5 ms·

Appeasement at Munich

93 points by zfg 2y ago

ncr100 2y ago
> A Russian victory, especially one enabled by American diplomacy, opens the world not just to further Russian aggression in Europe, but to wars of aggression everywhere. It also almost certainly means nuclear proliferation, since future aggressors and those who fear them will both learn the lesson that nuclear weapons are necessary.
- H8crilA 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - spwa4 2y ago
    I find it extremely hard to believe Trump would take the US to war if NATO article 5 is invoked, so this makes a lot of sense. However ... I also find it pretty hard to believe that either US or European countries would defend other European countries. If they didn't respect the Budapest memorandum, why would they respect NATO Article 5 when it would mean actual attacks against their people, potentially nuclear attacks? As a reminder: France, US and UK, and others, signed a series of treaties referred to as the "Budapest Memorandum" (there's like 7 slightly different ones) that generally promised that if Ukraine (explicitly including Crimea), was attacked, with Russia specifically called out, all other nations would 1) formally declare war on Russia 2) start conventional open hostilities on Russian forces to defend Ukrainian territorial integrity Russia obviously violated the treaty in 2014. This should have triggered those responses ... it didn't. Needless to say, no one actually upheld the treaty. As for US presidents, Obama didn't, Trump didn't, Biden didn't and now Trump is also not doing that. In Europe, Hollande didn't. Macron didn't. In the UK ... and so on and so forth. A full list would be very, very long, and include a LOT of governments and parties from all across the political spectrum. Therefore I find the premise of this article to be flawed. Essentially all western countries (including all powers in Europe: UK, France, Germany) chose to mostly ignore their obligations toward Ukraine in international treaties, for more than a decade now. Trump is doing something bad, and so now we blame it all on Trump? I mean, the guy sucks, but, he's the cause of this problem. If one is extremely generous one might even say he's trying to solve it, and (for now) all he's done wrong is alienate/insult US allies' governments. And the Ukranian government. But this crisis is not of his making. Frankly, Poland, NATO or no, is in the same boat. So are the Baltic states (MAYBE they can count on Poland), but ... Ukraine, Poland and Germany are all countries that would be extremely hard to physically prevent from acquiring both nuclear weapons and delivery systems. There's Ukranium mines near Kyiv, they have nuclear power plants and knowhow, including heavy-water breeder reactors. They have rocket expertise, and in fact could use Russian/USSR rocket designs.
    - netsharc 2y ago
      > Therefore I find the premise of this article to be flawed. Essentially all western countries (including all powers in Europe: UK, France, Germany) chose to mostly ignore their obligations toward Ukraine in international treaties, for more than a decade now. Trump is doing something bad, and so now we blame it all on Trump? Yes the western leaders chose hope in 2014 that the problem would just go away. In 2022, they didn't dare escalate to a full-scale war, but supplied Ukraine with arms and a lot of billions (to the tears of their populace). In 2025, two people with a trail of Putin fanboying/being his apologists (Trump and Musk) are "negotiating" with Putin for what's probably going to be surrender, that they'll sell as a win to their galaxy-brain followers. And they've already paused the money going into Ukraine. Good or bad isn't binary, there's different levels of it. Edit to add: looking it up (if the site hasn't been memory-holed/doge'ed): https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/11/21/fact-sheet-us-assistance-ukraine https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/1... https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/12/07/fact-sheet-us-assistance-ukraine https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/1... https://www.npr.org/2019/12/18/788874844/how-u-s-military-aid-has-helped-ukraine-since-2014 https://www.npr.org/2019/12/18/788874844/how-u-s-military-ai... And then when Trump took over, as Vindman testified, Trump tried to use the help for Ukraine as leverage for them to find dirt on Biden. what a fucking class act.
    - zfg 2y ago
      > all other nations would 1) formally declare war on Russia 2) start conventional open hostilities on Russian forces to defend Ukrainian territorial integrity There are six obligations in the Budapest Memorandum. Your two aren't part of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%203007/Part/volume-3007-I-52241.pdf https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%203007/P... Russia signed as well. Russia broke with their obligations when they annexed Crimea in 2014 and again with their further invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
    - mortarion 2y ago
      The EU has its own defense pact similar to NATO's Art.5, the Mutual Defense Clause. It was signed in 2009 (IIRC) to protect Greece from Turkish aggression, since Greece is in the EU, but Turkey is not. "If a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power, in accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter." Notice "by all the means in their power" which is different from Art.5. It basically means, that unless you're a officially a neutral nation, you are obliged to go to war.
netsharc 2y ago
Spot the mistake... It made me smirk. > Putin denied the legitimacy of the Ukrainian state. Although its leaders were democratically elected, he claimed that they had no right to rule. Because its people spoke various languages, he claimed that there was no such thing as a body of Ukrainian citizens. Hitler argued that Ukraine itself was artificial, the result of a historical turning point that never should have happened, the collapse of the Soviet Union. He claimed that the existence of national minority gave him the right to intervene in Ukraine politics. At some point in 2021, he ordered his army to make preparations for a quick strike on Ukraine. He also activated his agents inside the country
- raverbashing 2y ago
  Hah silly mistake to confuse the two Hitler was better informed of his own army capabilities
- tuukkah 2y ago
  Putin makes so many mistakes. Russia itself has language minorities, indigenous peoples, various religions... (and he mistreats them, of course).
  - mortarion 2y ago
    Russia never signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 because it was, to use 2025 language, too woke for them and an attempt at destroying their culture. That should tell you everything you need to know about the Russian mindset.
    - tuukkah 2y ago
      I'm not sure of these details. I see USSR abstained in 1948, but every current UN member country supposedly has signed it, so that would include (non-Soviet) Russia. A more important issue is that Russia is one of the countries that like to violate the treaties and contracts they have signed.
- DyslexicAtheist 2y ago
kombine 2y ago
The US will always have resources to support Israeli occupation of Palestine, but when it comes to defending the actual democracy in Ukraine against Russian occupation - we all know the answer. And it isn't just the Trump administration. If Biden wanted Ukraine to win, the war would have ended in 2023.
- invalidname 2y ago
  Israel is a democracy. It also probably has nuclear weapons and doesn't need US support. However, without US support things would get much uglier. Unfortunately, your type of thinking led to this. US involvement forced Israel to withdraw unilaterally from Gaza in 2005 and take a hands off stance as Hamas kept building up its base and digging tunnels. Had Israel stopped it back then we wouldn't have had Oct 7th and Palestinians might have taken the Israeli offer for statehood. People often confuse appeasement and peace, they are opposites.
  - karmakurtisaani 2y ago
    The problem with this conflict is that it's much more complicated than any simple explanation. There was a time when Netanyahu supported Hamas as a way to divide Palestine, perhaps he should not have done that? And don't even start with the expansion of settlements on West Bank.
    - invalidname 2y ago
      Pretty true. But I generally describe it as religious a*holes are crazy. Israel is actually mostly secular. The deep settlements are very religious in contrast to the rest. Hamas is just a religious suicide cult.
      - karmakurtisaani 2y ago
        In all fairness, if you are willing to distinguish "most" of Israel and the settlements, you should do the same for "most" Palestinians and Hamas (who seized power after winning the first election).
altacc 2y ago
For reference as to how Trump ends something look back at Trump's "negotiation" with the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Taliban got everything they wanted: the US to leave completely and while they did to to not attack the Taliban or obstruct their advances and for the US to no longer support the Afghani government. Trump just agreed with everything to be able to declare US involvement was over. Trump is purely transactional and in the simplest possible way. There's no long game, no stealth, no soft power, no maneuvering, no geopolitical unity, no building. If there isn't a clear immediate profit from money changing hands or a contract being signed straight away then it's worthless. It's a simple business strategy but applied to vastly more complicated politics and society, not nationally and globally.
- krona 2y ago
  > The Taliban got everything they wanted So did the US. > Trump is purely transactional and in the simplest possible way Realpolitik.
- readthenotes1 2y ago
  Can you check for me how many hundreds of trillions the US spent in Afghanistan and what they got for it? 18 years, More than $2Trillion, For nothing. What sort of transaction were you hoping for? Another 18 years commitment?
  - altacc 2y ago
    Personally I thought that there should never have been an invasion of Afghanistan or Iraq, so I would have saved all of that money. The US decided to go into these countries, nobody asked them to do so and experts in the region said at the time that it would be a costly disaster and the US still chose to invade. The US chose to spend that money and lives because they had already priced the transaction: vengeance in Afghanistan and regional control in Iraq. The US forced itself into other countries because the US thought it was to its benefit and so then expecting that country to pay for the privilege is ridiculous and revisionist. The US thought it was buying something but instead it made a terrible gamble and lost.
  - 2y ago
jisnsm 2y ago
[flagged]
- drooopy 2y ago
  It is the musk-trump administration.
- defrost 2y ago
  Good historians are about the realpolitik more than the veneer.
trhway 2y ago
It seems to me that the main enemy of Trump according to Trump is the left/woke. That in particular includes most of the EU political forces which are currently in power there, and Ukraine aligned itself with and have been supported by those forces. Whereis it is also one of the main enemies of Putin, and Putin supports ultra-rights in Europe (and Vance's visit to Munich was significantly in support of the Europe's ultra-right). Thus Trump and Putin, if not full allies, at least "enemy of my enemies". Thus it isn't "appeasement". Churchill and Hitler were of totally opposing ideology. Trump-Putin looks to me more like dividing "spheres of influence" instead of appeasement. Kind of real estate parcel borders survey.
bambax 2y ago
Excellent article. Should also mention that the tanks used to invade France in 1940 were for the most part built in Czechoslovakia in 1938-1940 (not just existing "intact Czechoslovakia tanks"). If war had been declared in 1938 against Germany, it would have been won fast. Also, I don't understand what mandate or power the US have to negotiate with Russia? They are currently the main providers of weapons to Ukraine but that's about it? And they aren't even the only providers. Europe could absolutely help Ukraine on its own and ignore whatever the US tells it to do, if it had the political will to do so. It doesn't look good right now but it could still happen.
- croisillon 2y ago
  until the US starts providing weapons to Russia...
  - throw__away7391 2y ago
    I feel fairly confident this would be a bridge too far for the Republicans in congress (assuming congress still exists by then)
    - croisillon 2y ago
      i hope you're right
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
bambax 2y ago
[flagged]
- juped 2y ago
  >Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - zfg 2y ago
    This is history. History is not in your list.
    - flanked-evergl 2y ago
      This is an interpretation of a political situation, not a description of the past: «Appeasement of the aggressor seems to be the plan now, as it was with Germany in 1938.» So not history.
      - zfg 2y ago
        What do you think history is for? History is an explanation of the present.
        flanked-evergl 2y ago
        The definition of history is not "explanation of the present".
        zfg 2y ago
        [flagged]
        2y ago
2-3-7-43-1807 2y ago
Realpolitik (/reɪˈɑːlpɒlɪˌtiːk/ ray-AHL-po-lih-teek German: [ʁeˈaːlpoliˌtiːk] ⓘ; from German real 'realistic, practical, actual' and Politik 'politics') is the approach of conducting diplomatic or political policies based primarily on considerations of given circumstances and factors, rather than strictly following ideological, moral, or ethical premises.[1][2] In this respect, it shares aspects of its philosophical approach with those of realism and pragmatism.[3][4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realpolitik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realpolitik

93 points by zfg 2y ago

> A Russian victory, especially one enabled by American diplomacy, opens the world not just to further Russian aggression in Europe, but to wars of aggression everywhere. It also almost certainly means nuclear proliferation, since future aggressors and those who fear them will both learn the lesson that nuclear weapons are necessary.

H8crilA 2y ago
[flagged]
- spwa4 2y ago
  I find it extremely hard to believe Trump would take the US to war if NATO article 5 is invoked, so this makes a lot of sense. However ... I also find it pretty hard to believe that either US or European countries would defend other European countries. If they didn't respect the Budapest memorandum, why would they respect NATO Article 5 when it would mean actual attacks against their people, potentially nuclear attacks? As a reminder: France, US and UK, and others, signed a series of treaties referred to as the "Budapest Memorandum" (there's like 7 slightly different ones) that generally promised that if Ukraine (explicitly including Crimea), was attacked, with Russia specifically called out, all other nations would 1) formally declare war on Russia 2) start conventional open hostilities on Russian forces to defend Ukrainian territorial integrity Russia obviously violated the treaty in 2014. This should have triggered those responses ... it didn't. Needless to say, no one actually upheld the treaty. As for US presidents, Obama didn't, Trump didn't, Biden didn't and now Trump is also not doing that. In Europe, Hollande didn't. Macron didn't. In the UK ... and so on and so forth. A full list would be very, very long, and include a LOT of governments and parties from all across the political spectrum. Therefore I find the premise of this article to be flawed. Essentially all western countries (including all powers in Europe: UK, France, Germany) chose to mostly ignore their obligations toward Ukraine in international treaties, for more than a decade now. Trump is doing something bad, and so now we blame it all on Trump? I mean, the guy sucks, but, he's the cause of this problem. If one is extremely generous one might even say he's trying to solve it, and (for now) all he's done wrong is alienate/insult US allies' governments. And the Ukranian government. But this crisis is not of his making. Frankly, Poland, NATO or no, is in the same boat. So are the Baltic states (MAYBE they can count on Poland), but ... Ukraine, Poland and Germany are all countries that would be extremely hard to physically prevent from acquiring both nuclear weapons and delivery systems. There's Ukranium mines near Kyiv, they have nuclear power plants and knowhow, including heavy-water breeder reactors. They have rocket expertise, and in fact could use Russian/USSR rocket designs.
  - netsharc 2y ago
    > Therefore I find the premise of this article to be flawed. Essentially all western countries (including all powers in Europe: UK, France, Germany) chose to mostly ignore their obligations toward Ukraine in international treaties, for more than a decade now. Trump is doing something bad, and so now we blame it all on Trump? Yes the western leaders chose hope in 2014 that the problem would just go away. In 2022, they didn't dare escalate to a full-scale war, but supplied Ukraine with arms and a lot of billions (to the tears of their populace). In 2025, two people with a trail of Putin fanboying/being his apologists (Trump and Musk) are "negotiating" with Putin for what's probably going to be surrender, that they'll sell as a win to their galaxy-brain followers. And they've already paused the money going into Ukraine. Good or bad isn't binary, there's different levels of it. Edit to add: looking it up (if the site hasn't been memory-holed/doge'ed): https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/11/21/fact-sheet-us-assistance-ukraine https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/1... https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/12/07/fact-sheet-us-assistance-ukraine https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/1... https://www.npr.org/2019/12/18/788874844/how-u-s-military-aid-has-helped-ukraine-since-2014 https://www.npr.org/2019/12/18/788874844/how-u-s-military-ai... And then when Trump took over, as Vindman testified, Trump tried to use the help for Ukraine as leverage for them to find dirt on Biden. what a fucking class act.
  - zfg 2y ago
    > all other nations would 1) formally declare war on Russia 2) start conventional open hostilities on Russian forces to defend Ukrainian territorial integrity There are six obligations in the Budapest Memorandum. Your two aren't part of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%203007/Part/volume-3007-I-52241.pdf https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%203007/P... Russia signed as well. Russia broke with their obligations when they annexed Crimea in 2014 and again with their further invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
  - mortarion 2y ago
    The EU has its own defense pact similar to NATO's Art.5, the Mutual Defense Clause. It was signed in 2009 (IIRC) to protect Greece from Turkish aggression, since Greece is in the EU, but Turkey is not. "If a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power, in accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter." Notice "by all the means in their power" which is different from Art.5. It basically means, that unless you're a officially a neutral nation, you are obliged to go to war.

netsharc 2y ago

Spot the mistake... It made me smirk. > Putin denied the legitimacy of the Ukrainian state. Although its leaders were democratically elected, he claimed that they had no right to rule. Because its people spoke various languages, he claimed that there was no such thing as a body of Ukrainian citizens. Hitler argued that Ukraine itself was artificial, the result of a historical turning point that never should have happened, the collapse of the Soviet Union. He claimed that the existence of national minority gave him the right to intervene in Ukraine politics. At some point in 2021, he ordered his army to make preparations for a quick strike on Ukraine. He also activated his agents inside the country

raverbashing 2y ago
Hah silly mistake to confuse the two Hitler was better informed of his own army capabilities
tuukkah 2y ago
Putin makes so many mistakes. Russia itself has language minorities, indigenous peoples, various religions... (and he mistreats them, of course).
- mortarion 2y ago
  Russia never signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 because it was, to use 2025 language, too woke for them and an attempt at destroying their culture. That should tell you everything you need to know about the Russian mindset.
  - tuukkah 2y ago
    I'm not sure of these details. I see USSR abstained in 1948, but every current UN member country supposedly has signed it, so that would include (non-Soviet) Russia. A more important issue is that Russia is one of the countries that like to violate the treaties and contracts they have signed.
DyslexicAtheist 2y ago

kombine 2y ago

The US will always have resources to support Israeli occupation of Palestine, but when it comes to defending the actual democracy in Ukraine against Russian occupation - we all know the answer. And it isn't just the Trump administration. If Biden wanted Ukraine to win, the war would have ended in 2023.

invalidname 2y ago
Israel is a democracy. It also probably has nuclear weapons and doesn't need US support. However, without US support things would get much uglier. Unfortunately, your type of thinking led to this. US involvement forced Israel to withdraw unilaterally from Gaza in 2005 and take a hands off stance as Hamas kept building up its base and digging tunnels. Had Israel stopped it back then we wouldn't have had Oct 7th and Palestinians might have taken the Israeli offer for statehood. People often confuse appeasement and peace, they are opposites.
- karmakurtisaani 2y ago
  The problem with this conflict is that it's much more complicated than any simple explanation. There was a time when Netanyahu supported Hamas as a way to divide Palestine, perhaps he should not have done that? And don't even start with the expansion of settlements on West Bank.
  - invalidname 2y ago
    Pretty true. But I generally describe it as religious a*holes are crazy. Israel is actually mostly secular. The deep settlements are very religious in contrast to the rest. Hamas is just a religious suicide cult.
    - karmakurtisaani 2y ago
      In all fairness, if you are willing to distinguish "most" of Israel and the settlements, you should do the same for "most" Palestinians and Hamas (who seized power after winning the first election).

altacc 2y ago

For reference as to how Trump ends something look back at Trump's "negotiation" with the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Taliban got everything they wanted: the US to leave completely and while they did to to not attack the Taliban or obstruct their advances and for the US to no longer support the Afghani government. Trump just agreed with everything to be able to declare US involvement was over. Trump is purely transactional and in the simplest possible way. There's no long game, no stealth, no soft power, no maneuvering, no geopolitical unity, no building. If there isn't a clear immediate profit from money changing hands or a contract being signed straight away then it's worthless. It's a simple business strategy but applied to vastly more complicated politics and society, not nationally and globally.

krona 2y ago
> The Taliban got everything they wanted So did the US. > Trump is purely transactional and in the simplest possible way Realpolitik.
readthenotes1 2y ago
Can you check for me how many hundreds of trillions the US spent in Afghanistan and what they got for it? 18 years, More than $2Trillion, For nothing. What sort of transaction were you hoping for? Another 18 years commitment?
- altacc 2y ago
  Personally I thought that there should never have been an invasion of Afghanistan or Iraq, so I would have saved all of that money. The US decided to go into these countries, nobody asked them to do so and experts in the region said at the time that it would be a costly disaster and the US still chose to invade. The US chose to spend that money and lives because they had already priced the transaction: vengeance in Afghanistan and regional control in Iraq. The US forced itself into other countries because the US thought it was to its benefit and so then expecting that country to pay for the privilege is ridiculous and revisionist. The US thought it was buying something but instead it made a terrible gamble and lost.
- 2y ago

jisnsm 2y ago

[flagged]

drooopy 2y ago
It is the musk-trump administration.
defrost 2y ago
Good historians are about the realpolitik more than the veneer.

trhway 2y ago

It seems to me that the main enemy of Trump according to Trump is the left/woke. That in particular includes most of the EU political forces which are currently in power there, and Ukraine aligned itself with and have been supported by those forces. Whereis it is also one of the main enemies of Putin, and Putin supports ultra-rights in Europe (and Vance's visit to Munich was significantly in support of the Europe's ultra-right). Thus Trump and Putin, if not full allies, at least "enemy of my enemies". Thus it isn't "appeasement". Churchill and Hitler were of totally opposing ideology. Trump-Putin looks to me more like dividing "spheres of influence" instead of appeasement. Kind of real estate parcel borders survey.

bambax 2y ago

Excellent article. Should also mention that the tanks used to invade France in 1940 were for the most part built in Czechoslovakia in 1938-1940 (not just existing "intact Czechoslovakia tanks"). If war had been declared in 1938 against Germany, it would have been won fast. Also, I don't understand what mandate or power the US have to negotiate with Russia? They are currently the main providers of weapons to Ukraine but that's about it? And they aren't even the only providers. Europe could absolutely help Ukraine on its own and ignore whatever the US tells it to do, if it had the political will to do so. It doesn't look good right now but it could still happen.

croisillon 2y ago
until the US starts providing weapons to Russia...
- throw__away7391 2y ago
  I feel fairly confident this would be a bridge too far for the Republicans in congress (assuming congress still exists by then)
  - croisillon 2y ago
    i hope you're right

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

bambax 2y ago

[flagged]

juped 2y ago
>Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- zfg 2y ago
  This is history. History is not in your list.
  - flanked-evergl 2y ago
    This is an interpretation of a political situation, not a description of the past: «Appeasement of the aggressor seems to be the plan now, as it was with Germany in 1938.» So not history.
    - zfg 2y ago
      What do you think history is for? History is an explanation of the present.
      - flanked-evergl 2y ago
        The definition of history is not "explanation of the present".
        zfg 2y ago
        [flagged]
        2y ago

2-3-7-43-1807 2y ago

Realpolitik (/reɪˈɑːlpɒlɪˌtiːk/ ray-AHL-po-lih-teek German: [ʁeˈaːlpoliˌtiːk] ⓘ; from German real 'realistic, practical, actual' and Politik 'politics') is the approach of conducting diplomatic or political policies based primarily on considerations of given circumstances and factors, rather than strictly following ideological, moral, or ethical premises.[1][2] In this respect, it shares aspects of its philosophical approach with those of realism and pragmatism.[3][4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realpolitik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realpolitik