Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, no moment has been more uncertain than the present. While Trump has successfully brought Putin back to the negotiating table, and perhaps even a meeting between Putin and Zelensky at a Trump-hosted meeting, the situation could also lead to direct military action between the US and Russia, plunging the world into World War III unprepared, a situation similar to the situation between Britain and Germany in 1938.
The signing of the Munich Agreement between British Prime Minister Chamberlain and Hitler in 1938 certainly reflected his naiveté and lacked any justice. However, the transfer of the Sudetenland to Germany, from the perspective of self-determination, was not entirely without merit. During World War I, when dealing with the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Allies ceded many predominantly German-speaking territories to the non-German-speaking successors of the empire, causing numerous conflicts. With the exception of much of Burgenland, formerly part of Hungary, which miraculously fell under the control of predominantly German-speaking Austria, the remaining German-speaking territories were governed by non-German-speaking countries. Chamberlain's naiveté lay in his genuine belief that Hitler simply sought to resolve the arbitrary border issues of the World War I peace treaty. A careful study of Hitler's revolting writings would have suggested that Hitler had no such ambitions.
