By Gavin S. Griffin, Co-Editor and WSJ Politics & Government Correspondent
In 1938, a meeting was held between the leaders of Europe to address Germany’s aggression toward Czechoslovakia. Rather than pushing back against Hitler, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain decided to give in to his demands. He thought that this would please Hitler and cause him to stop his military conquest of Europe. However, this appeasement at Munich did not stop Hitler. Rather, it had the opposite effect, and enabled him to continue his nazification and expansion of Germany. He annexed Austria, took over the Czech Republic, and finally invaded Poland in 1939. These events, enabled by the leaders in Munich, ultimately led to the second world war. Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement is a prime example of what President Biden said in his 2022 State of the Union Address: “when dictators do not pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos.”
The recent invasion of Ukraine by Vladimir Putin’s forces has echoes of Hitler’s conquest of Europe in the 1930s, with similar goals and reasoning for the use of military force. While Hitler’s justification was the unification of all German people, Putin now intends to unify all ethnic Russians across Eastern Europe. They both worked to dehumanize their enemies, Hitler with the Jews and Putin with the “nazis” and “drug addicts” of Ukraine. The similarities are eerie, and the events which have happened in Ukraine today bring to mind an old adage: “History doesn’t repeat, but sometimes it rhymes.”
So, how do leaders respond to authoritarian dictators bent on conquest and domination? Well, at least in the context of WWII, there are two styles of leadership: Chamberlain or Churchill. Neville Chamberlain gave in to Hitler’s demands, believing that appeasing him would stem the flow of his conquest. As a result, Hitler came to understand that if he threatened war, he could get what he wanted. This allowed him to continue his reign of death and destruction over Europe, killing millions.
Conversely, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Chamberlain’s successor, refused to give in to Hitler and his unprovoked hostility, instead opting for a strong resolve against the evils of Nazi Germany. Even during the Blitzkrieg bombings of London, England at the height of the German war effort, Churchill remained strong. “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills,” Churchill Said, “We shall never surrender.”
In 2022, after nearly a decade of appeasing Russian President Vladimir Putin, the world saw what happens when a tyrannical dictator is not taken seriously. We allowed him to take Crimea in 2014, we did little to push back against his meddling in our democratic elections, and we remained silent as he continued to ratchet up his campaign of misinformation and propaganda. Consequently, Putin nas now launched an unprovoked invasion of his neighboring nation of Ukraine, indiscriminately killing both soldiers and civilians alike. The eyes of the world are on Russia, and it is now time for our leaders to stop being Chamberlains and start being Churchills, before it’s too late.
The Walnut Street Journal 
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