Ukraine and the Lessons of Munich

President Trump’s proposed peace negotiations for Ukraine will be tricky. The campaign vow to end fighting in 24 hours is gone, replaced by an ambitious, but more feasible, mandate for special envoy Lt Gen (ret.) Keith Kellogg to end the war in 100 days.

Part of Kellogg’s challenge will be that in a negotiation any pre-determined timeline can help the other side. As any negotiator will tell you, the more obvious one side’s eagerness for a deal, the harder the other side will push. Furthermore, any discussion over-focused on Ukrainian concessions may raise the prospect of another “Munich.” And a Munich-style capitulation is precisely what Putin seeks.

Munich is still regarded as the gold standard of betrayals. On September 29, 1938, the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, appalled by the prospect of a wider war, helped France to weasel out of its commitment to defend Czechoslovakia under the Treaty of Alliance and Friendship between France and Czechoslovakia of 1924, by signing a deal to appease Nazi Germany. 

The price for peace was the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, which surrendered its German-speaking areas — the Sudetenland — and with it a formidable network of Czech fixed defenses. Hitler’s territorial grab was followed by smaller annexations of Czechoslovakian territory by Hungary and Poland. 

A few additional complexities in this case are worth noting: large European powers like France, Britain, the Soviet Union, and even Italy, failed to coordinate opposition to German aggression. They were hobbled by mutual suspicion. Each felt that they would be left alone to face Germany’s wrath if they sought to defend Czechoslovakia. France and Britain were particularly sensitive to the perceived unwillingness of their populations to engage in another war. Each nation’s leaders believed concessions were necessary and desirable.

Czechoslovakia’s smaller neighbors, rather than resisting Germany’s aggression on principle, sought the temporary palliative of territorial gain from Czechoslovakia’s corpse. For Poland and Hungary, this ignoble opportunism would haunt them when German troops invaded and occupied their countries in 1939 and 1944 respectively.

After all, as everyone knows, Hitler’s hunger was not satisfied with the acquisition of the Sudetenland. Instead, his appetite grew with eating. Peace was temporary. To paraphrase a warning often attributed to Churchill, British leaders, given the choice between war and dishonor, chose dishonor and got war anyway.

Churchill’s putative warning forms the basis of the modern understanding of Munich; cowardly concessions in the face of the threat of violence only lead to greater violence down the road. Sensing weakness, aggressive authoritarians will push for further concessions rather than honor their commitments to peace. Through concessions, cowardly leaders put themselves at a disadvantage where they must confront a stronger foe later on. The implication is that it’s best to fight now to avoid harder fighting later.

The power of these lessons, coupled with the horrors unleashed by the start of World War II in 1939 make warnings against new Munichs commonplace in discussions of the contours of a peace agreement to end the fighting in Ukraine. Ukraine, its territory, and its security cannot be sold out in the vain pursuit of a peace that will not hold, to curtail a Russian appetite that will not be satisfied.

But there is an important wrinkle to the conventional account of Munich that adds an important domestic element to the case. While Chamberlain, Daladier, and Mussolini discussed the partition of Czechoslovakia with Hitler, the Führer’s generals were plotting a coup to overthrown him and end the rule of the Nazi Party in Germany.

In 1938, Germany’s war ministry and intelligence services believed the country was not prepared for war. They considered Czechoslovakia’s defenses formidable and an open conflict against Britain and France unwinnable. As a result, they viewed Hitler’s aggression as a dangerous gamble that was driving the country to ruin. Leading the plot was General Ludwig Beck (who until August 1938 had been Chief of the General Staff) and Hans Oster, the deputy head of German Military Intelligence (the Abwehr.) Among the conspirators were many general officers in senior positions including: Walther von Brauchitsch, Franz Halder, and the head of the Abwehr, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris.

Capitulation at Munich cut the legs from under the conspirators. Without a credible threat of war, there was no way to mobilize a critical mass against the Nazi regime. The plot collapsed. This is an often-overlooked lesson from Munich, but one that Western leaders should keep in mind while considering negotiations with Putin. 

Authoritarian regimes are often fundamentally brittle, as recently demonstrated in Syria. The less successful their endeavors internationally, the greater potential for pressure against them domestically.

This vulnerability means that giving dictators diplomatic victories, especially when they are not in a genuine position of advantage, handicaps any sort of domestic opposition and only allows them to consolidate further power over decisions of war and peace. Through this consolidation, they become able to wage larger and more ambitious military campaigns.

In the case of Russia today, Putin’s hold on power seems iron-tight, but handing him victory — or something like a victory in Ukraine — will only allow him to consolidate that power further. It will only erode whatever remains of opposition to his rule. It will not only provide a physical base for further aggression, but a domestic political foundation for that aggression.

If we are to learn from Munich, we must consider how international concessions to aggressive authoritarians plays with their domestic audiences, how it increases their power and how it undercuts the ability of others within their countries to wrest back control of decisions over war and peace. 

If there is a lesson from Munich, it should be that even when dictators seem at their most powerful and menacing, they are often more vulnerable and precarious than they can ever admit or know.

Andrew R. Novo is a professor of strategic studies at the National Defense University in Washington, DC. 

The views expressed are entirely his and do not reflect the views of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense, or the United States Government.

Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the position or views of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis.