Brian M Downing
It’s been said countless times that British PM Neville Chamberlain appeased Hitler at the 1938 Munich conference. Hoping to stop war, he let the Reich seize parts of Czechoslovakia. The decision, it’s said, emboldened Hitler. He went on in the next three years to invade all Czechoslovakia, Poland, France, the Low Countries, and the Soviet Union. It’s become an historical parable, one echoed recently in claims that Trump, by undermining support to Ukraine in its war with Russia, is the Chamberlain of our day. The analogy isn’t entirely fair to Chamberlain, nor does it convey how dangerous Trump is.
Chamberlain never trusted Hitler. Not before Munich, not after it. He’d been rebuilding the British army since 1935 and Munich didn’t slow the pace. He knew that war was still likely and that neither Britain nor France was as prepared for it as the Third Reich. Allowing Hitler to move in the east would buy time in the west. Chamberlain was pragmatic. He wanted to defend western democracy from revanchist nationalism.
Trump has an aberrant, dismaying trust in the leader of revanchist nationalism today. The reasons aren’t entirely clear but for a decade he’s expressed trust in Putin over US intelligence and admiration for his iron fist. Trump’s now trying to impose a settlement that would betray Ukraine, undermine democracies in Europe and East Asia, and give Russia time to rebuild for the next round of war.
In fairness, there are some limits on Trump’s credulity. He doesn’t believe Putin when he boasts of restoring territory lost when the USSR collapsed – minimally the entire Ukraine, the Baltic States, the Caucasus, and Kazakhstan. This is so despite Trump’s announcement of his own ambitions in Panama, Greenland, Canada, and the Middle East.
Putin is the most recent Russian ruler to expand through conquest. Whether a tsar, general secretary, or president resides in the Kremlin, they have all invoked various ideologies but used the same brutal methods. This time, the Kremlin has a partner in the White House, one who has no interest in defending western democracy, neither in Europe nor at home. Nor does he recognize that Putin wants a badly weakened America to be the crowning jewel among his victories.
©2025 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who’s written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. Thanks as ever to fellow Hoya Susan Ganosellis.