Introduction
It is known to us that each and every country will be involved in war more or less over history and they are bound to be bothered by war in the due time. There is no doubt that all the countries have to find a way to get themselves rid of the detrimental effects brought by war. For example, Britain in 1930s chose rearmament as a diplomatic deterrence while opinions vary from person to person as for whether rearmament of Britain in 1930s is a diplomatic deterrence and to what extent rearmament of Britain in 1930s is a diplomatic deterrence. Therefore the following would like to argue that rearmament of Britain in 1930s is really a diplomatic deterrence and such extent is large.
Rearmament of Britain in 1930s Is a Diplomatic Deterrence
Firstly, Neville Chamberlain’s speech in front of the House of Commons on October in 1938 will be talked about. To put it more specifically, the Munich Pact was signed in 1938 around four countries, Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy, after which Neville Chamberlain gave a speech in front of the United Kingdom’s House of Commons. The Munich Pact is the agreement reached to allow German annexation of the Sudetenland in western Czechoslovakia and the major beneficiary of the Munich Pact was probably the United States in the special sense of preparation for war. In this sense, we can find that the signing of the Munich Pact has played a role in averting the outbreak of war.
What Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister, has stated in his speech is that “we should seek all means in our power to avoid war…but I never meant to suggest that we should do that by disarmament. Our past experience has shown us only too clearly that weakness in armed strength means weakness in diplomacy, and if we want to secure a lasting peace, I realize that diplomacy cannot be effective unless… behind the diplomacy is the strength to give effect.” Based on this, it is not hard to find that Neville Chamberlain holds that peace calls for sufficient power to support and such sufficient power can be provided by armed strength. Or maybe it can be put in another way that rearmament is effective in guaranteeing armed strength so that it is able to ensure strength in diplomacy as well, leading to the securing of a lasting peace. Though Neville Chamberlain directly points out that “I never meant to suggest that we should do that by rearmament”, what he mentions later on all indicates the necessity and urgency of rearmament if Britain would like to avoid war. Thus we can readily detect that Neville Chamberlain gives full support to rearmament as a diplomatic deterrence.
Moreover, Eric Lai puts forward that the policy of appeasement adopted by the British government in the 1930s is the only viable option at that time and there was no other alternative method for it to do in order to prevent war in diplomatic terms (Robert J. Caputi. 2000). Detailed speaking, Chamberlain’s diplomacy of appeasement policy should not be blamed for the incidence of war and it is actually out of the Britain’s control to make appropriate provision in peace so as to defend its Empire against three other major powers. Under that circumstance, there is nothing else for Chamberlain to do but to choose appeasement. Apart from that, Eric Lai also proposes that the Britain was confronted with economic challenges in the 1930s due to the Great War, the Stock Market Crash as well as the economic depression caused by the Central European banking crisis (Eric Lai. 2015). The economic challenges may make the Britain unable to protect its over-valued currency in adequate reserves, which determines that Britain has to follow appeasement but not rearmament because rearmament may take away all the available resources that are necessary for economic recovery. Later on, Chamberlain called for an emergency Cabinet meeting on March 12, 1938 and demanded that an increased rate of rearmament towards the Air Force and anti-aircraft defenses has to be implemented. According to this, we can say that the appeasement policy is used for buying time for rearmament while it will definitely be complex for this country to implement rearmament after appeasement (Peter Trubowitz, Peter Harris. 2014). As a result, Chamberlain smoothly turns an originally passive policy of appeasement into an active and resolute one in the end. Obviously, Chamberlain’s decision of appeasement at the first place and rearmament afterwards has made it possible for the Britain to both guarantee its economic stability and maintain its peace at the same time. Thus it can be easily understood that rearmament was the only means to achieve peace and settle disputes and the Britain successfully deterred German aggression in Czechoslovakia at last.
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