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By the middle of 1940, with Europe prostrate at the Nazis’ feet, Russia allied with Germany, and the United States still out of the war, Britain’s leaders were focused more on survival than on victory. Neville Chamberlain had reached the point where he was contemplating a peace for Great Britain secured at the expense of the sovereignty of her allies. But after the loss of Belgium and the invasion of France, members of Parliament were demanding a new government. Lord Halifax was the leading choice to lead the new cabinet, but a number of MPs were dissatisfied with his proximity...

Seventy-five years ago today, the House of Commons in London timidly welcomed the newly appointed Prime Minister of the British Empire, Winston Spencer Churchill. The outgoing Prime Minister,Neville Chamberlain, received ovations as they walked together down the long aisle, while the new leader endured a somewhat cool reception. The two men were adversaries. Chamberlain had declared upon returning from signing the Munich Accords in September, 1938, “Peace with honor. I believe it is peace for our time.” Churchill’s response had been, “You were given the choice between peace and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war.” The Accords...

"If I want to, I could invade Kiev in two weeks, " says Putin. And with that deliberately misinterpreted sentence, the Western powers that be completely lose their mind. A brief lesson in symbolic logic to explain what Putin meant: p-> q (If I want to, I could invade Kiev in two weeks,) ~q (Putin is not invading Kiev in two weeks.) therefore, ~p (Putin doesn't want to.) Putin was explicitly saying that he has no interest in invading Kiev. And that's because he knows it's not in his political best interest. When Russia annexed Crimea, although I didn't create...

President Putin has called for talks to discuss "statehood" for eastern Ukraine, Russian media report. He said the issue needed to be discussed to ensure the interests of local people "are definitely upheld". His comments came after the EU gave Russian a one-week ultimatum to reverse course in Ukraine or face sanctions.

DONETSK, Ukraine -- Ninety percent of voters in a key industrial region in eastern Ukraine came out in favor of sovereignty Sunday, pro-Russian insurgents said in announcing preliminary results of a twin referendum that is certain to deepen the turmoil in the country. Roman Lyagin, election chief of the self-styled Donetsk People's Republic, said around 75 percent of the Donetsk region's 3 million or so eligible voters cast ballots, and the vast majority backed self-rule.

Days after a top NATO commander warned of Russia’s military buildup on Ukraine’s eastern border, Russian troops staged military exercises in Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria, which borders Ukraine on the southwest, the Russian news agency Interfax reported Wednesday. "There is absolutely sufficient [Russian] force postured on the eastern border of Ukraine to run to Transnistria if the decision was made to do that, and that is very worrisome," U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, NATO's supreme allied commander in Europe, said Sunday at the Brussels offices of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a Washington, D.C.-based...

Berlin has become the world's first city to have its own internet domain name. Companies and individuals in the German capital can now request web addresses ending in .berlin as alternatives to the more traditional options of .com, .org or the German national suffix .de. Addresses will be granted on a first come, first served basis and will each cost about €50 (£42) a year.

Russian troop presence in Crimea compared to what Germans did in Sudetenland in 1938 Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird has compared Russia's troop presence in Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula to Hitler's invasion of Sudetenland, a part of the former Czechoslovakia, in 1938. Baird, speaking to host Evan Solomon on CBC News Network's Power & Politics, accused Russia of invading and occupying Crimea, a part of Ukraine. "If it's not war, it's akin to war," he said. At first, Baird said the situation was "right out of the Cold War." When Solomon pointed out Putin claims he is protecting Russian rights in...

Seventy-five years ago, on Sept. 30, 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain signed the Munich Pact, handing portions of Czechoslovakia to Adolf Hitler's Germany. Chamberlain returned to Britain to popular acclaim, declaring that he had secured "peace for our time." Today the prime minister is generally portrayed as a foolish man who was wrong to try to "appease" Hitler—a cautionary tale for any leader silly enough to prefer negotiation to confrontation. But among historians, that view changed in the late 1950s, when the British government began making Chamberlain-era records available to researchers. "The result of this was the discovery of...

Sarah Palin said it is important whom Republicans choose to run against President Obama, but didn’t directly address whether she’ll join the 2012 presidential race during her much-anticipated speech before a tea party crowd in Iowa on Saturday. The former Republican governor of Alaska and 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee referenced the 2012 election many times throughout her remarks, calling out the “permanent political class,” “crony capitalism” and “entrenched political interests.”

20:40) Sharon to US: Don't turn Israel into Czechoslovakia Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has instructed the IDF to use whatever means necessary to defend the country, he told reporters tonight. He made his comments after three Israelis were killed this afternoon in Afula, and a terror attack overnight in Jerusalem in which two people were injured. He also urged the United States not to turn its back on Israel in favor of the Arab states in the way Europe ignored Czechoslovakia in 1938. The results of that move were calamitous, he said. There is considerable concern in Jerusalem that the ...

History teaches us that man learns nothing from history. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel[Editor's Note: Forty-nine years ago last month, the nation Israel was reestablished in the Land. Thirty years ago this month, as a result of the famed Six Day War, Israel regained Biblical Jerusalem, as well as Gaza, the Sinai, and the Golan Heights. Although these areas were part of the original mandated land, and are undeniably essential for Israel's defense, it has become strangely "politically correct" to assume that peace in the Middle East is dependent upon their yielding these lands-the so-called "West Bank"-back to their enemies which...

History teaches us that man learns nothing from history. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel[Editor's Note: Forty-nine years ago last month, the nation Israel was reestablished in the Land. Thirty years ago this month, as a result of the famed Six Day War, Israel regained Biblical Jerusalem, as well as Gaza, the Sinai, and the Golan Heights. Although these areas were part of the original mandated land, and are undeniably essential for Israel's defense, it has become strangely "politically correct" to assume that peace in the Middle East is dependent upon their yielding these lands-the so-called "West Bank"-back to their enemies which...

Their Strategic Barrier Czechoslovakia was strategically placed in the heart of Europe, and its conquest was central to Hitler's plans for overrunning Europe. Though small, Czechoslovakia could field over 800,000 men (one of the strongest armies in Europe), and it had a highly efficient arms industry. To complicate matters from Hitler's point of view, it possessed a formidable physical barrier to his designs in the shape of the Sudeten mountains, which bordered Germany and guarded the access to the Czech heartland and the capital city of Prague only miles away. A system of fortifications and fortresses had been built in...

Seventy years ago on September 29, 1938, the leaders of Germany, Italy, France and Great Britain concluded an agreement in Munich that has gone down in history as one of the West's greatest political debacles. According to it, Hitler was allowed to take over a region of the Czechoslovak Republic, known as the Sudetenland, which contained a large ethnic German population. He had been threatening to use force to achieve his ends, and the British and French appeased him hoping to avoid a new and devastating conflict. Of course the agreement did not foster peace: rather it paved the way...

Lessons from the Sudetenland, by Benjamin Netanyahu History teaches us that man learns nothing from history.Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel[Editor's Note: Forty-nine years ago last month, the nation Israel was reestablished in the Land. Thirty years ago this month, as a result of the famed Six Day War, Israel regained Biblical Jerusalem, as well as Gaza, the Sinai, and the Golan Heights. Although these areas were part of the original mandated land, and are undeniably essential for Israel's defense, it has become strangely "politically correct" to assume that peace in the Middle East is dependent upon their yielding these lands-the so-called...

A Contribution by Benjamin Netanyahu: Lessons from the Sudetenland History teaches us that man learns nothing from history. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel[Editor's Note: Forty-nine years ago last month, the nation Israel was reestablished in the Land. Thirty years ago this month, as a result of the famed Six Day War, Israel regained Biblical Jerusalem, as well as Gaza, the Sinai, and the Golan Heights. Although these areas were part of the original mandated land, and are undeniably essential for Israel's defense, it has become strangely "politically correct" to assume that peace in the Middle East is dependent upon their yielding...

The struggle over Palestine, with contradictory promises made by Britain to both Jews and Arabs, fueled four Arab-Israeli wars, brought the US and Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, contributed to the use of oil and terrorism as political weapons, and was used as a pretext (amongst others) for Islamists dedicated to Israel's and the West's destruction.

A study in appeasement Posted: July 28, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc. Neville Chamberlain, the prime minister who agreed to the transfer of the Sudetenland to Germany, is known to history as an appeaser. Munich, where his infamous conference with Hitler was held, has become an international synonym for craven appeasement. Chamberlain's defenders argue that he had no real choice. The British were unprepared for war and could not stop Hitler's seizure of the Sudetenland in any event. Moreover, the Sudetenlanders were a Germanic people who had never lived under Prague rule until 1919, should never...