” said Mr. Nolan, the author of “Mercy: Humanity in War.”
Appeasement had been British foreign policy for decades before Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain attempted to placate Hitler’s unquenchable territorial demands at Munich. The problem was that Hitler could not be appeased. In fact, the Nazi leader walked away from Munich feeling cheated out the war he wished to start.
But it is mistaken to compare Russian President Vladimir Putin to Hitler and Ukraine to Munich, Mr. Nolan said. Listen to Mr. Nolan explain why, by downloading this episode of History As It Happens.
