Appeasement (diplomatic policy)
Appeasement, in the context of diplomacy and international relations, refers to a strategy where a nation seeks to avoid conflict with a rival state by making concessions or compromises. This policy is prominently associated with the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and his attempts to manage Adolf Hitler's expansionist ambitions prior to World War II, most notably through the 1938 Munich Agreement, which ultimately failed to prevent further aggression. Historically, appeasement has garnered a negative reputation, particularly as it relates to imbalanced power dynamics, where weaker nations negotiate with stronger authoritarian governments, often resulting in unfavorable outcomes.
The concept has roots in earlier British diplomatic practices, where leaders aimed to resolve disputes peacefully, driven by moral duty and public sentiment against war. While some view appeasement as a rational means to delay conflict, critics argue it emboldens aggressors, giving them time to enhance their military capabilities. Contemporary examples of appeasement can be seen in various international negotiations, including the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran and responses to Russian actions in Ukraine. Overall, while appeasement may offer short-term relief from tensions, historical precedents suggest it often leads to larger conflicts, raising concerns about its efficacy as a long-term diplomatic strategy.
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Appeasement (diplomatic policy)
In diplomacy and international relations, appeasement refers to a policy in which a country attempts to placate a rival state by making strategic and negotiated concessions from its stated positions. Appeasement is most readily associated with periods of international aggression and wartime diplomacy and is most famously linked with British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940) and his doomed efforts to contain the expansionist ambitions of German chancellor Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) during the lead-up to World War II (1939–1945).
The term has taken on a negative connotation as a direct result of its association with Chamberlain’s ineffectual efforts. The term is also associated with imbalanced power dynamics, particularly with countries negotiating with strong authoritarian or totalitarian governments from a position of relative military or economic weakness.
The ill-fated 1938 Munich Agreement, negotiated between the Chamberlain-led United Kingdom government and Hitler’s Nazi Party, marks the best-known example of appeasement policy. Others include the international response to Japan’s 1931 invasion of Manchuria, Northeast China, and the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).
Background
While most histories of appeasement policy trace its origins to the United Kingdom’s 1930s-era foreign policy regarding Germany, some scholars have argued that the concept first developed in British international relations of the mid-nineteenth century. Notably, this viewpoint embraces a stark departure from the negative connotations that came to be associated with appeasement in the aftermath of Chamberlain’s World War II-era failures. Instead, appeasement in this context is understood as a means of settling potentially costly, deadly, and dangerous international disputes rationally through diplomacy and negotiated compromise rather than direct military confrontation. Experts generally argue that this is what Chamberlain endeavored but failed to achieve in his dealings with Hitler.
As it existed in nineteenth-century Britain, appeasement evolved because of three interconnected factors. The first was a pervasive sense of moral duty, which dictated that international disputes ought to be settled in a just and peaceful manner to the greatest possible extent. Influential factions within the British political establishment of the era viewed war as a self-defense measure of last resort. The second factor was related to Britain’s globally dominant political and economic standing, which peaked during the nineteenth century. Through a desire to protect its profitable domestic and international interests, Britain became averse to waging war—especially on multiple fronts that could quickly become costly and leave the country vulnerable. The third and final factor related to the expanded enfranchisement of the British public and the rising importance of public opinion: Britons of the Victorian era (1837–1901) generally opposed wars unless they were deemed unavoidable and necessary. Politicians, ever wary of maintaining their electability, thus tended to support policies that reduced the necessity of military conflict.
Analyzing historical events through this lens yields several instances of what could be considered early examples of British appeasement policy. Great Britain made noteworthy concessions in nineteenth-century quarrels with the United States involving the Panama Canal, Venezuela, and Alaska. Between 1904–1907, Britain also compromised its positions during negotiations with France and Russia over colonial holdings. As Germany built up its naval capabilities in the era leading up to the World Wars, Britain also made repeated attempts to negotiate compromises intended to decelerate the intensity of the arms race and make war between the countries less likely.
Other experts have taken different views. Historian Sir Martin Gilbert (1936–2015) opined that appeasement originated as a response to the failure of the global diplomatic apparatus to prevent World War I (1914–1918), which at the time was both the deadliest and most dramatic military conflict in human history. According to Gilbert’s perspective, appeasement policy resulted from the pervasive belief among educated people from across the political spectrum in both Britain and Germany that World War I was both accidental and preventable. In Gilbert’s view, appeasement diplomacy developed in response to a lack of confidence in Britain’s World War I-era foreign policy. He also believed that it was necessitated by reductions in British military spending, which were enacted during the early twentieth century as the British Empire declined and the country’s government sought funding for emerging domestic social programs.
Overview
Appeasement became a dominant topic in global geopolitics during the 1930s. In 1931, Japan invaded China’s northeastern region in a move that contravened the charter of the League of Nations, the predecessor organization of the United Nations (UN). Japan, a League of Nations member, violated its obligations to the organization by staging the invasion. China responded by deploying its military to confront the Japanese occupation, prompting the League of Nations to involve itself in the dispute. Under the terms of the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1929, Japan and China were obligated to settle conflicts using exclusively nonmilitary means. US diplomats invoked the pact to remind Japan and China of their legal duty, which Japan ignored. Japan later rescinded its membership in the League of Nations and occupied all of Northeast China while making deeper incursions into China, to which the international community offered no response. Many historians now believe that the situation demonstrated the inefficacy of the League of Nations and effectively encouraged the emerging generation of European dictators, including Hitler and Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) of Italy, to pursue their own expansionist ambitions without fear of meaningful reprisal.
In 1936, German forces under Hitler’s command occupied the Rhineland, a historically German-speaking region of Europe spanning multiple countries, including France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. The Rhineland had been demilitarized following World War I, and Hitler’s reoccupation of the Rhineland directly violated the Treaty of Versailles that had brought World War I to an end. Hitler annexed Austria into the German realm in 1938 before turning his focus to the Sudetenland, a historically Germanophone region of Czechoslovakia.
German expansionism under Hitler was a cause for grave concern throughout Europe, with European heads of state convening in a bid to find a solution that would avert another large-scale war. These efforts led to the Munich Agreement of 1938, negotiated between Germany and the Chamberlain-led United Kingdom along with France and Italy. The Munich Agreement conceded the Sudetenland to Hitler, allowing Germany to occupy the region in exchange for Hitler’s pledge not to attempt any further territorial conquests. Hitler quickly violated the terms of the Munich Agreement, occupying the rest of Czechoslovakia in early 1939 before invading Poland in September 1939. Germany’s invasion of Poland marked the beginning of World War II and the total collapse of Chamberlain’s appeasement strategy.
Because of the failure of the Munich Agreement and the subsequent horrors unleashed during World War II, critical assessments of appeasement policy have overwhelmingly tended to be negative. The term now carries a pejorative connotation and as such, public officials rarely mention it as a strategic option. However, some observers characterize the 2015 JCPOA between Iran and the five permanent UNSC members as a more contemporary example of appeasement diplomacy.
The perceived necessity of the JCPOA arose from military intelligence suggesting that Iran was using a domestic nuclear energy program to obscure its illegal development of nuclear weapons technology. Iran had been targeted with heavy sanctions for its actions, which the UNSC signatories of the JCPOA agreed to lift in exchange for Iran’s formal agreement never to pursue a nuclear weapons program. Sanctions on Iran were lifted in January 2016, but the United States reimposed them in May 2018 after claiming to have acquired evidence that Iran had violated its JCPOA obligations and was once again working toward obtaining nuclear weapons capabilities. Indications that Iran continued its nuclear build-up throughout the early 2020s have elicited criticisms over the concessions made to Iran under the administration of President Joe Biden.
Some observers also invoked the specter of failed appeasement policy during the Russian military buildup along its border with Ukraine in early 2022. Analysts noted that key European Union (EU) leaders repeatedly failed to address the expansionist actions of Russian leader Vladimir Putin (1952– ), who ordered the invasion of the former Soviet republic of Georgia in 2008 and annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, touching off an international military and diplomatic crisis. The continuation of the conflict through the mid-2020s highlights the risk of using appeasement policies with authoritarian governments.
As a diplomatic policy, appeasement carries multiple inherent risks that historical events have proven viable. By making concessions designed to appease aggressors, countries simply allow aggressors more time to build up their military and defense capabilities, plan campaigns, plot strikes, and formulate strategic responses to expected interventions. Aggressor nations also generally consider appeasement a sign of weakness in their opponents. Public opinion of appeasement also remains strongly negative and associated with cowardice and capitulation. However, military and political strategists also note its potential to postpone war, allowing non-aggressor countries valuable time to prepare. Some experts also believe that appeasement policies have historically been misapplied and still carry the potential to outright prevent war, though the historical record suggests that war remains a likely outcome of attempts at appeasement. Further, appeasement polticies have evolved to apply to non-state actors as well, as the policy has been used for terrorist groups and cybercriminals.
Bibliography
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