Mad Dogs and Englishmen: British Rearmament, Deterrence, and Appeasement, 1934-35

Abstract

Historical accounts of appeasement have underestimated the British government's attempts to develop a comprehensive strategy of deterrence, one that resembles recent theories of conventional deterrence. The decisions of 1934-35 to increase British armaments were based on these assumptions: that appeasement and military deterrence were compatible in a dual policy of conciliating and confining Germany and Japan; that the attainment of adequate levels of peacetime strength constituted the best deterrent, although the simultaneous demonstration of force and the will to rearm might restrain the dictators. While British defense policy had not anticipated the possibility of conflict with Italy, the British used a show of force in the Mediterranean in 1935 both to protect their interests and to support the League of Nations against Italy's invasion of Ethiopia. The failure either to prevent or to limit Italian aggression in this crisis convinced most British policymakers that threatening force before completing rearmament would not deter a Fascist regime from territorial expansion, and that deterrence should be defined more narrowly.