Look at their shoes

Matthew Yglesias recommends Jeffrey Record's monograph, "Appeasement Reconsidered: Investigating the Mythology of the 1930s."

I realize no one is going to read that and think, "Ooooh, a monograph! How exciting!" But if you've got a crazy uncle/co-worker/president who makes a habit of invoking Neville Chamberlain to dismiss any hesitation to invade Iraq/bomb Iran/annihilate Fredonia, then Record's thoughtful separation of reality and myth may come in handy. Record can't be dismissed as a dirty hippy, and his paper was published by the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College -- so he's got the kind of hawkish credentials to which your crazy uncle/co-worker/president likes to pay lip service.

Much of the monograph is remedial history -- an explanation of why what he calls the "Munich Analogy" isn't really applicable even to Munich. But let's jump ahead to Record's conclusion:

Invocations of the Munich Analogy to Justify Use of Force Should Be Closely Examined.

Such invocations have more often than not been misleading because security threats to the United States genuinely Hitlerian in scope and nature have not been replicated since 1945. Though the Munich analogy’s power as a tool of opinion mobilization is undeniable, no enemy since Hitler has, in fact, possessed Nazi Germany’s combination of military might and willingness -- indeed, eagerness -- to employ it for unlimited conquest. This does not mean the United States should withhold resort to force against lesser threats. Nor does it mean that Hitlerian threats are a phenomenon of the past; an al-Qaida armed with deliverable nuclear weapons or usable biological weapons would pose a direct and much more lethal threat to the United States than Nazi Germany ever did.

The problem with seeing Hitler in Stalin, Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh, and Saddam Hussein is that it reinforces the presidential tendency since 1945 to overstate threats for the purpose of rallying public and congressional opinion, and overstated threats in turn encourage resort to force in circumstances where deterrence, containment, even negotiation (from strength) might better serve long-term U.S. security interests. Threats that are, in fact, limited tend to be portrayed in Manichaean terms, thus skewing the policy choice toward military action, a policy choice hardly constrained by possession of global conventional military primacy and an inadequate understanding of the limits of that primacy.

If the 1930s reveal the danger of underestimating a security threat, the post-World War II decades contain examples of the danger of overestimating a security threat.

That's all quite thoughtful, reasonable and factually sound. The problem here, though, is that the people Record is responding to don't give a damn about thought, reason or facts. They are not arguing in good faith.

No one who invokes Neville Chamberlain and the Munich Analogy is arguing in good faith. That goes for your crazy uncle, your co-worker, President Bush and John McCain. Just look at their shoes. Are the laces tied? No one smart enough to be capable of tying their own shoelaces is stupid enough to really believe what they're saying when they invoke this analogy.

The one-size-fits-all Munich template requires that we pretend that all diplomacy is capitulation. It requires that we pretend that containment, deterrence, isolation, sanctions, international pressure, inspections, soft power, summit meetings, aid, withholding aid, trade and every other form of possible influence whether political, economical or cultural are all just cowardly euphemisms for surrender.

To really believe that, one would have to be sublimely ignorant of history, geography, politics and the basic vocabulary of the English language. That level of perfect ignorance takes too much effort to achieve and sustain for anyone to master it accidentally.

It is simply not possible that these people are sincere. They do not -- they cannot -- believe what they are saying.

So there's no point in responding to them by patiently attempting to explain that diplomacy does not equal capitulation. Anyone who really required such an explanation wouldn't be capable of understanding it.

Discussions of civility often focus on the superficial, such as avoiding name-calling and not using dirty words. But those minor transgressions against civility are nothing compared to the fundamental duplicity of the sort practiced by those crying "appeasement" and "Chamberlain" at every turn. Such duplicity and dishonesty precludes civility, it makes honest conversation and dialogue impossible.

When confronted with such disingenuousness, then, the only way to defend civility is to put those lying mofos on notice by calling bullshit. That's not a dirty word, it's a precisely accurate and appropriate response.

Comments

[Technomad]

Part of the problem Czechoslovakia had was that its army, while very well-equipped, wasn't necessarily all that good. Keep in mind---the country had been kludged together out of four different nationalities, and only the Czechs themselves were really happy with it. The Slovaks felt that they were sucking hind tit all the time, the Ukranians in the far east didn't like the deal they'd received, and do any of you expect the Sudeten Germans to fight for Czechoslovakia against Germany?

[Hawker Hurricane]

My high school teachers taught it to me as well... I learned the 'truth' reading translated French materials...
(To which I am grateful to the author of 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Republic' to pointing out both the reasons for the Maginot Line AND the original documents)

[danAlwyn]

By some accounts, the Maginot Line was one of the most successful fortifications in history. They were so powerful that nobody dared attack them. That didn't save France, but this is more of an issue for the strategists than the architects...

[Ian]

Ursula, I agree, any "what if" scenario is speculative. Nobody knows what would have happened in WWII-1938. However, neither did the people actually making decisions in 1938 know with certainty what the outcome of their actions would be. Many people prior to the Iraq war expected that it would become a quagmire; they could not have been certain that they were correct, but they displayed much better judgment than the people who expected that you'd be "greeted as liberators."

I wasn't trying to make a hindsight argument; all of the facts that different people have been mentioning were available to Chamberlain and ought to have informed his decision. I think it's possible for us to look at the facts he had and ignore whatever else we know about the Nazis, and on that basis to judge whether his actions were wise or foolish. I think that reasonable people can disagree in their evaluation of Chamberlain, but I think it is possible to make evidence-based arguments about his judgment.

My main complaint against Chamberlain is that what he did was not even appeasement. He did not extract any substantive concessions from Germany in exchange for giving Hitler what he wanted. (an arms control agreement, perhaps)

(an example of proper appeasement: Clinton's North Korea policy. Allow in nuclear inspectors and we will supply you with fuel. Good appeasement is a positive sum interaction -- both sides walk away happier than when they started)

I don't think hashing out the history is a derail of the thread; reducing complicated situations to the "appeaser" battle cry is part of the problem with the "all war all the time" crowd.

More History:

Agreed, the French and Czech armies might very well have come to pieces very quickly. My point was that the myth of German invincibility was part of what made other armies crumble, and that overwhelming insta-victory against any of their neighbors would have been less likely in 1938. I can see how ethnic tensions might have pulled the Czech army apart, but surely any Czech army fighting in 1938 would have been more effective against Hitler than having ex-Czech recruits fighting on Hitler's side in 1939.

It should be noted that the Czechs had an alliance with France. If there had been a war rather than the Munich agreement, it is very unlikely that Britain would have been fighting Germany alone. France had plans to go over the top in the event of a major war; some of their alliances committed them to begin a major offensive against Germany within days of the beginning of a war.

I did not know that about the Hurricane. That's a good point in favor of delaying the war, though I'm inclined to doubt that the Germans could have carried out a serious strategic bombing campaign against England without airbases in the low countries and while fighting a land war along their own western border.

[Tonio]

the country had been kludged together out of four different nationalities

The same was true of Yugoslavia and Iraq, suggesting that Britain treated its nation-building like a jigsaw puzzle.

[Hawker Hurricane]

Ian: it was fear of the bombing campaign (a campaign that the Germans weren't really capable of in 1940 with the bases) rather than the reality.

And the French Army was still fighting 6 weeks after the British had fled the continent at Dunkirk. The French govenment surrendered. Politics: there was a strong Fascist movement in France who didn't want to fight the Germans. They sold out thier own government (and army) in order to get power. Vichy. You know the rest, I'm sure.

[Jeff]

Messages were not instantaneous, and with all the links and alliances, and military contingency plans, you had to be sure you were not caught on the hop by your friend's enemy's friend.

A hat-tip to the game of Diplomacy seems called for, at this point.

====================

If WWI was avoidable, then WWII was likewise avoidable; when we failed to avoid I, II became inevitable.

Not really. If the Americans and British had been allowed to set the terms for the Germans, they wouldn't have been crippled as badly as they were. Leave Germany with a good, functioning economy and Hitler has no platform on which to base his appeals.

=========================

I wondered for a second if Hitler's talk about unifying the German peoples was really a pretense for seizing the munitions industry. But that would presume that Hitler wasn't a madman.

At the start of the war, Hitler had fairly smart war strategies. (By the end of the war, not so much.) That had nothing to do with whether he was a "madman".

============================

the Bf 109, had already entered service before the Munich crisis, and had seen action in the Spanish Civil War

I'll have to go back to a the War Stories comic that deals with the Spanish Civil War so I can air some of the claims Ellis makes, since I don't want to do it from memory.

[practicallyevil]

As Tonio was saying, even if Britain was ill prepared, its ally France had its big, clumsy military together while at the same time Germany was quite weak -- remember that Germany'd been demilitarized not long prior to the war.

While France did have a decent sized military at the time, it was very much tuned to defense rather than offense, what with the Maginot line and the like. Most of Frances military was in the form of static defenses that weren't exactly going to do much good in an invasion of Germany.

[Hawker Hurricane]

Well, while the French military was 1st rate at the lower levels (say, Major and below) it suffered from to many politicians pretending to be Generals and vice versa. The real disadvantage the French had was they had lost too many young men between 1914 and 1920. The men who died in the trenches (and from the misnamed Spainish Flu) didn't have any sons to take thier place in 1938. France was outnumbered by the Germans; they had to have the Belgians and British on thier side to make up the numbers. In a similar fasion, the French economy was still in a shambles from "The Great War"; they couldn't afford everything they needed. They were defensive oriented by nescessity, as being offensive minded in the last war had bankrupted them and slaughtered thier young men.

French soldiers fought bravely enough... but thier leadership was inept (or senile... take your pick). Germany had been forced by the Versaille Treaty to reduce thier military to a token force; they used this to purge thier officer corps of the deadwood. France had taken the deadwood and put them in charge of the Army...

[Ursula L]

Not really. If the Americans and British had been allowed to set the terms for the Germans, they wouldn't have been crippled as badly as they were. Leave Germany with a good, functioning economy and Hitler has no platform on which to base his appeals.

However, after all that France had been through in WWI, there was no chance that they'd be willing to take the back seat in planning the peace, and let Britain and the US set the terms. Particularly the US, which suffered the least in WWI (having joined so late), it would have been political death for a French leader to say to their people, "sorry, you've lost almost all your sons and brothers of a certain age, but we're going to let others set an easy peace for the enemy that killed them."

You can't write one of the major combatants out of a peace process.

[Jeff]

You can't write one of the major combatants out of a peace process.

I'm not saying they should have written the French out, but the British suffered a fair amount as well (I agree that the US should have had very little or no say in the agreements). Just having the French dial it back a little would have helped. There were punishments that could have been inflicted without wrecking the German economy.

(The French suffered more than a little during WW2, but the PTB were smart enough to keep Germany afloat that time.)

[Froborr]

The same was true of Yugoslavia and Iraq, suggesting that Britain treated its nation-building like a jigsaw puzzle.

Not to mention the Israel-Lebanon-Jordan clusterfuck we all know and love.

'course, France did much the same in Africa, hence all the civil wars there...

[Matt McIrvin]

Did Chamberlain have a prissy personality that would have served as a subtext for the Munich Analogy?

I don't know and have never heard any indication that he did, but this actually brings up an interesting point I'd never thought of before: to an American steeped in our cultural stereotypes, "Neville Chamberlain" is a sissy-sounding name. That's probably a large part of the reason the attack is so effective: comparing someone to Neville Chamberlain isn't a historical analogy at all, it's an acceptable way of saying "Wimpy McPrissypants".

[dr ngo]

"Neville Chamberlain" is a sissy-sounding name. That's probably a large part of the reason the attack is so effective: comparing someone to Neville Chamberlain isn't a historical analogy at all, it's an acceptable way of saying "Wimpy McPrissypants".

True enough, and a nice point, but if you stop to think about it, and try to abstract your actual historical consciousness, "Winston Churchill" is just as sissy-sounding a name, to my (American) ear. The difference is that WC didn't look sissified - the bulldog growl, the cigar, &c. - and had spent his whole life since hacking around in the Boer War as a young man proving that he was *not* the wuss his name might otherwise have employed. Which goes to show: but what?

On an earlier point, about the coming of WWI and the complications of communications and alliances and mustering or mobilizing troops, someone has suggested a hat-tip to the game Diplomacy, but for those of my generation - and all subsequent, I suspect - the source chiefly responsible for popularizing, if not inventing, this interpretation is Barbara Tuchman, in The Guns of August (1962), which was enormously popular and influential among anyone who thought anything about the situation.

And continuing my theme of unrelated and probably pointless observations: I went to college with Jeff Record, during the era in which The Guns of August came out. I'm just saying . . .

[Caravelle]

However, after all that France had been through in WWI, there was no chance that they'd be willing to take the back seat in planning the peace, and let Britain and the US set the terms. Particularly the US, which suffered the least in WWI (having joined so late), it would have been political death for a French leader to say to their people, "sorry, you've lost almost all your sons and brothers of a certain age, but we're going to let others set an easy peace for the enemy that killed them."

Hey, if they'd done that maybe some other country would have a "stabbed in the back by Versailles" mythology to cling to... Some people say if Hitler hadn't turned out in Germany he'd have turned out in France; that's probably wrong because anti-semitism and economic problems aren't the only things that made Hitler, but your scenario might make it more likely.

(The French suffered more than a little during WW2, but the PTB were smart enough to keep Germany afloat that time.)

Well, it depends on how you define "suffered". They were occupied, Jews other minorities and many resistance fighters (aka terrorists) were deported and/or tortured and/or killed, but as far as number of deaths goes there is no comparing to WWI.

Also, the Powers That Be presumably remembered the great results of breaking Germany last time. They didn't have that hindsight in 1914.

[Hawker Hurricane]

The French in WW2 didn't suffer as many casualties as the French in WW1, yes... they still suffered more military casualties during the months of May and June of 1940 than the U.S. military did for the whole war. Add in the non-military deaths, the victims of reprisals (Germans would wipe out entire villages to avenge a 'terrorist' attack; French partisans learned not to launch attacks near thier own villages), victims of Strategic Bombing by thier own side...

The problem of Versaille (not repeated in 1945) was they had forgotten Machiavelli: "Never do your enemy a small harm". Versaille punished Germany too much to forgive, and not enough to frighten them...

[Tom]

"No one smart enough to be capable of tying their own shoelaces is stupid enough to really believe what they're saying when they invoke this analogy."

Bush, McCain, et. al, tie their own shoelaces? They have people to do that for them.

[Fraser]

There's no question right-wingers are trying to rewrite history. Columnist Walter Wiliams has extended the concept of appeasement to include the fact the Allies didn't immediately bomb German when Hitler came to power, as if that was a serious option at the time (his real point is that we should be doing the same thing to all the Evil Empires out there now).
And as Praline points out, the fact the US was willing to trade with the Axis until 1941 (and some businesses, of course, kept on doing it) is conveniently dropped in favor of the image of the USA nobly waging war on evil just because it's evil. As I pointed out to someone once, if Bush is right that "Anyone not with us is against us," then since America wasn't initially with the Allies, that would logically imply they were with the Axis.

[Michael Llaneza]

Chamberlain did buy a year to re-arm, and the RAF was in a much better position in 1939 than in 1938. But the year wasn't to the overall gain of the Allies. When I make a Munich reference I mean that a known aggressor got what they wanted without being confronted. Ask the Kuwaitis how well we've learned from that. Very few Chamberlain supporters acknowledge that the threat of war could have been effective, that's not just hindsight. Taking a stand against Hitler was obviously necessary after Austria.

The extra year or so helped the Germans just as much as the British, probably more so. By absorbing Czechoslovakia they prevented a war on two fronts. Even worse, they acquired 219 Czech tanks which doubled their inventory of medium tanks (by 1939 standards anyway, the 206 Mk IIIs and the 35ts both had 47mm guns, the 141 Mk IVs had short 75s). The air threat against Britain only materialized when France collapsed and the Luftwaffe got bases within escort range of London. The Spitfire and Hurricane would have come into production during the war, with some Hurricane squadrons available at the start.

The big problem was the Eastern front would be in existence from the start. The generals hated the idea of going to war over Czechoslovakia, they thought they'd get whipped and they were quite likely right. A smaller German army facing a strong French army and a Czech one would have been in serious trouble even with the French army as it was in 1938.

The extra year got the French army about 800 light and medium tanks. It didn't help, since the Germans had vastly more strength available in 1940. Air power is the wildcard in the numbers I have, but the Luftwaffe wasn't as strong in 1938 as it was in 1939 - 260 Stukas instead of 600+.

This was the reverse of WWI, Germany was gaining strength relative to the Allies instead of losing it. And they had been for years. The reoccupation of the Rhineland would have been ideal. It was allowed by treaty and a good idea.

[Hawker Hurricane]

The problem of hindsight is that it's 20/20.

There were good, logical reasons for PM Chamberlin to do what he did: Military, political, economic. That the decisions, in hindsight, turned out to be wrong...

And it didn't help that the 800lb gorilla, otherwise known as the United States, basically told thier 'Allies' France and England that Germany was *your* problem until 1940. Or that the Soviet Union had sided with Germany in order to regain the territory it had lost at Versaille.