We all rely on metaphors to make the present more understandable. I did the same when I compared Trump’s presidency to the era of Khrushchev.
The widely accepted narrative is that the historical parallel for Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine lies in the political events preceding the outbreak of the Second World War. According to this view, Nazi Germany’s successful aggressive moves to seize Austria and the predominantly German-populated territories of Czechoslovakia—facilitated by the West’s appeasement policy—only emboldened Hitler’s plans for world conquest. From this perspective, any appeasement of an authoritarian ruler is seen as a fundamental mistake, especially when the aggressor claims to be protecting an ethnic minority in a neighboring state. Compromise is deemed unacceptable, and only absolute victory is considered permissible over a reincarnation of the evil dictator seeking to revise borders.
This position has taken on the status of a moral absolute—one further reinforced by its indirect connection to the Holocaust. Anyone who thinks differently is marginalized. This othering is intensified by the perception that outcast politicians, such as Trump, are modern-day reincarnations of Chamberlain, mere puppets of Putin—today’s Hitler—while their adversaries are cast in the role of Churchill.
A new parallel has emerged following President Trump’s recent attempts to shut down the war: the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which divided Poland between Hitler and Stalin.
There are three problems with these widely used historical metaphors for understanding today’s events.
1) First, while every politician possesses a certain degree of ruthlessness, ambition, and willingness to gain an advantage, not everyone is Stalin or Hitler. This is a crucial distinction.
2) Second, the infamous Munich Agreement was made before war had actually broken out. Chamberlain flew to Munich in 1938 to prevent another world war. For this reason, he made a concession to Hitler, agreeing that Hitler could occupy the part of Czechoslovakia that was predominantly populated by ethnic Germans. If there were any situation truly comparable to the Munich Agreement, it would have been if Biden had agreed to declare that NATO would not seek to expand eastward and had ended Ukraine’s application process, while the European powers—the signatories of the Minsk Agreement—had forced Ukraine to implement the agreement with U.S. support in late autumn 2021, or, alternatively, if NATO had reached an agreement with Russia on the issues it demanded in the winter of 2021. However, both the U.S. and its European allies refused to make any concessions. They refused to appease Russia.
3) Third, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was also signed before the war broke out. In fact, the purpose of the pact was to prearrange the launch of a joint war against a third country, Poland, and to divide it between the signatories.
But in the case of Ukraine in 2025, we are in the third year of a war in which the U.S. has been supporting Ukraine against Russia. Therefore, the situation is entirely different from that of 1838–39.
Any agreement between the U.S. and Russia now is aimed at shutting down a war, not at preventing or starting a new one.
If one wants to find a better metaphor for understanding the Trump administration’s position, even when compared to the period of World War II, a more fitting example is the negotiation process between Stalin and Churchill in 1944, which led to the infamous Yalta Accord. The Western alliance—Churchill and FDR—had to confront the realities of the front lines: much of Eastern and Central Europe had been liberated (and simultaneously occupied) by the Red Army. Churchill and FDR opted to avoid a new war—this time against the Soviet Union—and accepted that Poland, Czechoslovakia, and several other Eastern and Central European countries would fall within the Soviet sphere, while Western and Mediterranean Europe would remain in the Western sphere of influence. It was a bitter compromise that abandoned the very two countries—Poland and Czechoslovakia—that had been central to the outbreak of World War II.
Churchill followed ‘realpolitik’ both in 1938–39 and in 1944. In 1938–39, it was reasonable to think that the combined forces of the British and French empires could win a war against Germany, while in 1944, realpolitik dictated not entering into a new world war, this time with the Soviet Union.
This time, Trump faces the fact that after three years of war, both Ukraine’s human resources and the West’s military resources are depleted. Despite a wall of sanctions, the Russian economy has not collapsed, and there is little appetite in the US or Europe to shift to a full-scale war economy, much less to escalate the conflict and risk provoking a new world war.
In this situation, the metaphor of the compromises of 1944 serves us better than the misleading claims of ‘appeasement’ or references to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Moreover, there are three key differences compared to 1944. First, Putin is not Stalin. Second, Russia is not the Soviet Union—a communist state that fully militarized itself to conquer the world following the dictates of a materialistic quasi-religion. Russia is a market economy whose population’s well-being depends on commerce and good relations with as many countries as possible. Finally, the known Russian demands do not entail the complete submission of Ukraine but rather allow for the existence of a sovereign and neutral Ukrainian state. Although Ukraine would lose some territories under Russian demands, mostly populated by ethnic Russians or Russian speaking Ukrainians sympathetic to Russia, it would retain those mostly populated by ethnic Ukrainians and remain a large country, comparable in size to France or Spain.
War is the most destructive means of achieving human goals, and its effects go beyond mere destruction, poisoning human relations for generations. The best approach is to avoid war by seeking compromises whenever possible. Any compromise is bitter, involving the sacrifice of dreams and the perception of injustice.
Even more bitter are the compromises after three years of brutal war. Still, the key to any successful postwar reconstruction is ensuring free commerce as much as possible and avoiding a slide into a new cold war. My experience in Croatia offers an illuminating example. Croatia fought a bitter civil war with Serbia, yet today many tourists are Serbian. Last summer, on the way to the airport, a taxi driver told me that whatever happened in the past, Serbian tourists are welcomed today.
