Opinion | Trump's penchant for appeasing Putin

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View CommentsePaperMetroWeatherPoliticsSportsBusinessWatch: Globe TodayPuzzlesRhode IslandGlobe MagazineOpinionHealthArtsLifestyleEducationCambervilleMoney, Power, InequalitySpotlightTechnologyClimateCarsReal EstateEventsMore from Globe Opinion|Submit a Letter to the Editor|Meet the Editorial BoardOPINIONDonald Trump is a latter-day Neville ChamberlainVoters can see Trump’s penchant for appeasement in his approach to Ukraine.Email to a Friend





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View CommentsDonald Trump met with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine at Trump Tower, on Sept. 27 in New York. Trump has said Ukraine should have capitulated earlier to Russia’s land demands.Julia Demaree Nikhinson/Associated PressLittle is as incongruous in this presidential campaign as the notion that Donald Trump was and would be a towering figure on the world stage. To hear JD Vance tell it, Trump’s four years in the Oval Office proved that his mere presence as president would project a Pax Americana around the globe.“People were afraid of stepping out of line,” recognizing that “if they got out of line, the United States’ global leadership would put stability and peace back in the world,” Vance contended in Tuesday’s vice presidential debate.Now let’s see …The most perilous conflict in the world today is Russia’s war against Ukraine. As he contemplates that war, Trump is comporting himself not like a latter-day Winston Churchill or Franklin Delano Roosevelt or Charles de Gaulle, leaders who were tough and determined in the face of totalitarian aggression, but rather as a warmed-over Neville Chamberlain.Get The GavelA weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr.Enter EmailSign UpChamberlain, of course, was the British prime minister who sought to appease Adolf Hitler as the German fuhrer prepared to vivisect Czechoslovakia. With that action looming, Chamberlain flew to Germany in September 1938 and put the face of international acceptance upon Hitler’s demands that Germany be ceded the Sudetenland, a geographic semicircle around the western third of Czechoslovakia. Returning to England, Chamberlain took to the radio airwaves to try to polish his act of appeasement.Advertisement“How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas masks here because of a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing,” he said. “It seems still more impossible that a quarrel that is already settled in principle should be the subject of war.”Chamberlain next offered the misplaced hope that, having gained the Sudetenland, Hitler would become peaceful, noting that “he told me privately and last night he repeated publicly that after this Sudeten German question is settled, that is the end of Germany’s territorial claims in Europe.”Chamberlain portrayed Germany’s absorption of the Sudetenland as a virtual fait accompli, something that couldn’t be forestalled and had to be accepted to keep the peace. That’s what Trump has done with regard to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression against Ukraine.AdvertisementIn remarks made last month while President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine was in the United States to speak at the United Nations and attempt to bolster support for Ukraine’s battle against Russia, Trump declared that Ukraine should have capitulated earlier to Russia’s land demands.“Any deal — the worst deal — would’ve been better than what we have now,” Trump said. “They would’ve given up a little bit and everybody would be living and every building would be built and every tower would be aging for another 2,000 years.”Like Chamberlain — and in keeping with his own pattern of pretending an option he opposes no longer exists — Trump suggested that significant concessions are inevitable.“What deal can we make? It’s demolished,” he said. “The people are dead. The country is in rubble.”Now, there are several signal differences between Chamberlain’s attempt to appease Hitler and Trump’s willingness to placate Putin. Chamberlain didn’t admire Hitler the way Trump does the Russian czar. Further, there’s little reason to think this country will otherwise become directly embroiled in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.How that war ends remains to be seen. But the best course is a unified Western effort to help Ukraine resist Russia, not a solo effort by a once and perhaps future US leader to engineer a quick deal with a brutal aggressor he considers a friend.Perhaps Trump’s antipathy toward Ukraine is driven by resentment over his (first) impeachment, which came after he used an aid package to try to pressure Zelensky to open a politically useful investigation of Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Perhaps it’s simply that he admires dictators and undervalues democracies. It’s certainly obvious that he resents the cost of aiding Ukraine.Advertisement“Every time Zelensky comes to the United States, he walks away with $100 billion,” Trump said recently. According to US State Department, this country has provided Ukraine about $61 billion in military assistance to date. Although some $115 billion in overall aid has been allocated, not all that has been spent.Now, by arranging a meeting with the Republican nominee, Zelensky managed to take the public edge off Trump’s call for appeasement. Still, though he highlighted their “great meeting” on Truth Social, Trump added: “If I’m elected President, the war with Russia and Ukraine will end quickly. If not, that war will never end, and will phase into WORLD WAR III.”That’s unfounded, irresponsible fear-mongering, used to justify Trump’s willingness to reward Putin’s aggression with concessions on the Ukrainian ground.It’s not too much to say that Ukraine’s fate hangs in the balance of this American election. And that it will take another defeat in November to exorcise the spirit of Neville Chamberlain from today’s GOP.Scot Lehigh is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at scot.lehigh@globe.com. Follow him @GlobeScotLehigh.  Globe Opinionfollow usShare on TwitterShare on Facebook Share on InstagramFollow Us Subscribe NowDigital AccessHome DeliveryGift SubscriptionsMy AccountLog InManage My AccountCustomer ServiceDelivery IssuesFeedbackContactNews TipsHelp & FAQsStaff ListAdvertiseMoreNewslettersView the ePaperOrder Back IssuesNews in EducationSearch the ArchivesPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of PurchaseWork at Boston Globe MediaInternship ProgramCo-op ProgramDo Not Sell My Personal Information©2025 Boston Globe Media Partners, LLC
No he’s Vichy France