OPINION: Will Donald Trump Be Another Neville Chamberlain?

Donald Trump has long sought to portray an image of himself as a strong president who actively defends American interests abroad. His willingness to negotiate with Vladimir Putin about ending the Russo-Ukrainian war without the participation of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, however, risks making Trump look as weak and ineffectual as Neville Chamberlain.

Chamberlain was the British prime minister who, along with French president Edouard Daladier, agreed in September 1938 to allow German leader Adolf Hitler to annex German-populated territory from Czechoslovakia. The Czechoslovak government did not participate in these negotiations, but felt forced to accept their terms without Western support in resisting them. Although Hitler had agreed to respect Czechoslovak sovereignty over its remaining territory, he reneged on his promises and occupied an already dismembered Czechoslovakia in March 1939. Within a few months, Hitler invaded Poland and World War II began.

Ever since the 1938 Munich Agreement, Western leaders seeking to engage in diplomacy with adversary governments have been warned against, or even accused of, engaging in “appeasement” like Chamberlain. Appeasement, though, is something that conservatives have generally accused liberals of engaging in and not something that they themselves would ever do. And while Trump and his supporters would hotly deny that Trump is anything like Chamberlain, there are several ways in which the situations each faced and their approaches to them are similar or could be.

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Like Trump, Chamberlain was no liberal. Indeed, Chamberlain was a member of Britain’s Conservative party. This is important to note since this shows that the efforts of a Western leader to reach an understanding with an authoritarian leader are not guaranteed to succeed just because that Western leader is a conservative. Back in 1938, Chamberlain did not think that Hitler would renege on his agreement. Trump should not assume that Putin would not renege on any agreement that the Russian leader makes with him either.

Chamberlain agreed that Hitler could annex Czech territory that he was not then in possession of while Trump has indicated his willingness to let Putin keep Ukrainian territory that Russia now occupies. That is a distinction, but there is a similarity in that Chamberlain was and Trump is willing to make an agreement about territory without consulting the leader of the country losing it. And if Trump proves willing to let Putin have not just Ukrainian territory that Russia now occupies, but territory Ukraine still controls in the Ukrainian provinces that Moscow has officially annexed, then Trump would be no different from Chamberlain.

Some might argue that the situation Trump faces is different from Chamberlain’s in that while Russian actions pose a threat, the US and its allies also face a threat from a potentially more powerful great power: China. It is only prudent, then, to reach a settlement with Russia so that the US can focus on China. But Chamberlain did not face just one hostile great power either. The Soviet Union was also one. And while Hitler claimed in 1938 that he had no more territorial ambitions beyond the Sudetenland, the Soviet Union was seen to be advocating revolution throughout the world, including Western Europe. It would not be surprising, then, if Chamberlain saw Hitler as less threatening than Stalin.

In September 1938, though, Hitler and Stalin presided over regimes that were ideologically opposed to each other. Chamberlain, then, may not have thought that making a deal with Hitler at that time would benefit Stalin. He did not foresee the signing of the Nazi-Soviet pact in August 1939 wherein Hitler and Stalin would divide up Eastern Europe between them. Trump and his advisers, by contrast, know full well that Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping declared themselves to have a “no limits” partnership in February 2022, just prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Washington, then, should be under no illusion that making concessions to Putin on Ukraine will somehow shatter the close Russo-Chinese relationship or induce Putin to work with Trump against China.

It may not be realistic to expect that Russia will give up the Ukrainian territory that it now occupies. But absent an agreement ending the Russo-Ukrainian war without a robust Western – including American – security commitment to Ukraine (whether as a NATO member or not), Putin can be expected to move quickly to seize even more territory – just as Hitler did after the 1938 Munich agreement.

If Trump’s diplomacy with Putin is to avoid the same fate as Chamberlain’s with Hitler, then Trump needs to avoid making the same mistakes that Chamberlain did. In order to do so, however, Trump and his associates need to admit, if only to themselves, that there is a real possibility that this could happen if they are not careful.

The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.