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]]]]]]]]]]]]]] CHAMBERLAIN'S PERSPECTIVE LIVES ON [[[[[[[[[[[[
By Seth Cropsey, (9/23/88)
Deputy Undersecretary of the Navy
From The Wall Street Journal, 23 September 1988, p. 18:4
[Kindly Uploaded by Freeman 10602PANC]
Fifty years ago next week, meeting in Munich, British Prime
Minister Neville Chamberlain [1869-1940; PM 1937-1940] tried and
failed to appease Hitler. Since then, nothing has changed the
fact that only strength deters aggression.
But in the intervening years, so much criticism has been
poured upon Chamberlain's failed policies that they have
dissolved into caricature. Across the political spectrum, we
divorce ourselves from Chamberlain's mistakes; the stout
anti-Nazi militarism of his great opposite, Winston Churchill
[1874-1965], is admired even by the most liberal of today's
anti-militarists. In this atmosphere, it is increasingly
difficult to recognize the similarities of current opinion in the
West to the views that plunged Europe into World War II.
Nineteen eighty-eight is assuredly not 1938, in economic or
foreign affairs. But the road to war that lead through Munich
was paved by three specific misjudgments that still threaten to
trip us today.
Chamberlain's first mistake was his belief that a new age of
chemical weaponry and aerial warfare in the 20th century had
changed war so radically that military conflict between great
powers was unthinkable.
"War today ... is a different thing not only in degree, but in
kind, from what it used to be," Chamberlain explained in October
1938. Chemical weapons brought the potential for indiscriminate
destruction of civilian life as well as military targets; air
warfare erased the security of distance, borders and time.
Chamberlain's was a harrowing vision of "people burrowing
underground, trying to escape from poison gas, knowing that at
any hour of the day or night death or mutilation was ready to
come upon them."
FAMILIAR ASSUMPTION
We should not underestimate the emotional impact of such a
view, rooted in 1938's still-vivid memory of 1918's chemical
warfare. World War I had brought evil, and future war would be
worse. In modern war, Chamberlain argued, "whichever side may
call itself the victor, there are no winners, but all are
losers."
If today's horror of nuclear warfare makes this perspective
familiar, there is something equally familiar about Chamberlain's
assumption that other major players would share his views. Like
a moral technocrat weighing his adversary in the balance, he
finds the scales even. Germany could not intend to "demand to
dominate the world by force," he noted, "for the consequences of
war for the peoples of either side would be so grave." Thus
Chamberlain insisted, well into 1939, that Nazi ambitions could
be contained by negotiation, for the new warfare would deter its
own use.
Ironically, in one way he was right -- the kind of war he
envisioned did not occur. But his vision of war was wrong. The
possession of chemical weapons and defenses on both sides proved
an effective deterrent to a horrific chemical war. But horrific
conventional war did occur, spurred by Hitler's belief that, in
the apparent absence of Allied preparedness and will, aggressive
military operations could gain Germany the advantage.
Today, in the U.S., politicians question preparations to deter
conflict, including strategic defenses, as if we had not learned
what Chamberlain failed to grasp: Not everyone may share our view
of war's deadly disadvantages -- and absent realistic signs of
our determination, rulers whose regimes are based on force may
view our respect for law, diplomacy and negotiation as a sign of
weakness and not of strength.
Chamberlain was fascinated with the personal touch, something
shared by many journalists and many politicians. His belief that
misunderstanding, not aggression, causes conflict -- his second
great misjudgment -- was reflected in the dogged devotion to the
virtues of shuttle summitry and face-to-face assurances of good
will and friendship: "The message ... from Signor Mussolini was
of a friendly character." "Herr Hitler ... said, again very
earnestly, that he wanted to be friends."
As naive as these remarks now sound, they are based on
Chamberlain's belief in the utility of trying to "understand the
mentality" of Britain's adversaries. But the outcome of his
failed international social work was more than disillusionment
and personal betrayal. The outcome was national policy confusion
and disaster -- and everywhere a double standard regarding the
international behavior the democracies had a right to expect.
Thus, in February 1938, Foreign Minister Anthony Eden
[1895-1977] resigned his post after insisting that Britain should
not engage in talks with Italy until Mussolini took certain
specified actions to prove his respect for international
agreements. Chamberlain disagreed: British preconditions would
signal "a spirit of suspicion," alienating the Italians. "If
there is going to be bad faith, there will be bad faith, and no
assurances beforehand are going to alter it."
But just seven months later, at Munich, when the question was
how far Britain and its allies should go to meet totalitarian
demands, we find him rising to the bait of Hitler's calculated
anguishings by reassuring Germany of British and Allied good
faith. "I should tell the House," Chamberlain reported to the
Commons, "how deeply impressed on my mind ... is [Hitler's]
rooted distrust and disbelief in the sincerity of the Czech
government."
Chamberlain's efforts to minimize his adversaries'
"suspicions" led him to renounce justified British suspicions;
his efforts at "understanding" his adversaries' claims led him to
misunderstand their ambitions. Most tragically, both attitudes
led Hitler to misunderstand Allied determination to resist.
Again, we can learn a profitable lesson: However distasteful
cynicism and suspicion may be, tough-minded diplomacy is a
precondition to peace.
Chamberlain's view of the impossibility of general war,
combined with his belief that mutual understanding would avert
conflict, reinforced his fiscal view of the wastefulness of
investing in defense -- his third mistake. Although he believed
in the necessity of arms as a backup for British diplomacy, he
frequently expressed his distaste for the "spectacle of this vast
expenditure" as "folly," a "senseless waste of money," "hateful
and damnable." Such a view slowed the pace of rearmament in the
face of the burgeoning Nazi military machine -- the delays
Churchill so feared and criticized.
Just as corrosive was Chamberlain's reluctance to use force to
halt the slow erosion of European liberty. "Everyone knows," he
said, that British forces "are not going to be used for
aggression." That he was reluctant to use them at all must have
seemed equally clear. Like today's "anti-war" advocates, who say
they support a nuclear deterrent yet seek a U.S. pledge to
renounce its use -- assuring any aggressor that he need not fear
U.S. power -- Chamberlain repeatedly assured the enemies of
freedom of their freedom from British force. By the time of
Munich, if Hitler had any remaining doubts, Chamberlain removed
them.
Speaking over British radio, in words that again ring
familiar, Chamberlain called the Czech issue "a quarrel in a
faraway country between people of whom we know nothing," and
observed that "however much we may sympathize with a small nation
confronted by a big and powerful neighbor, we cannot in all
circumstances undertake to involve the whole British Empire in
war simply on her account. If we have to fight, it must be on
larger issues than that. ... War is a fearful thing."
A FAILED REALIST
In the end, of course, Nazi aggression was understood for the
"larger issue" it was, and the "faraway" quarrels came home. The
irony of Chamberlain, however, is not that he was a failed
idealist but a failed realist. Despite all, he did not know that
"in any armed world you must be armed yourself"; as prime
minister, he presided over a massive peacetime rearmament
program. Similarly, if appeasement was later to become
synonymous with spineless acquiescence to the threats of force,
this was far from its original conception. Instead, it was meant
as an effort, by the victors of World War I, to end disputes
arising from the Treaty of Versailles -- thereby stabilizing
Europe as well as ensuring its peace and prosperity.
In the turbulent decades that have followed World War II, the
U.S., too, has sought stability, as well as peace and prosperity,
on a global level. As the leader of the effort to maintain
freedom's defense, we owe ourselves a closer look at
Chamberlain's valuable lessons. As he properly observed, war is
a fearful thing -- a fact that makes it even more important to
ensure that the enemies of liberty fear to wage it. To know that
our adversaries may not share our views -- to understand that
understanding is not everything -- and to present a strong
defense: This clear-eyed grasp of reality and military power
remains essential to peace.
As for Chamberlain, he cannot be dismissed like some servile
waiter in a Monty Python sketch, carving up Europe to appease
Hitler's territorial appetites. The 50 years that have passed
since Munich may have fogged the looking glass, but the face that
peers out looks eerily like our own.
* * *
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