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Echoes of Munich in Trump Ukrainian Reversal [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-03-05
There were many things wrong with the Oval Office meeting between Donald Trump, JD Vance, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Negotiations should have been held in private with a post session joint press conference if an agreement was reached. A televised meeting was a trap to bully, embarrass, and humiliate Zelensky on air and to demonstrate what Trump considers his toughness.
Bullying, double-dealing, and deception have been Trump’s trademark approach to transactions since he was a real estate mogul refusing to pay contractors. They have also shaped his relationships with employees that he treated as subordinates and with women who he treated as disposable ornaments. As president, Trump is attracted to authoritarian bullies like Putin who use democracy to achieve their ends when necessary but who reject democratic principles and he shares their contempt for the rule of law. Trump has repeated blamed Ukraine for starting the war with Russia although Russia invaded Ukraine twice, in 2014 and 2022, and in 2022 Putin thought Russia would quickly defeat Ukraine and be able to impose a Russia friendly government that would accept territorial annexation.
During the meeting Trump demonstrated a disturbing misunderstanding of the working of NATO alliance. After World War II the United States, Great Britain and France formed NATO in hopes of stopping what they feared was Soviet expansion in Europe. The Soviet Union countered with the Warsaw Pact. The difference between NATO and the Warsaw Pact was that NATO was an alliance of equal partners who shared similar goals and promised mutual protection. The Warsaw Pact consisted of the Soviet Union and its client states that had no say in strategic decisions and were not equal partners. At the meeting between Trump, Vance and Zelenskyy, as Trump and Vance bullied the Ukrainian leader, it became clear that the Trump administration sees NATO allies as client states, not partners, who must be thankful for any United States assistance.
Less serious but equally outrageous was Trump and Musk ridiculing Zelensky for wearing military fatigues to the Oval office and claiming it was an insult to the American people. Anyone who watches the news or reads newspapers knows that Trump ally Elon Musk wears similar but less formal outfits when he meets with Trump in the Oval office.
Trump’s willingness to accommodate Putin and Russia and permit it to annex Ukrainian territory to achieve “peace” scarily resembles Western leaders at the September 1938 Munich Conference who were willing to accommodate Adolf Hitler when he promised peace if they permitted Germany to annex part of Czechoslovakia that had a large ethnic German population. Similarly, eastern Ukraine areas now occupied by Russia have large ethnic Russian populations. Above are photographs of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain shaking hands with Hitler in 1938 and Trump shaking hands with Putin in 2018.
When Neville Chamberlain returned to London after the Munich conference, he issued an official release and made a brief statement to the British people. According to the release, “We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again. We are resolved that the method of consultation shall be the method adopted to deal with any other questions that may concern our two countries, and we are determined to continue our efforts to remove possible sources of difference, and thus to contribute to assure the peace of Europe."
Chamberlain added, "My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time . . . Go home and get a nice quiet sleep."
The Munich Conference failed to achieve peace in Europe. Six months later, in March 1939, German troops took over the rest of Czechoslovakia and by September 1939 World War II had begun, a war that included the European Holocaust and the death of between 70 and 85 million people.
British National Archives has lessons for teaching about the Munich Conference. Below are two the primary source documents from the website.
Extracts from the Minutes of the conversation between
Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler
“He said that he had from his youth been obsessed with the racial theory and he felt that the Germans were one, but he had drawn a distinction between the possible and the impossible and he recognised that there are places where Germans are where it is impossible to bring them into the Reich; but where they are on the frontier, it is a different matter, and he is himself concerned with ten millions of Germans, three millions of whom are in Czechoslovakia. He felt therefore that those Germans should come into the Reich. They wanted to and he was determined that they should come in. It was impossible that Czechoslovakia should remain like a spearhead in the side of Germany.
So I said ‘Hold on a minute: there is one point on which I want to be clear and I will explain why: you say that the three million Sudeten Germans must be included in the Reich: would you be satisfied with that and is there nothing more that you want? I ask because there are many people who think that is not all; that you wish to dismember Czechoslovakia.’
He then launched into a long speech: he was out for a racial unity and he did not want a lot of Czechs. all he wanted was Sudeten Germans I was then going on to some further questions on the subject when he said ‘But all this seems to be academic; I want to get down to realities. Three hundred Sudetens have been killed and things of that kind cannot go on: the thing has got to be settled at once: I am determined to settle it: I do not care whether there is a world war or not: I am determined to settle it and to settle it soon and I am prepared to risk a world war rather than allow this to drag on.’
To that I replied: ‘If the Fuehrer is determined to settle this matter by force without waiting even for a discussion between ourselves to take place what did he let me come here for? I have wasted my time. I could give him my personal opinion which was that on principle I had nothing to say against the separation of the Sudeten Germans from the rest of Czechoslovakia, provided that the practical difficulties could be overcome.’”
British General Hastings Ismay Note to the British Cabinet (September 20, 1938)
(a) A German absorption of Czechoslovakia will enhance her military prestige, increase her war potential and probably enable her to dispose of stronger land forces against France and ourselves than she can do at present.
(b) So far as air power is concerned, Germany may be able to maintain her lead over the Franco-British Air Forces in air striking power. On the other hand, it is open to us, provided that we make the necessary effort, to catch her up, or at least greatly reduce her lead, in the matter of defence (both active and passive) against air attack. By so doing we shall have heavily insured ourselves against the greatest danger to which we are present exposed: indeed by substantially reducing Germany's only chance of a rapid decision, we shall have provided a strong deterrent against her making the attempt.
(c) It follows, therefore, that, from the military point of view, time is in our favour and that, if war with Germany has to come, it would be better to fight her in say 6-12 months' time, than to accept the present challenge.
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