Appeasement

Appeasement
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Appeasement was the policy of European democracies in the 1930s that aimed to avoid war with the dictatorships of Germany and Italy. It has been described as "...the policy of settling international quarrels by admitting and satisfying grievances through rational negotiation and compromise, thereby avoiding the resort to an armed conflict which would be expensive, bloody, and possibly dangerous."[1] It arose from the desire to avoid another war like the First World War.

The term is most often applied to the foreign policy of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain towards Nazi Germany between 1937 and 1939. His policies of avoiding war with Germany have been the subject of intense debate for seventy years among academics, politicians and diplomats. The historian's assessment of Chamberlain has ranged from condemnation for allowing Hitler to grow too strong, to the judgment that he had no alternative and acted in Britain's best interests. At the time, these concessions were widely seen as positive, and the Munich Pact among Germany, Great Britain, France and Italy prompted Chamberlain to announce that he had secured "peace for our time".[2]

The word "appeasement" has been used as a synonym for weakness and even cowardice since the 1930s, and it is still used in that sense today as a justification for firm, often armed, action in international relations.[3]