Peace in our time?

“Peace in our time” said Neville Chamberlain on his return from Germany in late September 1938 after signing the Munich Agreement that effectively handed Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany.  The circumstances of this “deal” are uncannily like those that Ukraine confronts today.

There is much discussion about what happens next with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Is peace at hand and what form will it be? Russia says it wants peace, Trump is talking many things including “land swaps” and security guarantees and the Europeans are finally getting serious about taking responsibility.

Is this good news for Ukraine and its people or not?  Is the Russian bear about to be tamed or not?  Perhaps.

In my mind the most likely short-term outcome will be that Russia will continue to throw its young men into the mincer as it seeks to take land centimetre by centimetre.  Still at some point, given the stresses on Russia, it is likely that the Russian leader will get serious about negotiation.

What then can be expected?  It must be remembered that, in minds of the Russian leadership, Ukraine is not a country or even a peoples and the stated objective is complete subjugation and subservience to Russian hegemony. Yes, a peace agreement must ultimately be the outcome but under what terms?  Let’s reflect on what happened to Czechoslovakia in 1938.

Czechoslovakia was a vital piece in Nazi Germany’s plan for expansion east under Hitler’s Lebensraum (living space) plan.  There was one problem though – geography.  The part of Czechoslovakia that “protrudes” into Germany is a mountain range, the Giant Mountains.

Some years back I stood on an escarpment of these mountains looking north into Germany.  It was clear to me at that time that these mountains would have proved a major obstacle to an invading German army.  These border hills were well fortified and the Czechoslovakian army was more than capable of holding off the German army. The Nazis had one advantage though and that was that the dominant community in this mountainous border area was German speaking.

The Sudeten Germans made up just over one fifth of the population of Czechoslovakia and were, by 1938, led by a political party that opposed the government and demanded the Sudeten region (Sudetenland) be transferred to Germany.  This would leave Czechoslovakia defenceless to German conquest.  This is exactly the outcome of the Munich Agreement negotiated between Britain, France, Italy and Germany in late 1938.  Some months later it led directly to the complete dismemberment of Czechoslovakia into Nazi puppet regimes.

In the Donbas region we see chilling similarities to Sudetenland.  The area is largely Russian speaking and that part already occupied by Russia (most of Luhansk and part of Donetsk) was achieved with the assistance of separatist Russian speakers of the Donbas region.  Further to this, the part of the Donbas region that is still held by Ukraine is considered its “fortress belt”.  In this fortress belt are cities with a total population of nearly 400,000.

This area is heavily fortified, well defended and would proved extremely difficult for the Russians to capture.  The fortress belt is also an important industrial base providing weaponry for the defence of Ukraine.  Russia has declared it wants the fortress belt handed over as part of any agreement.  The consequence of such an agreement is that it would make the rest of Ukraine highly vulnerable to subsequent invasion and occupation by Russia.

If Russia decides to participate in an agreement to end the war, Ukraine may face the proposition that the United States and the European Union will insist on the handing over to Russia of the part of Donetsk still held by Ukraine.  In such a case a heavy reliance comes to bear on any security agreement that is negotiated.

It needs to be borne in mind that the Munich Agreement also contained a security agreement to protect the rest of Czechoslovakia after Sudetenland was handed over to Nazi Germany.  The ink on the agreement was barely dry before the German Army occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia. Within one year of the signing of the Munich Agreement, Nazi Germany had invaded Poland and World War II had begun.

I am sure the leaders of Britain, France, Italy and Germany remember the price of the Czechoslovak appeasement of Nazi Germany that was the outcome of the Munich Agreement.  But, what of the leader of the United States?  I fear he is just as capable as Neville Chamberlain of saying, “peace in our time”.