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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 10-Oct-06
The "Appeasement Conundrum": What was the alternative to appeasing Hitler?

Web Log - October, 2006

The "Appeasement Conundrum": What was the alternative to appeasing Hitler?

President Bush calls for an "immediate response" to North Korea's nuclear weapon test, but what kind of response is available?

Neville Chamberlain, returning from a 1938 meeting with Hitler, promising "Peace in our time," holding up a signed agreement

Neville Chamberlain, returning from a 1938 meeting with Hitler, promising "Peace in our time," holding up a signed agreement

One of the most reviled men of the twentieth century, besides dictators like Adolf Hitler himself, is British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain who, in 1938, "appeased" Adolf Hitler.

When I was in school in the 1950s, and then later in college and in bitter politics of the 1970s, I heard Neville Chamberlain's name over and over. He had appeased Hitler. Hitler had fooled him. He had permitted Hitler to annex Austria in the Anschluss, then the Rhineland and Sudetenland. He should have listened to Winston Churchill, an MP (Member of Parliament) who kept warning his colleagues about Germany's rapid militarization. This is what we were told many times.

It's worthwhile taking a look at what happened.

Chamberlain met with Hitler in Munich. He returned to Croydon Airport on Sept. 30, 1938, waving the piece of paper with the agreement that he and Hitler had signed. (See picture.)

When he arrived at 10 Downing Street, he read the written agreement and made this statement:

"My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour.

I believe it is peace for our time.

Go home and get a nice quiet sleep."

The written agreement said the following:

We, the German Führer and Chancellor, and the British Prime Minister, have had a further meeting today and are agreed in recognizing that the question of Anglo-German relations is of the first importance for our two countries and for Europe.

We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again. We are resolved that the method of consultation shall be the method adopted to deal with any other questions that may concern our two countries, and we are determined to continue our efforts to remove possible sources of difference, and thus to contribute to assure the peace of Europe."

This agreement was met with worldwide praise, because a peaceful solution had been found by means of diplomacy and negotiation.

What the world didn't know was that Hitler was actively planning for war; on the same day that Hitler met with Chamberlain, he also met with Mussolini to plan the invasion of Britain.

But what else could Chamberlain have done? Suppose one of his aides in Munich accidentally overheard Hitler telling plans to someone. What could Chamberlain have done differently?

If he'd repeated what his aide heard, he'd have been told he was mistaken. If he'd suggesting invading Germany to kill Hitler or force "regime change," he'd have received worldwide condemnation. Chamberlain could have done nothing other than what he did.

Smiling North Korean news anchor announces successful nuclear weapons test in a gleeful, happy voice. <font size=-2>(Source: CNN)</font>

Smiling North Korean news anchor announces successful nuclear weapons test in a gleeful, happy voice. (Source: CNN)

Today we're faced with another crazy dictator, Kim Jong-il of North Korea, with a huge army, an huge array of conventional weapons, and now nuclear weapons.

President Bush is certainly not trying to appease Kim, at least not today. In President Bush's statement on Monday morning, he was confrontational:

"This was confirmed this morning in conversations I had with leaders of China, and South Korea, Russia, and Japan. We reaffirmed our commitment to a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, and all of us agreed that the proclaimed actions taken by North Korea are unacceptable and deserve an immediate response by the United Nations Security Council.

The North Korean regime remains one of the world's leading proliferator of missile technology, including transfers to Iran and Syria. The transfer of nuclear weapons or material by North Korea to states or non-state entities would be considered a grave threat to the United States, and we would hold North Korea fully accountable of the consequences of such action."

This statement is interesting because it comes in two parts. The first mentions an "immediate response by the United Nations Security Council," without mentioning what that response might be. This appears to be an empty threat, but we'll see.

The second paragraph is much more confrontational. It threatens a response from the United States (as opposed to the United Nations) if nuclear material is transferred to other countries (like Iran).

What would that response be? I listened to many commentators on Monday, and nobody mentioned anything stronger than vague economic sanctions. When military action was mentioned, it was described as impossible for various reasons.

Let's try to generalize this, and look at some responses that might be used in various situations.

Appeasement. This really isn't a bad option at some times. Very often you can offer a country incentives to step back from something. In fact, appeasement worked with North Korea in the 1990s. Why? Because they were in a generational unraveling period at a time that, like us, problems are contained and compromises are possible. But once a country enters a generational crisis period, where North Korea is today, then appeasement is treated simply as a sign of weakness.
Appeasement doesn't always work even in non-crisis periods, and here I'm specifically returning to the many attempts to appease Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with respect to Iran's nuclear development problem. Iran is in a generational awakening era, like America in the 1960s, and there have actually been times in the last year when I thought that Iran might back off. But nuclear development has become a core national goal for Iran, so backing off is not possible.

Sanctions. Probably the United Nations Security Council will discuss imposing some kind of economic sanctions against North Korea and Iran. But this is unlikely to work for the same reasons that appeasement doesn't work.
Sanctions do sometimes work. For example, one commentator on Monday referred to the breakup of the apartheid government in South Africa after economic sanctions were imposed as a model for dealing with North Korea. However, the collapse of South Africa's apartheid government was the climax of their generational awakening era, and something like it would have happened with or without sanctions.
Sanctions did not work after Japan had invaded Manchuria and China in the 1930s. That was a generational crisis era for them, and sanctions only infuriated them. In 1933, they walked out of the League of Nations. Both Iran and North Korea are aware of this, and several times both countries have threatened to walk out the U.N. if sanctions are imposed. That's one possible scenario that we may see.

Military confrontation. This means war. If the target country is in a generational awakening or unraveling era, a quick war might work well. If the target country is in a generational crisis era, as most of the world is today, since it's 61 years past the end of World War II, any war can quickly spiral into a full-fledged crisis war.

So those are the options that are available to the U.N. Security Council and the United States today.

Unfortunately, it's pretty clear that none of them is going to work. There's nothing that either North Korea or Iran is willing to trade for the development of nuclear weapons. We can offer incentives, we can threaten sanctions, we can have six-party talks, we can have bilateral talks, we can describe Kim as a "nice guy," or we can describe Kim as an evil dictator. Same with Ahmadinejad. It doesn't matter. They're determined to have nuclear weapons, and nothing will stop them.

There's another option that we haven't mentioned yet: Preparation. In this option you accept the inevitability of a coming war, and you prepare for it.

Today I tell people: Treasure the time you have left, and use it to prepare yourself, your family, your community and your nation.

Think of what's coming from China, Iran and North Korea as a tsunami. We can't stop the tsunami with appeasement, sanctions or a military strike. We can't stop the tsunami at all. But if we know that it's coming we can prepare for it.

The country certainly wasn't prepared for World War II. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on November 7, 1941, they destroyed the entire Pacific Fleet -- the greatest military disaster in American history. This mistake might have caused us to lose the entire war (How do you say "What's for lunch?" in Japanese?) if we weren't several times bigger and more powerful than Japan.

We can't afford that today. We're facing war with China, North Korea and Iran, and anything like the Pearl Harbor loss would possibly be irrecoverably disastrous.

As I see the actions of the Administration -- President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld -- I see people who appear to me to be preparing the country for this war, as much as can be done.

I don't want to make this a partisan statement; I have no doubt that an administration led by President Al Gore or President Hillary Clinton would similarly lead / have led the nation to prepare for war in the same way. It's something that any administration understands better today than in 1941.

But I do want to respond to a web site reader's question that arrived last week: "You often support Rumsfeld because he is a Silent. Why? I have not read anyone who supports Rumsfeld in about five years. I am not asking this question out of political conviction, just curiosity. Perhaps you could write more on this subject."

The air is filled with political nonsense, and 99.9% of the political stuff we hear today is disgusting crap. I'm not just talking about the sex scandal; I'm talking about all the ridiculous nonsense we hear about the Iraq war.

Few people understand the huge value that the Iraq war has been for us. We've developed an extensive array of high-tech weaponry that we've been able to test out in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the "lessons learned" in actual battle have been invaluable. China, by contrast, have developed similar kinds of high-tech weaponry, but they have absolutely no live battle experience. This alone gives us a big edge over China.

I've said a few times that about the only person in Washington that I trust to know what's actually going on in the world and is preparing the nation for it is Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who was born in 1932, and is in the Silent Generation. He grew up when Hitler was militarizing in Europe, and undoubtedly has a personal memory from his childhood when Neville Chamberlain made his "peace in our time" statement. Rumsfeld's personal memory of these events from his childhood give him an insight into today's world that someone younger would not have. That's why I've said many times that I dread the day when Rumsfeld is replaced by someone from the Boomer generation or Generation-X, since no one in those generations in either party will have a clue what to do.

And once again, this isn't a political statement. It's quite reasonable to believe that a President Al Gore would have appointed a similarly qualified person from the Silent Generation. President Gore might even have appointed Rumsfeld himself, since Rumsfeld appears to me to be almost completely non-political and non-ideological. He's extremely wealthy, and is doing the current very stressful and important job out of service to his country, understanding the enormous danger that we'll soon be facing.

Rumsfeld has struck exactly the right note, it seems to me, in response to China's rapid and accelerating militarization. At a conference in Singapore last year, he said:

"[A DOD report] concludes that China’s defense expenditures are much higher than Chinese officials have published. It is estimated that China’s is the third largest military budget in the world, and clearly the largest in Asia.

China appears to be expanding its missile forces, allowing them to reach targets in many areas of the world, not just the Pacific region, while also expanding its missile capabilities within this region. China also is improving its ability to project power, and developing advanced systems of military technology.

Since no nation threatens China, one must wonder: Why this growing investment? Why these continuing large and expanding arms purchases? Why these continuing robust deployments?

China criticized Rumsfeld for this statement as being a "war-monger." This shows what a screwed up world we live in, when China can spend exponentially increasing amounts of money on massive weapons systems, and it's Rumsfeld rather than China who's the "war-monger."

Rumsfeld has not made similar statements again, but has been quietly refocusing our armed forces for the coming war with China. This is what needs to be done to prepare our country for what's coming.

Rumsfeld knows that appeasement won't work with China, and sanctions won't work with China, just as it didn't work with Hitler. War is the tsunami that's coming, and it can't be stopped. We can only prepare for it. That's why Rumsfeld's job is incredibly important, since it affects the entire survival of our nation, and indeed affects the world. The garbage we hear about the Iraq war is so ridiculous and fatuous that, as a nation, we should be ashamed of ourselves for generating so much of it. (10-Oct-06) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 10-Oct-06 The "Appeasement Conundrum": What was the alternative to appeasing Hitler?

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 10-Oct-06
The "Appeasement Conundrum": What was the alternative to appeasing Hitler?