On Sept. 30, 1938, Neville Chamberlain, prime minister of Great Britain, returned from signing the Munich Agreement with Adolf Hitler to tell the British people, “I believe it is peace for our time. … Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.” This message was certainly welcomed by many in Britain and the world. By the terms of this agreement, England agreed that it would not interfere with Germany’s invasion of Czechoslovakia to absorb the Sudetenland, while Hitler agreed that this would be his “last territorial demand in Europe.”

One could certainly make good arguments for Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement. The British had not recovered from the twin traumas of the Great War and the Great Depression, and the country was wracked internally by its own cultural and economic clashes. A “nice quiet sleep” was exactly what everyone wanted.

Because of the peculiar politics — and the razor-thin majority — of the Republican Party, this propaganda held up aid for Ukraine for months, months critical to the battle. But finally, House speaker Mike Johnson made the decision to allow a vote, even though it meant risking his speakership. He decided, that is, to be the speaker of the House, and not just speaker for his party. And the House voted overwhelmingly to approve, even if his own party was divided on the issue. He decided to be a Churchill even when the majority of his caucus wanted him to be a Chamberlain.

Hitler had disturbed that peace and quiet with his absorption of the Saarland in 1935, re-occupation of the demilitarized Rhineland in 1936 (bringing troops to the border of France, Belgium and Holland) and taking over Austria in 1938. A “last demand” certainly sounded promising.

But one statesman was not convinced. Winston Churchill noted that “We have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat.” His view of Chamberlain’s agreement was unflattering. “The utmost he has been able to gain for Czechoslovakia and in the matters which were in dispute has been that the German dictator, instead of snatching his victuals from the table, has been content to have them served to him course by course.”

Churchill’s prediction was, of course, proved correct; the “last demand” was followed by the seizure of Memel in Lithuania four months later, the occupation of what remained of Czechoslovakia the next month, and finally, seeing no real response from the quietly sleeping Allies, the invasion of Poland in cooperation with Stalin and the Soviet Union.

This was the wake-up call from the quiet sleep. “Peace for our time” turned out to be a very short time, indeed. But most students of history agree that forceful responses by the Allies — Churchill’s policy — might have prevented one of the greatest tragedies in world history.

The new axis of evil

Mark Twain is said to have remarked that history never repeats itself, but it often rhymes. And the rhymes with the current situation in Russia are all too obvious.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is a dictator exercising ever-tighter control over his own people and with a voracious appetite for the land of his neighbors. The expanding “penal colonies” filled with his political enemies — those who weren’t murdered outright — the control of the press, the “election” with no real opposition, etc., are proof enough of this. And his military appetite has been proven in Chechnya, Armenia, Syria, the Donbas and Crimea, among other places.

Hitler’s axis ran from Rome to Berlin to Tokyo; the new axis of evil runs from Moscow to Tehran to Beijing. Should this axis triumph in Ukraine, then every nation, especially small nations, will have to reconsider their international arrangements. South and Central Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, South America and even Eastern Europe will have to rethink their alliances and adjust to the new situation such a defeat would produce.

The reputation — and trading position — of America would change drastically. And the result would be a level of chaos that would, once again, bring us to the brink of world war.

‘Putin’s brain’

Putin’s appetite for conquest can be derived from the program of his favorite “philosopher,” Aleksandr Dugin, dubbed “Putin’s brain,” whose works are required reading for all state ministers. Dugin founded the National Bolshevik Party, combining the worst features of national socialism and Stalinist Bolshevism. Or as Dugin himself put it, “We stand for Stalin and the Soviet Union.”

Despite claims of being “traditionalist,” Dugin and Putin push a peculiar combination of liberalism, fascism, communism and orthodoxy — but an “orthodoxy” subject to the state — to form a new “Eurasianism” that must always expand in order to survive.

The function of orthodoxy, besides giving a religious cast to a rather modernist mélange, is mainly to police the activities of women and gays, but never the activities of tyrants and oligarchs. It is not so much “anti-modernism” as the firm belief that they could do modernism so much better. It is a stated goal to re-create the Russian imperialist and Soviet empires. Ukraine is not the “last demand” but the opening phase of this program. This is history, rhyming.

America’s role, then and now

America was not then the power it is today. President Franklin Roosevelt wanted to act, but his hands were tied by the strength of the “America First” movement, a conduit for Nazi propaganda that was repeated in the halls of Congress, funded by Germany but headed by the charismatic aviation hero Charles Lindbergh. Working from a certain nativist and racist base, and fueled by rabid antisemitism, they were able to gain enormous influence in the halls of power. Elected officials had to decide whether to be politic or to be statesmen. Too many chose to be politic.

Once again, we face a situation in which many Americans find democracy tedious and dictatorship attractive. Once again, the propaganda of dictators is heard in the halls of Congress. Once again, some people long for “strong” leaders, where “strength” means preying on the weak while toadying to the powerful.

Ukraine is not asking for troops; her sons and daughters have proven their mettle in battle. Nor is she asking for money, mostly; she is asking for things: artillery shells and air-defense missiles and fighter aircraft, things which are produced here and give jobs to our people. The things go to Ukraine, but the money stays here.

So once again, our elected officials have a choice, a choice of whether to be politicians or to be statesmen, to be a Chamberlain or a Churchill; to decide whether we will play an active role or take a nice, quiet sleep.

Quiet, that is, until the wake-up call comes.

John C. Médaille is an adjunct instructor in theology at the University of Dallas.

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