The European powers were devastated by the first World War and did not want another war to occur. Therefore, instead of intervention, they decided to appease. Appeasement can be defined in this situation as giving Hitler what he demanded, so that he would not start a war. The Sudetenland Crisis and the Munich Agreement are perfect examples of appeasement. They believed the loss of the Sudetenland would be very minimal in comparison to a war between the whole continent. The other European powers believed that appeasement would work because they thought Hitler’s demands were reasonable. Therefore, they believed once they granted him his demands, he would eventually stop because he would be happy with what he received. Another reason that Britain turned to the policy of appeasement was that they favored fascists in comparison to communists. A fascist society is more closely related to the traditional European society. The leaders thought that fascism was less of a problem than communism …show more content…
Future leaders are afraid to be seen as appeasers. The Iraq War is a great example of the Munich Agreement still being present in our world today. Politicians have been debating over the decades about appeasement from the Cuban Missile Crisis to Vietnam. They accused one another or were fearful of allowing other countries to get away with heinous crimes out of fear of invention and being called an appeaser. One of the most recent occasion of this occurring was with Iraq around the turn of the century. George W. Bush compared the situation to the 1930s with Adolf Hitler. He called for an end of appeasement. He wanted the world to stand up to the dictator Saddam Hussein; a dictator who he equated to Adolf Hitler. The other side argued that Bush was pushing the United States into another “Vietnam” or unwinnable and messy war (Rathbone). The history of the Munich Agreement has armed those who are in favor of invention with evidence of what inaction