Rational Appeasement

Appeasement was arguably the only realistic option for British policy towards Germany between 1936 and 1938 when considering the fact that appeasement permitted Britain to rearm, thus preparing her more effectively for war, whilst also giving her the moral high ground. Nevertheless, for some “appeasement has become a dirty word, synonymous with weakness and defeatism in the face of naked aggression” since Britain’s policy of appeasement succumbed to Nazi aggression and failed to actually prevent war. Subsequently many historians argue that alternatives including a ‘Grand Alliance’ and military intervention in the Rhineland (1936) and Czechoslovakia (1938) would have been better options. However, when considering the several hindrances to these alternatives including political and public stance, financial difficulties and the depth of pacifist objection, it appears that appeasement was the only realistic option.

Appeasement may be regarded as a philosophy of the maintenance of peace; in political terms it refers to policy of conciliation with a potential aggressor, often with implications of sacrifice of principles (Oxford Dictionary). The policy of appeasement is one in which both Britain and France and many other nations took towards Nazi Germany and its expansionist aims during the late 1930s, it is one of the most controversial and criticized foreign policies in history (Gelernter D 2002:22). This paper argues that the appeasement policy was for most nations around the world in the 1930s a less challenging way to deal with the problem of Hitler. Nowadays it is a common view that if Britain and France would have taken a harder line against the

President Theodore Roosevelt, well known for his extraordinary, worldly diplomatic skills, was quoted as saying, “Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you will go far.” During the early twentieth century, he brandished that big stick, or convincingly threatened to, with remarkable efficacy in support of his country’s political objectives. The big stick that President Roosevelt carried with him as a diplomat and Commander in Chief was the superior power of the United States military. “Historically, power has been measured by such criteria as population size and territory, natural resources, economic strength, military force, and social stability. Hard power enables countries to wield carrots and sticks to get what they want.”1 Power, a nation’s ability to influence other states to achieve a desired outcome, manifests in numerous different forms or elements within a state. Powerful states strive to employ all the elements of power, including diplomacy, information, economic, cultural, and most importantly military to further their national objectives. Although a reasonable person might expect that a militarily powerful state routinely triumphs over the weaker state in matters of war, superior military power only guarantees a victory on paper, not in any real war. This paper will show that when one considers a state’s relative military power, weaker states are capable of defeating more powerful states that struggle to formulate

Appeasement, a foreign policy particularly prevalent in the period of time leading up until the outbreak of World War Two, undoubtedly played a role in the ignition of the second world war, however the extent if this role and the impact it had a cause for the war is debatable. Appeasement was a policy employed as a preventative measure to stop the outbreak of war, at a time when the horrors of the First World War were still affecting European society, and involved making concessions to the opposition, in this case Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. Whilst it is clear that Appeasement was a failure as it did not manage to prevent the outbreak of another war, some historians argue that it in fact was one of the causes of the war. This aspect of the debate was ignited in 1961 by notable historian A.J.P. Taylor, when he asserted1 that the outbreak of War in Europe in 1939 was as much the fault of the politicians of Europe and their persistence with Appeasement, which gradually allowed Hitler and Nazi Germany more freedom then the terms dictated in the Treaty of Versailles and eventually paved the way for militarization and the outbreak of war, as it was in fact Nazi Germany’s. The most commonly accepted views of Appeasement are that of Historians such as Norman Rich who asserted2 that Nazi ideology and Hitler’s aggressive foreign policy made the outbreak of war unavoidable. However, to form a conclusion about these debates, we must first understand the policy of Appeasement and its

Britain in the 1930s followed a policy of appeasement to retain peace between countries and stop the fascist powers of Italy and Germany causing disruption. There is a subsequent amount of evidence to suggest the policy of appeasement was a failure due to events including the Abyssinian Crisis, the Reoccupation of the Rhineland, The Anglo-German Naval Agreement, the Spanish Civil War and the Anschluss. Although it can also be argued that Britain had some success with preventing the fascist powers making appeasement successful.

"Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy, taking into consideration the agreement, which has been already reached in principle for the cession to Germany of the Sudeten German territory, " Source 3 from The Munich Pact. The United States made the right descision to stay isolated because they would get more negative effects than positive effects. Britain and French should have not let Hitler do what he would do and do something about it. Britain and French practiced appeasement because they gave Hitler everything he asked for. The U.S. practiced isolationism due too the loss of 100,000 americans soldiers lost in WW1, so they decided to stay out wars, etc.

(Henriksen, 1999) The international community could attempt to dissuade the rogue nation from engaging in an act of war by threatening military retaliation. Tyrants have historically treated conciliatory actions in response to warlike behavior with contempt. For example, Hitler interpreted Neville Chamberlain’s agreement to the Munich Pact as appeasement and weakness, while Moscow removed its missiles out of Cuba in response to Kennedy’s political resolve and our country’s show of

4.Bell, Mark S. “Beyond Emboldenment. The Effects of Nuclear Weapons on State Foreign Policy.” Conference Papers—American Political Science Association, 1/1/2014, pp.

Classical deterrence prevented a nuclear exchange between America and the Soviet Union because both nations had well defined interests, they effectively communicated their intentions and both were willing and able to use the credible threat of mutual assured destruction. This strategy of “deterrence by punishment” made the cost of using nuclear weapons excessive in comparison to the benefit. This strategy cannot be applied successfully against today’s non-state

No nation is ever merely able to act at its people’s whim; a system of alliances and treaties has formed over the course of history, and breaking any of those agreements can mean anything from a small conflict to a large-scale war. One such

The British and French policy of appeasement in the 1930s towards Adolf Hitler and Germany is historically viewed as a feeble attempt to avoid war. In their essay, Wishful Thinking or Buying Time? The Logic of British Appeasement in the 1930s, Norrin M. Rispsman and Jack S. Levy analyze appeasement purely as a tool of statecraft, and not under what circumstances appeasement can be a successful policy. They argue that appeasement is not only used to reduce the possibility of war with an adversary, but it can be used to conserve resources against a more immediate threat, isolate an adversary, or to buy off time to build up a deterrence against that adversary (151). Delving beyond the typology of appeasement, they analyze historical British documents

This echoes the remarks by Israeli diplomat Abba Eban, who said, “Détente is not a friendship. It is not an alliance. It is rooted in a recognition of difference, and inspired by a premonition of disaster. The word can only be applied to an adversarial relationship. It accepts, as a reality, the fact that values and interests are in conflict, not in harmony” (Bowker and Williams 7). Both these statements acknowledge that détente is not possible between friendly, allied nations, but rather only available to states whose competing interests and inherently tense relations require both nations to come to some mutual understanding of the aims of the other nation and to come to a type of agreement to avoid future conflict. In other words, détente requires inherently unfriendly nations to put aside some of their differences and disputes to find areas of agreement to foster some element of cooperation in their relations with each other.

During the early parts of the Cold War, American psychologist Charles Osgood noticed that the hegemons of the bipolar world faced many obstacles to cooperation, mainly due to the psychological perception and hostile images that the United States and the Soviet Union had of each other. Because of contrasting ideologies, beliefs, and propaganda, it was near impossible for the competing powers to trust each other. This made even innocent gestures and concessions viewed with doubt and not taken at face value. Osgood therefore developed the GRIT strategy, which aimed at using small but significant unilateral concessions to build mutual trust between the two powers, so that tensions could be reduced and negotiations could be made in good faith (Osgood, 1962). In the years that followed, there were different attempts made by both powers to use concessions in this way, yet a number of them were viewed with extreme skepticism (Kaiser, 1980). In this essay, I argue that, while many components of the GRIT strategy were attempted throughout the cold war, it was not until Mikhail Gorbachev came to power that it was properly applied in the presence of sufficient favorable conditions.

So the theory suggests that because democracies externalise their interstate norms, they resolve disputes with other states like them in a peaceful way. Hence domestic inner-state policies influence their foreign policies. However, this proclamation is disputed by C. Layne who argues that the ‘crux’ of this theory is that if the assumption that democracies promote their peaceful inner-state norms and beliefs, then they shouldn’t ever threaten other democracies, especially not in a crisis. I will use the case study of the ‘Trent affair’ to provide evidence of how war was avoided. I will argue that in this case, war was avoided not because of the domestic pacific influence on foreign policy but because of other strategic reasons.

Everybody has a choice, but it’s up to the individual to the make a decisions on what they choice to do in a positive way, in every event that takes place in their life on an everyday basis. In today’s society dealing with Rational Choice a question always comes into play on why people engage in criminal behavior, but who really knows and most people wonder is it who they surrender their selves around in their social life or could it have been where they grow up and what they sense as a child with their parents or in just in the neighborhood. But that’s not just the end we then begin with when crimes do take place how can we show the criminal and society how the Criminal Justice System use it to deterred crime from happen and make people think twice of commit a crime again. Now I’m going to talk about these two topic more broad and let you in on how Rational Choice and Deterrence Theory around the world most places then other plays a great big part in people everyday life, and how you can see from the beginning who was the creators to make these great idea up and put them into play, to what is being done, and even more if this theories really works in the world that we live in now.