As I said, the historical consensus on appeasement is that it was to avoid war, NOT to buy time. That's why I wanted something, anything, from the lead proponents of appeasement showing this to be true. If it was to buy time as originally claimed then surely you can provide just one quote from Chamberlain supporting that. I'm not going to provide proof that defense policy and foreign policy were in no way overlapping, because I have never claimed it. You tried to claim that I have so that you don't have to show what I've asked for, that is to say the idea that "The point of appeasement was to buy time for Britain and France to rearm." This is not supported by the historical record.
you said (and i quote):
No, my contention is that appeasement was meant to avoid a war with Germany as its primary goal. Rearmament happening or not happening is irrelevant. The motivation for appeasement was seperate and independent of appeasement.....
sounds like your claiming they weren't overlapping to me
as to cites again check Ian_W's post
Also no the political consensus is not what you claimed, it's changed over time, this partly what started the thread.
People and policies are judged on their consequences as much as, or more than, the intent behind them.
Right only consequences are inherently judged on hindsight, whereas decisions don't have the luxury of that, so basically see earlier posts.
Historically it has been shown that appeasement does not work. Well before WWII this was shown. When you give into an aggressor, a bully, etc. all you do is incentivize them to push for more. Hitler's behavior throughout the mid-1930s showed this clearly. Every time Britain and France gave ground he pressed for more. Yes they didn't know how horrible WWII would be, but everything pointed to the reality that appeasement would not work, as indeed it didn't.
this is kind of a circular argument yes of course all examples of someone who kept taking more until stopped by force, are examples of people who kept taking more until stopped by force. But international politics has plenty of examples of people making demands and them being met without ending up in world war and genocide (especially when there's a sympathy towards a rebalancing of now seen prior imbalance). Hell that's what foreign policy is in general, countries working towards their own desires, all the time. And yet were not in a contact state of war or genocide. Don't give in to bullies they only get stronger is that kind of pat context-less thing we stay to ourselves, but it kind og ignores the reality of the situation. The problem is there is no sure fire way to tell the difference between the two at the time! (not to mention that sometime there are few other viable alternatives at each point, and viable ones take time to come into play)
Which is why the inexorable road to WW2 is a bad concept because that series of stepping stones that led to WW2 is only clear once you have WW2. The a-priori appeal of why didn't we stop Hitler before WW2, also ignores the point that WW2
is how we stopped hitler.
Yes it would have been politically difficult, but the point of representative government is that the representatives give their constituents the aid of judgement as well as represent them. Yes it would have been hard, maybe even ended the careers of everyone involved. BUT if someone wants to serve the public interest then they should be prepared to do that if the action is the right thing to do. Public servants have a responsibility to serve the public, and they betray that responsibility if they sacrifice good judgement simply to continue their careers.
Only what's the right thing to do? Stop a six year long war with a 60m death toll and the final solution yeah of course, that's pretty much worth any sacrifice. But again that is not the situation being presented to people when they were making decisions*. Also you are wrong politicians whose careers are ended or who campaign on unpopular platforms don't get to enact policy.
But go one once again please tell me how the UK is going to drop into Czechoslovakia or Poland (or even invade Germany and overthrow the nazis)? Well unless you are going to go with the kind of PoD like we should at all times maintain enough military advantage over Germany in order to physically invade Germany and overthrow a potentially world war starting German dictator.
*so to put it another way, asking some average British person in the 30's do you fancy going to war with Germany again? I'm guessing their answer might be a bit different depending on the reason given