The Credibility of Power: Assessing Threats during the “Appeasement” Crises of the 1930s

Abstract

became chancellor of Germany and immediately began breaking his country’s international agreements. From 1933 to 1938 Germany violated its treaty commitments by rearming, remilitarizing the Rhineland, and seizing Austria.1 Although Britain and France complained after each German violation, they refused to respond with force. In September 1938 Hitler threatened to invade Czechoslovakia unless Germany was given a piece of Czech territory called the Sudetenland. Once again, the British and French acquiesced to German demands; at the infamous Munich conference, they agreed to pressure Czechoslovakia into surrendering the Sudetenland to Germany. Finally, in 1939, as Germany was preparing to invade Poland, Britain and France took a arm stand. They warned Hitler that if he attacked Poland, they would declare war on Germany. By this time, however, Hitler no longer believed their threats. As the German leader told a group of assembled generals, “Our enemies are worms. I saw them in Munich.”2 The lessons of Munich have been enshrined in international relations theory and in U.S. foreign policy. For deterrence theorists, the history of the 1930s shows that countries must keep their commitments or they will lose credibility.3 U.S. leaders have internalized this lesson; the most costly and dangerous moves undertaken by the United States during the Cold War were motivated by a desire to preserve credibility. Concerns about credibility led the United