It is easy to forget how popular Neville Chamberlain was in the autumn of 1938. Proclaiming ‘peace in our time’ after signing the Munich Agreement, he was heralded as the deal-maker supreme. A leader who’d averted needless bloodshed and whose critics were merely warmongering naysayers. You don’t need me to tell you the rest of the story, but you might have thought its lessons wouldn’t be so easily forgotten.
Today it is Donald Trump casting himself as the bringer of peace to continental Europe. Posting on his Truth Social platform, the president said he’d spoken with Vladimir Putin, and that they two men had ‘agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately’ over ending the war in Ukraine. He continued ‘It is time to stop this ridiculous War, where there has been massive, and totally, unnecessary, DEATH and DESTRUCTION.’
Trump is not wrong that the death toll, on both sides, has been horrific. Civilians in Ukraine’s major cities live under the constant threat of drone and missile strikes, families have been separated, and Ukraine requires rebuilding and repair. The desire to end this war, and quickly, is entirely legitimate. You won’t find a single person in Kyiv, or Kharkiv, who doesn’t yearn for the fighting to stop.
Yet the lesson from Munich is that if invading tyrants are not defeated, or at the very least punished, they will strike again. This week, Trump’s new Defence Secretary, Pete Hegseth, said there was no likelihood of Ukraine joining Nato, giving in to one of Vladimir Putin’s key demands before negotiations have even begun. Both Hegseth and Trump also poured cold water on the notion that Ukraine should return to its pre-2014 borders, effectively meaning Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea is now accepted by the US.
Given the concessions the White House has already made to Russia before peace talks have even begun, it is hard to imagine Ukraine will be allowed to return to its pre-2022 borders either. Perhaps a small slice of occupied territory will be ceded by the Kremlin in return for Ukrainian troops withdrawing from Kursk, but that’s about it. Putin will inevitably declare his ‘special military operation’ a success and bask in the glory of having expanded the Russian Federation through force.
Doubtless Trump will offer Ukraine some form of security ‘guarantee’, designed to deter future Russian aggression. It won’t be worth the paper it’s written on. Ukrainians have never forgotten the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, in which the US, UK and Russia pressured Ukraine into giving up its nuclear weapons, in exchange for assurances that the country would never be subjected to military force or economic coercion. It is to our eternal shame that when, just 20 years later, Ukraine faced such aggression, both Britain and America stood by.
Vladimir Putin has been clear about his long-term goals. In his 2021 essay, ‘On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians’, he asserted his view that the two peoples are essentially one. He described modern-day Ukraine as an ‘anti-Russian project’. He compared the country’s formation to the use of weapons of mass destruction against Russia. Let’s be clear – Putin isn’t just talking about the Donbass, or Crimea, or Kherson – he means the entire Ukrainian nation. He wants it gone.
Much has been made of the underlying weakness of Russia’s economy. The Ruble is weak, inflation is soaring, and labour shortages are so severe that North Korea is now sending workers to fill jobs in Russia’s construction industry. Nonetheless, Putin has managed to maintain growth by shifting his country’s economy onto a war-time footing. Russia’s military industrial base is rapidly expanding, and will continue to do so – and with Putin able to exploit rare earth minerals in newly annexed Ukrainian territory, he won’t have trouble funding it.
Russian forces will be grateful for the respite of a peace agreement, but rest assured, they will be back. The man who described the break-up of the Soviet Union as the ‘greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century’ is not about to give up on his dreams of expanding mother Russia further. Tragically for Ukraine, it seems the US is ready to sell the country out. Vice-President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have been dispatched to meet Volodomyr Zelensky this week. The irony won’t be lost on the Ukrainian president that the meeting will take place in Munich. Donald Trump is the Neville Chamberlain of our time.
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