Munich 2.0?

The "Munich Betrayal" of 1938 was not an isolated event - it laid the groundwork for the Second World War (1939). Are we today in that 1938?

The possibility that this year’s Munich Security Conference might become a stage for spearheading a concept of “peace between Russia and Ukraine” — one that ignores Ukraine’s existential security interests — is more than just a sinister echo of the notorious Munich Agreement (1938).

That agreement, struck between Western democracies and fascist powers, enabled Nazi Germany to annex part of Czechoslovakia, earning it the infamous name "Munich Betrayal".

But the gruesome parallel does not end there.

What followed was not only the betrayal of Czechoslovakia by Western democracies but also the Nazi-Soviet Pact (August 1939), which carved Europe into Nazi and Soviet spheres of influence, and, ultimately, the outbreak of the Second World War (September 1939).

Are we now standing in that 1938 once again? And do we fully grasp that that 1938 was followed by that 1939?