י Appeasement in 1933 and 2003; Hitler and Hussein. If you want to understand the War in Iraq, it helps to read the history of the 1930's in France and England. I recommend the second volume of William Manchester's bio of Churchill and William Shirer's The Collapse of the Third Republic. What is fascinating is that the appeasers back then had exactly the same sorts of motivations for inaction against Hitler as people do now in arguing that we ought not to have acted against Saddam. There were four types of appeasers, with different, even opposite, motivations: Pacifists, Multilateralists, Moneysavers, and Realists.
1. Pacifists. Some appeasers simply didn't believe that using force to stop Hitler's arms buildup was appropriate. The Labor Party in Britain contained many of these people.
2. Multilateralists. Some appeasers argued that if the Germans were violating the Treaty of Versailles, the proper recourse was to the League of Nations, rather than direct action by France or Britain. This, too, was more of Labor position than a Tory one. A fallback position-- more common actually, since it was clear the League of Nations was a joke, and one which appealed to conservatives-- was for British appeasers to argue that Britain should follow France's lead, and for French appeasers to argue that France should follow Britain's lead. In the end, of course, both countries passed the buck.
3. Moneysavers. Some appeasers didn't think it was worth the expense to stop Hitler--- remember, this was during the Great Depression. This was an important consideration in the Tory Party in Britain, which was much more concerned about the economy than about foreign affairs. Labor held it also, though, since they had social spending they would have preferred to military spending. Interestingly, some years before World War I, Churchill was originally of this group, arguing against an arms race with Germany, but he switched completely after seeing how alarming Germany's naval build-up had become. As he famously said of people like himself (whom he called "economists" because they argued for economy in expenditure, not because they were scholars of economics), "In the end a curious and characteristic solution was reached. The Admiralty had demanded six ships: the economists offered four: and we finally compromised on eight."
4. Realists Who Feared a Bigger Threat. Some appeasers didn't mind Hitler because what they were really concerned about was Stalin. Stalin had the biggest army in the world, his public position was that he wanted to overthrow every other regime, and he had secret agents everywhere. Knowing that France and Britain were weak-willed, many conservatives hoped (without actually making it their public argument) that Hitler would control Communism in Eastern Europe. Moreover, he would suppress the Communists in Germany itself. This was a conservative position, of course, and the idea gave pause to leftwing appeasers, who didn't like the suppression of socalism. The Realists were thrown off balance by the Hitler-Stalin Pact in 1939, which they helped create by their repeated rebuffal of Russia's offers to ally with the West and their obvious hope that Hitler would attack Russia.
The 2003 version of this is not Anti-Communism, but Anti-Islamism. People argue that Saddam Hussein may have been a dictator, but he did a great job of suppressing the Islamists in Iraq, keeping Iran in line, and reducing Saudi influence. Now that Iraq is more free, terrorists have a lot more freedom too.
I'm also reminded of a famous quote from Prime Minister Baldwin, " The bomber will always get through." What he meant was that no matter how much Britain spent on arms or how well its army fought, modern technology meant that some enemy bombers would get through the defences and kill lots of British. Pacifists drew the conclusion that modern war was too horrible to contemplate; Multilateralists drew the conclusion that Britain had better not be the only enemy target; Moneysavers drew the conclusion that arms spending wouldn't help much.
The current version of this is, "Some terrorist will always slip past our defences and kill a lot of people." What I have seen most argued is that our best strategy is thus to give up on either adding to defences or killing terrorists, and instead try to reduce the number of people around the world who dislike the United States. This, they, argue, is best done by being very nice to everybody, not offending them and not using any military force that might provoke revenge.
I won't argue here for why appeasement was wrong in the 1930's and why it is wrong now, but I find the parallels interesting.
[ http://php.indiana.edu/~erasmuse/w/04.01.30b.htm . Erasmusen@yahoo.com. ]
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