I don’t think ceding territory would be a viable solution, as this would be the exact same strategy as appeasement of Nazi Germany (though some have recently suggested Chamberlain’s appeasement may have been a strategic choice to buy time for British rearmament). It failed to stop tyrants before, and importantly—it’s not something you can take back. It’s an extreme version of giving a bully your lunch money before they beat you up—you become a repeat target for life.
With NATO neutrality, you can at least take it back (in theory) if Putin misbehaves. Russia has stated that Ukraine NATO membership is a red line for them, so an agreement regarding it seems like something that should have been discussed. I don’t know if it was or if there are certain reasons it wasn’t—I’m not privy to any diplomatic discussions or strategy.
There are many reasons why appeasement and Neville Chamberlain make a poor comparison for most modern conflicts and are wildly overused as a historical analogy. One of the biggest is that Hitler was dead set on taking over the entire world due to idiosyncrasies of his worldview, era, and national history, and arguably capable of it given the size of his armies and absence of nuclear weapons at the time. There are strong reasons to believe that neither Xi Jinping nor Vladimir Putin has such ambitions or capabilities. Even if the United States had “appeased” Putin’s desire to seize Ukraine (which it has not), it is unlikely Putin wants anything to do with further war against NATO countries, that might bring the full force of the American military down upon him. Indeed, part of the reason he’s fighting for Ukraine now is that he knows that, were it to ever enter NATO, it would become untouchable to him.
As importantly, such a worldview would preclude ANY concessions to rival powers threatening American primacy in an increasingly multipolar world, which seems like a maximalist approach incompatible with the give and take of real diplomacy. There are plenty of historical examples of mature diplomacy that involved concessions to autocratic regimes in response to a threat of force. Take the Cuban missile crisis. The Soviet Union threatened the United States by placing nuclear missiles on Cuba—and in order to defuse the situation, JFK arguably “rewarded” that threat by agreeing to remove American missiles from Turkey. This seems like an EA thing to have done that did not result in a slippery slope of escalating aggression. Instead of a simplistic “never give in” mindset, we should be mindful of the broader balance of power to keep our ambitions in line with our capabilities, and assert ourselves only when and where we can likely improve outcomes by doing so.
It’s important to distinguish between concessions. Removing missiles that can strike a country in exchange for removing missiles that can strike another country is VERY different than helping a dictator to take over parts of a country when they threaten violence. Once you start, where are you going to stop? The problem also isn’t just Putin, the problem is every tyrant watching the response here. Most of the world is not part of NATO. If Russia succeeds, China’s government may be emboldened to go after Taiwan, for example.
I think the difference with GB/Germany is that the West is unwilling to provide meaningful military support for Ukraine, in the form of troops on the ground. From Ukraine’s perspective I think this is the worst of both worlds, because the West won’t actually stand up the bully, but also isn’t willing to engage with it. This has resulted in war.
This is what I meant by Ukraine being in an unusual position: it is sufficiently West-aligned that it won’t give into Putin’s demands, and he wants to cause trouble, but its lack of Nato membership means that US, UK etc won’t actually provide the support it needs against Russia.
Or to put it another way, I think the current outcome is a form of appeasement because we aren’t actually willing to fight.
I’m not sure I would call giving weapons to Ukraine, sanctioning Russia, and hunting down war supporting Oligarchs’ assets as appeasement. It’s not the maximum response but it is an escalation of response to Putin’s attack. It might be enough to scare elites who support Putin without causing further escalation, which is dangerous since we are dealing with a country that has nuclear weapons, which wasn’t the case with the Nazi regime in WW2.
I don’t think ceding territory would be a viable solution, as this would be the exact same strategy as appeasement of Nazi Germany (though some have recently suggested Chamberlain’s appeasement may have been a strategic choice to buy time for British rearmament). It failed to stop tyrants before, and importantly—it’s not something you can take back. It’s an extreme version of giving a bully your lunch money before they beat you up—you become a repeat target for life.
With NATO neutrality, you can at least take it back (in theory) if Putin misbehaves. Russia has stated that Ukraine NATO membership is a red line for them, so an agreement regarding it seems like something that should have been discussed. I don’t know if it was or if there are certain reasons it wasn’t—I’m not privy to any diplomatic discussions or strategy.
There are many reasons why appeasement and Neville Chamberlain make a poor comparison for most modern conflicts and are wildly overused as a historical analogy. One of the biggest is that Hitler was dead set on taking over the entire world due to idiosyncrasies of his worldview, era, and national history, and arguably capable of it given the size of his armies and absence of nuclear weapons at the time. There are strong reasons to believe that neither Xi Jinping nor Vladimir Putin has such ambitions or capabilities. Even if the United States had “appeased” Putin’s desire to seize Ukraine (which it has not), it is unlikely Putin wants anything to do with further war against NATO countries, that might bring the full force of the American military down upon him. Indeed, part of the reason he’s fighting for Ukraine now is that he knows that, were it to ever enter NATO, it would become untouchable to him.
As importantly, such a worldview would preclude ANY concessions to rival powers threatening American primacy in an increasingly multipolar world, which seems like a maximalist approach incompatible with the give and take of real diplomacy. There are plenty of historical examples of mature diplomacy that involved concessions to autocratic regimes in response to a threat of force. Take the Cuban missile crisis. The Soviet Union threatened the United States by placing nuclear missiles on Cuba—and in order to defuse the situation, JFK arguably “rewarded” that threat by agreeing to remove American missiles from Turkey. This seems like an EA thing to have done that did not result in a slippery slope of escalating aggression. Instead of a simplistic “never give in” mindset, we should be mindful of the broader balance of power to keep our ambitions in line with our capabilities, and assert ourselves only when and where we can likely improve outcomes by doing so.
It’s important to distinguish between concessions. Removing missiles that can strike a country in exchange for removing missiles that can strike another country is VERY different than helping a dictator to take over parts of a country when they threaten violence. Once you start, where are you going to stop? The problem also isn’t just Putin, the problem is every tyrant watching the response here. Most of the world is not part of NATO. If Russia succeeds, China’s government may be emboldened to go after Taiwan, for example.
I think the difference with GB/Germany is that the West is unwilling to provide meaningful military support for Ukraine, in the form of troops on the ground. From Ukraine’s perspective I think this is the worst of both worlds, because the West won’t actually stand up the bully, but also isn’t willing to engage with it. This has resulted in war.
This is what I meant by Ukraine being in an unusual position: it is sufficiently West-aligned that it won’t give into Putin’s demands, and he wants to cause trouble, but its lack of Nato membership means that US, UK etc won’t actually provide the support it needs against Russia.
Or to put it another way, I think the current outcome is a form of appeasement because we aren’t actually willing to fight.
I’m not sure I would call giving weapons to Ukraine, sanctioning Russia, and hunting down war supporting Oligarchs’ assets as appeasement. It’s not the maximum response but it is an escalation of response to Putin’s attack. It might be enough to scare elites who support Putin without causing further escalation, which is dangerous since we are dealing with a country that has nuclear weapons, which wasn’t the case with the Nazi regime in WW2.
That’s fair, it’s not appeasement, but neither is it what people wanted of Chamberlain in WW2.