Appeasement: We Need More of It

Appeasement in itself may be good or bad according to the circumstances. Appeasement from weakness and fear is alike futile and fatal. Appeasement from strength is magnanimous and noble and might be the surest and perhaps the only path to world peace.

These are not the words of the appeaser-in-chief, Barack Hussein Obama, nor were they the words of the appeaser of all appeasers, Neville Chamberlain. It was actually Winston Churchill who recognized the usefulness of appeasing adversaries in a 1950 speech to the House of Commons.

Appeasement is not a viable strategy anymore. If you want to be president of the United States, you’re better caught saying “f*** Iran” than saying “appease Iran.”  How did it happen that a strategy that was once regarded as a prudent instrument of statecraft – even to the tough-talking, masculine Winston Churchill - has become about as politically tenable as advocating for the repeal of the 19^th amendment? There are two reasons.

First, anti-appeasers do not accurately describe the logic of appeasing an adversary. States have demands, needs maybe, which can be understood along a continuum of legitimacy ranging from totally ridiculous and unacceptable to legitimate and perfectly acceptable. Demands to build a military capability necessary for self-defense are legitimate and acceptable; needs to invade one’s neighbors and engage in genocide typically are not. Not all requests for accommodation are created equal and to treat them all as one in the same is likely to be counterproductive. Also, if a state would prefer not appeasing another, it may be unable to do so because it is not militarily strong enough. Thus, appeasement is a strategy not of effeminate cowards but of prudent statesmen who weigh costs and benefits.

Second, the historical cases that anti-appeasers use are rarely put in context. Not all adversaries are as ambitious as Hitler at Munich. To be sure, Chinese desires for unification with Taiwan are not the same as Hitler’s desire to conquer mainland Europe. Likewise, a handful of small-yield nuclear weapons will not give Iran the means or the motivation to conquer its neighbors in the way it may have emboldened the Third Reich.

In a world of interdependent, self-interested actors, there is nothing wrong with accommodating the legitimate needs of the other states in the system. A single high-profile example of a strategy not working should not remove it from the playbook. The questions that need to be asked are how legitimate are this state’s grievances? How do its demands affect our strategic situation, and what historical cases are the most analogous? Playing the appeaser card is a move for the intellectually lazy.