Europe: Toward a Farewell to Arms

A growing mood of antimilitarism—and a cult of détente

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain emerged from the 1938 Munich Conference, having ceded a slice of Czechoslovakia to Hitler, and made his slogan "peace in our time" synonymous with disastrous appeasement. Chamberlain's policy was largely a reflection of the popular pacifist sentiment in prewar Britain. Only a hopeless alarmist would suggest that such calamitous history might be repeating itself today. But Western military experts and policymakers are undeniably concerned by an increasing reluctance by Europe's man-in-the-street to accept the necessity of self-defense.

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