Hi, I'm new here but will be active in the upcoming days to share my support and knowledge with Team Ukraine! I'm a graduate of the Political Science M.A program in one of the most prestigious universities in the region, Central European University, and have always been pretty much interested in East European / Eurasian regional politics and dynamics. In this piece of writing, I'll talk about why the International Community must provide its utmost help to Ukraine to prevent an ever-escalating international crisis that may culminate even into a world war. I'll base my perspective upon the infamous "appeasement policies" of the interwar period (which actually lead to Hitler's destructive aggression within Europe and to the Jewish Genocide) and will draw similarities to the current world conjuncture.
Appeasement policy was associated with UK's then prime minister Neville Chamberlain and was used to define a series of policies that were adopted by "Western Allies" (the UK was the spearhead of this group back then, the U.S was relatively still in an isolated nature) to appease the aggression of Hitler without getting into a physical war with Nazi Germany. It may range from territorial concessions to any political/social concession as long as "hopefully" it won't lead to a greater conflict between states. The policies were actually pretty much supported by the public opinion back then, as these were actually perceived as signs of serious developments in modern diplomacy, a much more modern way to moderate disagreements/conflicts between different states.
Bear in mind that these countries were severely fatigued in war only a decade ago, so they were really not very eager to interfere in Germany's foreign politics. Hence, in the 1930s Germany was allowed to rebuild its navy and its army even though it was strictly permitted with the Versailles Treaty; Italy was allowed to conquer parts of Eritrea and Somalia. Finally, in 1938 Hitler started its first attack to expand Germany, also known as the "Anschluss", and annexed Austria in a pretty quick fashion. Later on, in the same year, Germany attacked and rapidly annexed Czechoslovakia's southern regions, after fabricating claims " to reunion the separated Germans with their true Homeland". England and France, hoping to avoid a military conflict with this aggressor, conceded this, and let Hitler annex the conquered regions known as Sudetenland in the Munich Agreement. When Chamberlain signed the agreement and went back to England in 1938, he declared this agreement as "Peace for our time" which probably is one of the most inaccurate guesses in the history of politics, as only 4 months later, Hitler expanded its aggression to the rest of Czechoslovakia, and in September 1939, started to invade Poland, which ignited the World War II.
Politics and strategies always nurture themselves from their predecessors. The Appeasement policies must be a decent benchmark in history to evoke a united West against an imperialist aggressor. Russia first started with interfering in Ukrainian elections, then continued by invading Crimea, which was justified by Russia in a very similar discourse to Germany's annexation of Czechoslovakia, and that annexation was appeased similarly, which let Russia get away with it. But these aggressors do not stop, and will not stop, as we can see from the current situation. The West, now spearheaded by the U.S, seems to try to "solve" the situation with a bare minimum effort. The sanctions are strong, but more has to be done, as this aggression can also be steered towards countries such as Belarus, the Baltic States, or Georgia if Russia does not confront a deterring set of policies. The same thing happened back in the 1930s: Hitler started by annexing Austria, then moved to Czechoslovakia, then to Poland. Russia's imperialist discourse, the purpose of "evoking the old glorious empire", the rapid militarization processes are very similar.
In the 1930s WWI pulled Western Powers back; now it is the economic crises of the 2010s and Russia's stronghold over natural gas and its significantly important involvement within the international trade that hesitate Western Powers to act in a more unified fashion. But as I've shown above, this aggression must be confronted beforehand. Slava Ukraini!
Wsconfronted beforehand.
Standing with all Ukrainian people, slava