The official web site of A.H. Lloyd

Back in December, I noted that may of our alleged experts on foreign policy completely misunderstand why the Munich Agreement of 1938 was such a foreign policy disaster for the West. I’m starting to see this as a litmus test as to whether the person in question can be trusted on other topics, of which I have less knowledge.

The current issue of First Things has a book review by Patrick Porter that unfortunately fails this test. “The Sinew of Diplomacy” is supposed to be a review of Great Power Diplomacy: The Skill of Statecraft from Attila the Hun to Kissinger by A. Wess Mitchell, but unfortunately Porter spends half of the article whining about Donald Trump. When he does finally address the book, it is with approval, but then he disputes the author’s take on Munich, and does so in a way that destroys his remaining credibility.

Mitchell faults Chamberlain for not selecting an earlier war over Czechoslovakia, with its favorable terrain. This might be fair, but a short, sharp war that overthrew ­Hitler in 1938 would not have doused the flames of German hypernationalism any more than France’s occupation of the Ruhr in the 1920s did. And in the eyes of the United States—alas, then sympathetic to the principle of German ethnic ­reunion—Britain and France would be the aggressors. Any further clash might well have gone ahead without the material support from the U.S. that proved so crucial to the war that did happen. At least British diplomacy ensured that Hitler entered 1939 as the unambiguous aggressor.

There are several things wrong with this, but the first is that – as usual – it ignores the massive strategic shift in Germany military power and capacity caused by the conquest of Czechoslovakia. Not only did the Germans vastly increase their stores of small arms, artillery and especially tanks, they gained control of a powerful military-industrial machine that could continue to turn out arms and munitions.

Without Brno and Skoda and all those excellent Czech tanks, Britain and France not only have have had a military edge over Germany in 1938, but would continue to do so going into the future. No American help would have been needed.

Moreover, had Hitler fallen, there is no guarantee that he would have been succeeded by someone eager to start yet another war. The mood of the nation was pessimistic, and it was only after Hitler’s easy diplomatic victories – like Munich – that the German people (and the generals) began to trust Hitler’s instincts.

Munich is to World War II and diplomacy what Guernica is to the Spanish Civil War. If an author cannot clearly grasp the truth of the thing, you’re wasting your time.

Based on this flawed review, I have no idea if Mitchell’s book is any good. I mean, it’s a plus that Mitchell got Munich right, but the fact that Porter is so deranged by Trump hatred that he wasted seven full paragraphs venting about that rather than focusing on the task at hand, makes me distrust his recommendation.