Appeasement never prevents world wars

Amid the fallout of that disastrous meeting in the Oval Office on February 28, where the Trump administration pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to appease Russia and give Russia peace on its terms, it's a good time to talk about why it's so important that Zelenskyy and others stand firm against the voices of appeasement: Weaker political forces attempted appeasement ahead of both world wars. It failed both times.

That's because aggressors are not sated by appeasement. But they can be deterred by a firm resistance. And, besides, Ukraine has already paid an unfathomable toll for its survival: 500,000 casualties and 30,000 children stolen from their families.

If Putin wants anything else, he should invest in a dildo and give it to himself.

The World War II appeasement attempt

First, let's talk about the most famous appeaser of World War II: Neville Chamberlain. Most people know and remember him for agreeing that Adolf Hitler could have the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. "Peace for our time" and all that.

And, yeah, that saying aged like milk. But that actually wasn't Chamberlain's only attempt to appease fascists, just his last and most famous. He actually attempted to appease Italy and Germany over and over again. And you won't believe this, but they came back for more, over and over again.

First, he tried to appease Italy and keep them from allying with Germany in 1938 by recognizing their supremacy in Ethiopia and by committing to British neutrality in the Spanish Civil War. While he waited to learn what showing his belly had gotten him, he also went ahead and abandoned his own naval bases in Ireland.

Spoiler alert: Italy still joined with Germany. Fascists of a feather flock together. In fact, all that early appeasement was in April 1938, and the fire sale of the Sudetenland took place in September 1938. Hitler captured Czechoslovakia in March 1939, Italy and Germany signed a public treaty in May 1939, and Germany invaded the Low Countries in May 1939.

By the way, it's important to note that Italy and Germany's May 1939 agreement was public because they already had a private agreement, dating back to 1936. When Italy negotiated with Britain, it was extracting concessions while already committed to Germany.

Appeasement in 1938 did nothing to prevent the war in 1939. Oh, by the way, Soviet Premier Josef Stalin attempted to buy his country's way out of the war by shipping Germany the precious minerals and petrocarbons that Germany needed, an appeasement move that successfully prevented a German invasion...until 1941 when Germany launched one of the largest invasions in world history. The lead commandos in Operation Barbarossa even waited for the Soviet train to cross the bridge before they crossed the line into the USSR. It used those supplies to aid the invasion.

Crap.

But, at least that was a one-time thing specific to World War II with no World War I parallels.

The World War I Parallels

Oh, yeah, actually, about that. See, World War I had its own appeasers.

Europe ahead of World War I was tense. A lot of military thought and theory at the time basically boiled down to: If there is going to be a fight, the person who gets there first with the most wins. The person who starts fighting first can shred the enemy's railroads and potentially parts of their fleet, weakening the enemy's ability to marshal their forces.

Get there first, hit 'em hard, win the war. (Obviously, that ended up being wrong. Germany got there first, hit France hard, and then got bogged down in fighting on two fronts for over three years from 1914 to 1917 and ultimately lost.)

So when Serbian nationalists, pissed off by the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina by Austria-Hungary, successfully killed the presumptive heir to the Austrian-Hungarian throne, stuff got weird fast.

Initially, world leaders expected that Europe might descend immediately into war. Remember, they believed that whoever reached the field first would be likely to win. But then Austria-Hungary did something weird.

The politics behind this were complicated, but Serbia was backed by Russia and Austria-Hungary was backed by Germany. Germany and Russia had some of the strongest forces on the continent. Germany told Austria-Hungary, "Hey, if you're going to punish Serbia, do it now and do it fast so Russia won't mobilize and get involved."

See, no one wanted to give Russia the breathing room and time to marshal their resources. Because when the Russian military is weak, it generally benefits everyone else if it stays that way.

Instead, Austria-Hungary issued a harsh ultimatum, designed to be rejected. (Note that there's a parallel here in Russia's offers of peace, where Russia is willing to make peace as long as it gets to keep captured territory, keep Ukraine isolated from alliances, and rebuild its military in case it wants to invade again.)

In July 1914, Austria-Hungary drafted and sent the ultimatum, full of seemingly impossible demands and with a 48-hour expiration date (after three weeks of Austria-Hungary dithering). Some of the demands were reasonable, like prosecute everyone involved in the assassination. But there were demands designed to be rejected, like allowing Austria-Hungary to purge the Serbian military and government of all officers Austria-Hungary didn't like.

Serbia then did something unexpected: It gave Austria-Hungary almost everything it asked for, saying no only to allowing Austrian-Hungarian police to operate within Serbia, a demand that would have violated Serbian law. Serbia attempted to appease Austria-Hungary, something that it seemed to know wouldn't work, under pressure from its allies.

And then World War I started anyway, because Austria-Hungary had no intention of being sated. And neither does Putin.

You can't appease a pissed-off authoritarian, be they a monarch or a dictator. They're bullies. Giving them what they want just encourages them to demand more and then steal your lunch money anyway.

Zelenskyy has done a masterful job bloodying Russia over and over again as Russia wages a war of choice and aggression against Ukraine. This war will end with either a Russian retreat or a Ukrainian holocaust.

The entire world should demand that only a Russian retreat is acceptable.