By Alfred De Zayas, Counterpunch, August 9, 2024
When one says appeasement, one would normally think of dialogue, compromise, moderation, civilization. Personally, I think of détente, rapprochement, truce, reconciliation. I think of the necessity of listening to the other side, trying to understand the origin of grievances, exercising patience and perseverance in the spirit of the legendary Swiss mediator Nicolas de Flue[1]. I also think of the Dutch common sense philosopher Baruch Spinoza, his Ethics and his Tractatus Politicus: “Sedulo curavi, humanas actiones non ridere, non lugere, neque detestari, sed intelligere” (I have labored carefully not to mock, lament, or execrate human actions, but to understand them). The opposite of appeasement is sabre-rattling, intransigence, self-righteousness, provocation[2], escalation.
At first sight the word appeasement implies a civilized approach to solving conflicts in the sense of Article 2(3) of the UN Charter, which stipulates “All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.” I also think of the prohibition of the threat of the use of force embedded in the United Nations Charter, e.g. in the jus cogens Article 2(4). Indeed, every escalation of tensions, every attempt at encirclement of another country, the imposition of unilateral coercive measures, the sabotage of pipelines[3] — all entail a threat, sometimes an existential menace that may lead to the outbreak of war or the needless continuation thereof.
In the Orwellian world we live in, appeasement has been transformed into a derogatory term, and politicians who want to promote peace through negotiation, who aspire to live according to the UN Charter are sometimes labelled “appeasers”. Yes, as we all know, it is much easier to engage in mud-slinging and ad hominem attacks against persons who hold different opinions than to venture into rational argumentation. Although appeasement has nothing to do with cowardice, treason or surrender, the term appeaser has become a rude dysphemistic epithet.
Going back to basics, it is obvious that appeasement is the process of negotiating a compromise, a quid pro quo aimed to calm the waters and contribute to sustainable solutions to burning disputes. Appeasement is another word for prevention through diplomacy, respectful diplomacy that listens and does not dictate, civilized diplomacy in the sense of George F. Kennan’s opinion article of 5 February 1997 in the New York Times: “A Fateful Error”[4].
As a professor of international law who also holds a doctorate in mediaeval and modern history, I try to see legal issues in historical perspective and to identify pertinent historical precedents. Indeed, the manipulation of language and hijacking of meaning were not first detected by Aldous Huxley and George Orwell. Propaganda has been part and parcel of the human epic since Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Rome. It reached a high point during the French Revolution and the hyperboles of Robespierre and his infamous Comité de Salut Public. Propaganda, incitement to hatred against the “enemy” and relentless provocation were at the origin of the First and Second World Wars, the Vietnam War, the Iraq war, etc.
On the one side we recognize the use of euphemisms, like calling an invasion, a real hot war, a “special military operation”[5], or for that matter the invention of benevolent-sounding labels like “Operation Enduring Freedom”, Urgent Fury, Just Cause, Desert Storm, Infinite Reach, Iraqi Freedom, New Dawn, etc. – Such cheap propagandistic etiquettes are intended to render palatable brazen aggression. Other euphemisms include the relabelling of the US Department of War into the Department of Defence in 1949, the same year that NATO was established. But let’s be honest with ourselves, when has the DoD engaged in defence? Surely not in Cuba, Grenada, Haiti, Iraq, Nicaragua, Panama, Libya, Syria, Venezuela, Vietnam, etc. Another obvious trivialization of subversion and illegal intervention in the internal affairs of other States is the invention of the benign term “colour revolution” to camouflage a vulgar coup d’état.
What seems to be novel today is the proliferation not only of euphemisms, but of the opposite of euphemisms – the deliberate contamination of positive terms by loading them with negative connotations. It entails the distortion of history to imply that a common-sense peace mission, such as that conducted by EU rotating President Victor Orban in Kiev, Moscow, Beijing, Washington, D.C., in June 2024 constituted “appeasement” of an “aggressor”, something somehow sordid, treasonous, unethical.
As the President of the EU Commission Ursula von der Leyen said: “This peace mission was nothing but an appeasement mission”[6] She warned further on X: “appeasement will not stop Putin. Only unity and determination will pave the path to a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine.” What utter nonsense! This is precisely the self-righteous and self-serving intransigence that prolongs wars and hinders common sense solutions. It seems that the US and EU have manoeuvred themselves into a straightjacket of hegemonic ideology that prevents them from using the tools of diplomacy. It seems that the “West” is locked into an unrealistic expectation of ultimate “victory” over “evil” that may end with total failure, as the US ventures in Vietnam and Afghanistan ended. The US “missions” did not only fail, they caused the deaths of millions of human beings.
Contrary to what von der Leyen claims, Victor Orban’s peace mission was very much in keeping with the letter and spirit of the UN Charter, with the erga omnes obligation of all UN member states to support peace initiatives and to work for reconciliation and reconstruction. Indeed, in the nuclear age, Orban’s “appeasement” is the only rational policy to save the planet from Apocalypse.
It should be clear to any observer that the EU refusal to negotiate peace in Ukraine constitutes a blatant violation of article 2(3) of the UN Charter and a threat to international peace and security within the meaning of article 39 of the UN Charter. This is something that UN Secretary General should say, calling a spade a spade. But he is too cautious. The US and EU/NATO intransigence is diametrically opposed to the international legal obligation to refrain from provocation and escalation. Furthermore, it contravenes article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which protects the right to life, and article 20 which stipulates: “Any propaganda for war shall be prohibited by law.”
The hijacking of the term “appeasement”: The Munich Agreement of 30 September 1938
The term “appeasement” has been hijacked by politicians who are bent on war and who attempt to defame statesmen and diplomats who endeavour to terminate armed conflict by ceasefire and negotiation. But how is it that war-mongers have been able to poison the notion of appeasement? This is simple and simplistic. It suffices to make a reference to the all-purpose bogeyman – Adolf Hitler. Conjure the image of “evil personified” and accuse the potential peacemaker to be subservient. As British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain has gone down in history as Hitler’s “appeaser”, Victor Orban is today being accused of serving Vladimir Putin’s interests. We saw this tactic in the 1930’s and the historiography of the Second World War has perpetuated the caricatures and stereotypes, disseminated by Elizabeth Wiskemann and other “historians” and cemented by the complicit mainstream media.[7]
The notion of “appeasement” is mostly associated with the Munich Conference of September 1938, which essentially provided for the separation of the German-speaking districts of Czechoslovakia (3.5 million human beings) and their attachment to Germany. No one seems to want to remember that the incorporation of these ethnic German districts into the newly created State of Czechoslovakia in 1919 was very controversial and that many had warned that such a large German “minority” in the new State would prove indigestible and cause tensions that could lead to a new European war.
Only few historians have been willing to recognize that the Munich Agreement was not a “landgrab” by Adolf Hitler, but that it actually implemented most of the US proposal at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, where Professor Archibald Cary Coolidge (Harvard) presented a paper on behalf of the American delegation, based on Wilson’s 14 points and the principle of self-determination. Coolidge argued that it would be unwise to force so many “Sudeten Germans” under an unfriendly Czech rule, when they were demanding self-determination as had been granted to the Czechs, the Slovaks, the Slovenians, the Croatians, etc. Coolidge produced maps that would draw the frontiers of the new Czechoslovak State in a way that would keep most Germans within the new, vastly reduced frontiers of post-war Germany and Austria. In a report dated 10 March 1919 to the American Commission to Negotiate Peace, dated 10 March 1919, Cooledge noted:
“To grant to the Czechoslovaks all the territory they demand would be not only and injustice to millions of people unwilling to come under Czech rule, but it would also be dangerous and perhaps fatal to the future of the new state … The blood shed on March 3rd when Czech soldiers in several towns fired on German crowds[8] … was shed in a manner that is not easily forgiven … For the Bohemia of the future to contain within its limits great numbers of deeply discontented inhabitants who will have behind them across the border tens of millions of sympathizers of their own race wil be a perilous experiment and one which can hardly promise success in the long run.”[9]
In 1918 and 1919 the Sudeten Germans held referenda and appealed to the negotiators at Paris. On 9 October 1918 the members of the Austrian parliament made the following statement: “We recognize the right of self-determination of the Slavic and Romanic peoples of Austria and claim the same right for the German-Austrians…We declare that the German people of the Austrian Empire will oppose a dictated determination of the status of any of its parts.. Against any such attempt the German-Austrians will defend their right to self-determination by all means at their disposal.”[10]
When the German-Austrians peacefully demonstrated in the streets of Prague, Brno, etc. — 54 of them were massacred by Czech militias. I document this in chapter 2 of my book Nemesis at Potsdam[11]. As had been predicted by several politicians at the time and documented by historians like A.J.P. Taylor[12], the Second World War was partly caused by the serial violation of the League of Nations’ Minorities Treaties by the governments of Poland (where two million Germans had been left outside the vastly reduced German borders, approximately a fourth of its territory having been ceded to Poland) and Czechoslovakia. The then Council of the League of Nations repeatedly found Poland and Czechoslovakia at fault – as did the Permanent Court of International Justice. But nothing was done to correct the situation.[13]
British historian Arnold Toynbee wrote in the Economist in 1937 about the violation of fundamental human rights of Sudeten Germans. In 1938 Lord Runciman undertook an official mission to Czechoslovakia, which confirmed what Toynbee (and Coolidge) were saying.
Upon returning from a trip to Czechoslovakia in 1937, Professor Arnold Toynbee observed in a widely discussed article for The Economist:
“The truth is that even the most genuine and old-established democratic way of life is exceedingly difficult to apply when you are dealing with a minority that does not want to live under your rule. We know very well that we ourselves were never able to apply our own British brand of democracy to our attempt to govern the Irish. And in Czechoslovakia today the methods by which the Czechs are keeping the upper hand over the Sudetendeutsch are not democratic…”[14]
In August 1938 Viscount Walter Runciman undertook a peace mission to Czechoslovakia. In his thorough report to the British Crown Lord Runciman concluded: “I believe these complaints to be in the main justified. Even as late as the time of my Mission I could find no readiness on the part of the Czechoslovak Government to remedy them on anything like an adequate scale… for many reasons …the feeling among the Sudeten Germans until about three or four years ago was one of hopelessness …I regard their turning for hep towards their kinsmen and their eventual desire to join the Reich as a natural development in the circumstances.”[15]
Indeed, there are some parallels between the Munich Agreement of 1938 and the Minsk Agreements of 2014/2015. These agreements had aimed at removing the sources of animosity between the parties and thereby preventing the outbreak of open hostilities (over the self-determination of the Sudeten Germans) and in the second case at stopping the armed conflict already ongoing in the Donbass. The Munich Agreement can be seen as appeasement in the positive sense of the term and should not be denigrated, because the Sudeten Germans, whose ancestors had lived in Bohemia and Moravia for 700 years, did have a right to self-determination. Unfortunately, Hitler himself broke the Munich agreement in March 1939 when he marched into Prague and converted Bohemia and Moravia into a “Protectorate”, thereby denying them self-determination. The Minsk Agreements would have ensured the territorial integrity of Ukraine and paved the way to peace in the Donbass if only Ukraine had ceased shelling Donetsk and Lugansk and if the Ukrainian government had sat down with the Russian-Ukrainians of the Donbass and agreed on internal self-determination that would have guaranteed the rights of the Russian-Ukrainians within the borders of Ukraine. Had Ukraine implemented the Minsk Agreements, there would have been no Russian invasion on 24 February 2022. But it bears repeating, the Ukrainian war did not begin in February 2022 but eight years earlier, on 22 February 2014 with the US and EU supported coup d’état against the democratically elected President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych[16].
Conclusion
Appeasement is not a feeble or cowardly policy. On the contrary, it is precisely what the UN Charter requires in its preamble, articles 1, 2 etc. Appeasement is an expression of civilization, not of hegemonial imperatives and phobias, but a reconnecting with reality, bearing in mind that Russia exists, that Palestine exists, and that these peoples also have a right to live.
More than anything else, humanity needs practical appeasement in the sense of give-and-take, recognizing that major errors, miscalculations and crimes have been committed by all sides in the Ukraine and Palestine contexts. Especially we in the West must enhance our faculty of self-criticism and understand that if we provoke others, if we humiliate others, if we try to take advantage of others, inevitably there will be consequences. Therefore, appeasement must mean acceptance of the realities on the ground, as the diplomats at the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 acknowledged after thirty years of devastating wars and eight million deaths, as the diplomats at the Congress of Vienna 1814-15 recognized following the Napoleonic adventures. It is time to take seriously the blueprints for peace formulated by members of the Global Majority, inter alia by the South Africans and the Chinese[17].
In the context of the war in Ukraine, it seems that Slovakia and Hungary are the only EU member states that take the UN Charter seriously and respect the Purposes and Principles of the Organization as laid out in articles 1 and 2. Thus, they are “appeasers” in the positive sense of the term. The rest of the EU, UK and US are inveterate war mongers. The US and EU/NATO display contempt for the interests of mankind when they intransigently refuse to negotiate a ceasefire, break supply chains and contribute to famine in the world. The US and its European vassals further disrupt the world economy through illegal unilateral coercive measures, and shock the world financial architecture by pretending to confiscate Russian sovereign assets. This will hurt the US and EU more than Russia. Most importantly, let us recognize that the US and NATO endanger the entire planet by constantly escalating the Ukraine conflict and risking a nuclear conflagration.
There can be no peace in Ukraine until the US and NATO acknowledge three core reasons for the invasion: (a) constant provocation by NATO, (b) complicity in the coup d’état on 22 February 2014; (c) vulgar Russophobia, the violation of the self-determination of Russian majorities in Crimea and Donbass.
Peace in Palestine can be achieved by implementing the Orders issued by the International Court of Justice in the South Africa v. Israel case[18]. I remember the positive impulses given by one of my few remaining heroes — President Jimmy Carter in his books We can have Peace in the Holy Land, and Palestine: Peace not Apartheid.
Appeasement is a good word. Let us practice it.
Notes.
[1] https://mediate.com/news/a-common-sense-approach-to-mediation-for-peace/https://www.houseofswitzerland.org/swissstories/history/st-nicholas-flue-genuine-swiss-legend
[2] https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/05/10/provocation-is-not-an-innocent-act/
[3] https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/the-nord-stream-pipelines-and-the
[4] https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/05/opinion/a-fateful-error.html
[5] специальная военная операция. https://press.un.org/en/2022/sc14803.doc.htm
[6] https://www.politico.eu/article/ursula-von-der-leyen-slams-viktor-orban-trip-russia/
[7]Elizabeth Wiskemann, Undeclared War, Oxford 1939; Macmillan, New York 1967. Lawrence Thompson, The greatest Treason. The untold story of Munich, William Morrow & Co, New York, 1968. Radomir Luza, The transfer of the Sudeten Germans, New York University Press, 1964.
[8] https://kulturstiftung.org/zeitstrahl/die-niederschlagung-der-sudetendeutschen-unabhaengigkeitsbewegung
The killing of peaceful demonstrators started on 3 March 1919 and continued through 4 March. Here the principle of self-determination of peoples and Wilson’s 14 Points were flagrantly violated.
[9] Papers relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, The Paris Peace Conference, 1919, vol. 2, p. 379. Alfred de Zayas; nemesis at Potsdam, (Routledge), p. 22.
[10] Dokumentansammlung zur Sudetenfrage, 2nd ed., 1961, p. 45
[11] First and second editions, Routledge, London 1977, 1979. Third and fourth editions University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln 1989. German edition Die Anglo-Amerikaner und die Vertreibung der Deutschen, 1-6 editions C.H.Beck Munich, dtv, Ulstein. 8th revised edition Herbig, Munich 2005.
[12] The Origins of the Second World War, 1961, reissued by Fawcett books in 1969. 9
[13] This is not unlike the failure to implement the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinions of 9 July 2004 and 19 July 2024 concerning Palestine.
[14] The Economist, 10 July 1937, p. 72. Alfred de Zayas, Nemesis at Potsdam (Routledge) pp. 28ff.
[15] Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1919-1939, 3rd series, vol. 2, pp. 675-7.
[17] https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3273159/chinas-ukraine-point-man-li-hui-drums-support-peace-plan-global-south
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-24/here-s-china-s-12-point-proposal-on-how-to-end-russia-s-war-in-ukraine
https://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202302/28/WS63fd5426a31057c47ebb12f8.html
One Response
I love this sorely-need reframing of the term ‘appeasement’, which needs to be honored!
I should also mention that there were a few typos, including the last word.