Neville Chamberlain taught us where Trump’s appeasement of Putin could lead
When Chamberlain signed the Munich Agreement, he did not know he was paving the way for World War II
On Sept 23, 1938, Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler shake hands during their meeting at the Hotel Dreesen at Godesberg. Photo by Getty Images
On Sept. 30, 1938, within Adolf Hitler’s private study in Munich, the Nazi leader and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain signed a document — the infamous Munich Agreement — that doomed Czechoslovakia and ultimately led to war across Europe. Chamberlain’s belief that Hitler had no more sinister ambition than annexing the Sudetenland was shattered when German troops seized the remainder of Czechoslovakia in March 1939.
Nearly nine decades later, inside a posh hotel just a 15-minute walk from the former Nazi building, European officials attending a conference on defense were shocked when another East European country — Ukraine — was essentially thrown under the bus, this time by U.S. Vice President JD Vance.
Instead of bringing a plan for peace in Ukraine, Vance accused his European colleagues of quashing free speech rights of “populist” political parties. Nary a word about helping Ukraine.
Appeasement was in the air on that September day in 1938, and once again at the annual Munich Security Conference last month, at least for the American side. Let’s take a look to see whether there are similarities between these two acts of betrayal.
Gathered at the Führerbau on Sept. 30, 1938 were, in addition to Hitler and Chamberlain, French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier — ally of Chamberlain — and Italian leader Benito Mussolini — ally of Hitler. Each took their turn signing the agreement that ceded the Sudetenland — 11,000 square miles of Czech territory — to Nazi Germany. No Czech officials signed the document. Two had been invited, but they weren’t allowed to be in the room. They weren’t even told the full details of the betrayal until half an hour after the agreement was signed, when the two Czechs were beckoned to a meeting with the British and French delegations. In a report on that meeting, one of the Czech officials, Hubert Masarik, described how Chamberlain and Daladier had little interest in hearing their concerns. Answers to Masarik’s questions were left to a lower French official, Alexis Leger, to answer.
When Masarik asked whether the Czech government would have the opportunity to weigh in on the pact, according to Masarik’s written report on the encounter, he and his Czech colleague were told by Leger that “no answer was expected from us, that they (the four signers) regarded the plan as accepted, that our government had that very day, at the latest at 3 p.m., to send its representative to Berlin… in order to fix the details for the evacuation.”
One of the pretexts Hitler had used to force concessions from France and Britain was the propagation of false stories of atrocities committed against Czechoslovakia’s German minority. But these bogus reports were hardly needed. Britain and France were loath to go to war with Germany, and had generally accepted the idea of German annexation of the Sudetenland even before the signing of the Munich Agreement.
Obviously, there is much about these events of 87 years ago that widely differs from the current crisis over the war in Ukraine. But Trump’s kowtowing to Putin has appeasement written all over it, and it’s triggered the severest disruption of the world order since the Cold War.
Trump has all but sidelined Ukraine on decisions made about its fate. This was painfully apparent during the Munich Security Conference in February. Just two days earlier, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth outlined Trump’s ideas for peace at a Brussels conference. Hegseth said Ukraine should forget joining NATO, will have to abandon hope of regaining territory seized by Russian troops, and once there’s a cease-fire, the U.S. will not be sending peace-enforcing troops, all positions in line with the Kremlin’s. Later on, Trump rattled European allies and Ukraine by revealing that he had a private phone conversation with Putin about Ukraine.
At the Munich Security Conference, America’s European allies and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had hoped for signs from Vance that Trump wasn’t going to go it alone with Putin, and to hear some reasonable ideas about achieving peace in Ukraine. But that’s not what they got. Participants sat in stunned disbelief as Vance accused America’s European partners of suppressing free speech, using as an example the banning of “populist parties on both the left and the right” from participating in the annual Munich conference. He alluded to a “firewall” among German mainstream political parties under which they eschew working with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), a party so extreme that it has been placed under observation by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency. Rubbing salt into the wounds of the distressed Europeans, before leaving Germany Vance met with the head of the AfD, Alice Weidel.
Two weeks later, Trump’s hostile treatment of Zelenskyy at the White House triggered a tsunami of shocked headlines around the world. Instead of acknowledging Putin as the aggressor in Ukraine, Trump asserted that he and the Russian leader shared a bond — because of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether Trump and Putin conspired in trying to influence the 2016 presidential election.
“They (the Russians) respect me,” Trump nearly spat out at Zelenskyy. “Let me tell you, Putin went through a hell of a lot with me. He went through a phony witch hunt where they used him and Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia … You ever hear of that deal? That was a phony. “
The Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, gleefully confirmed this bond: “The new administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations. This largely aligns with our vision.”
The lesson the Europeans drew from all of this is that they could no longer rely on the U.S. to protect them from aggression, as best expressed by Christian Democrat Friedrich Merz the night he defeated German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Germany’s federal elections.
“My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA,” Merz said.
Most recently, Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Ukrainian officials in Saudi Arabia and proposed a 30-day cease-fire, which was accepted by Zelenskyy. Putin replied he would only accept the proposal if certain conditions were met — conditions that may be hard for Zelenskyy to swallow. Trump said “we could do things very bad for Russia’’ if they don’t agree to a cease-fire, meaning additional financial sanctions. But talks that lie ahead will be a test of whether Trump will essentially let Putin, his soulmate in Moscow, call the shots.
Meanwhile, the Europeans are rushing to build up their armed forces because they can no longer count on American protection. Feeling especially vulnerable because of its 144-mile-long border with Russia, Poland has decided to require military training for all adult males — which would double the size of the army in the event of an invasion. France — which possesses an atomic arsenal — has offered it as a nuclear umbrella for its European allies.
Bear with me while I paint a possible scenario.
The U.S., Russia, Ukraine and the Europeans reach agreement on a truce. British and French troops enter Ukraine to serve as peacekeepers between Ukrainian and Russian troops. There’s a confrontation. Tensions boil. Shots are fired. The situation spins out of control. Warfare spreads beyond Ukraine, crossing European national borders ……….
Let’s hope and pray that the course we are on now does not lead to a calamity like the one born from the appeasement of 1938, or worse.
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