Today, President Donald Trump and President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin will meet in Alaska to discuss a possible end to the war in Ukraine. Students of history may find the circumstance disquietingly similar to an event 87 years ago, but I am shocked by how few people seem to be talking about it.
In 1933, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party ascended to power in the Weimar Republic, rapidly turning the state into an authoritarian regime geared toward irredentism through military might. Three years later, the German army marched into the previously demilitarized Rhineland, flagrantly violating the Treaty of Versailles — which had already long been discarded by the Nazis — while the Allied powers sat back and watched. Two years later, in March of 1938, the Germans marched unopposed into Austria, declaring it a part of Germany.
Hitler justified the Austrian Anschluss to the world as a measure to unite the Germanic people. In September of the same year, the Nazis began to wage an undeclared war against Czechoslovakia in an effort to seize the Western portion of the country known as the Sudetenland, which contained a large Germanic population. Unlike Austria, the Czechoslovakians were determined to put up a fight. Around Eastern Europe, countries began to prepare for conflict. However, Britain and France, the supposed European great powers, feared another bloody conflict in Europe. Even twenty years on, they were still reeling from the Great War.
In late September of 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain flew to Munich to meet with Adolf Hitler and seek a peaceful resolution to the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia. The agreement signed in Munich forced Czechoslovakia to relinquish large swathes of its territory to Germany in exchange for a German promise not to occupy the remainder of the country — a promise broken less than six months thereafter. When Chamberlain returned to Britain, he notoriously declared that he had achieved “peace in our time.” A year later, Europe and the world were engulfed in the deadliest war in human history.
The conference today in Alaska has deeply concerning similarities to the 1938 Munich Conference and is reminiscent of Chamberlain’s appeasement policies from that period. Trump has stated that the peace settlement will have to see “land swapping,” even though the Ukrainian government has made it clear that it strongly opposes any such result. However, due to Ukraine’s relative weakness without American support, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky may be left without an option but to accept these concessions. Putin may make promises of long-term peace, but how can the West take Putin at his word? Any agreement that sees a gain of land from Ukraine will serve as a victory for Russia and leave it in a much stronger position should Putin seek to topple a pro-Western Ukrainian government. Indeed, since the moment Trump and Putin agreed to hold a summit in Alaska, the Russian army has made a strong push to penetrate Ukraine’s lines, perhaps giving the Russians a bargaining chip in negotiations for territory after the implementation of a ceasefire.
President Trump would do well to recall what happened to Czechoslovakia and how catastrophic Chamberlain’s appeasement policies were for the world. Just like Hitler, Putin has the upper hand, with recent advances further into Ukrainian territory and an American willingness to broker a ceasefire that may well lead to the severing of territory from Ukraine. Since the beginning of the war, the United States has helped modernize Ukraine’s army and has gained substantial material benefits through the U.S.-Ukraine minerals deal. With Russian troops moving to break through the Ukrainian forward lines, now is the time to increase support for Ukraine rather than negotiate what is certain to be a one-sided “peace.” The Trump administration must realize: you cannot reason with a tiger when your head is in its mouth.
Yet I seldom see Americans calling out the present course of action. Yes, there are plenty of other issues to focus on, and often foreign policy may feel just that: foreign. But I would ask those students who have participated actively in demonstrations on campus: why not fervently support Ukraine? The country at present appears to be in the process of being served up on a golden platter to an odious regime that is hellbent on wiping any mention of Ukraine from the catalogues of human history. It is tragic how few seem to be speaking of this.
So please, remember the history of the grotesque appeasement of Munich. Remember that less than six months after the Munich Conference, Germany occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia. Know that there is nothing holding Russia back from doing the same to Ukraine. There is no better time than now to call this destructive policy out.
Opinion articles represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.
Luke Montalbano ’27 is an opinion editor and writer. He is from Vancouver, Canada and is majoring in Government and minoring in History. On campus, Luke is a Dickey Center War and Peace Fellow, the Co-President of the Federalist Society of Dartmouth, the President of the American Conservation Coalition of Dartmouth and President of the John Quincy Adams Society.
