When I first learned the details of Chamberlain’s Munich agreement, and started talking about appeasement, I somewhat stupidly thought I was advancing a novel argument. The reality is that the idea “let us not appease, or it will be just like 1938 again” has been in circulation since somewhere just after WW2, when the memory was fresh, and children were still taught history.
In particular, the Neocons used it often. Now, this is a word that gets used constantly. I just finished a course on the history of Conservatism, and the term used properly refers to a group of mostly Jewish former leftists–in the 30’s many of them were Trotskyists, and Communists of other stripes–who retained some affinity for social welfare sorts of programs, but were rabid anti-Communists, and consistently hawkish on almost every issue of foreign policy. Irving Krystal (sp?), David Novak, and Norman Podhoretz are the names I remember. They had a magazine back in the 50’s, whose name I’ve forgotten. Currently, the main magazine is Commentary, if I’m not losing my marbles.
In any event, the lecturer, Patrick Allitt, labelled Buchanon a “paleoconservative”, as someone who continues the long standing tradition in Conservatism of isolationism. Now, Buchanon has been in the game a long time–at least 40 years by my reckoning, and likely longer–and he has heard this theme of “the Germans are coming” many times.
As a matter of historical fact, it was FDR and the Democrats who did the most to get us in WW2. FDR started the rearmament process, the Lend-Lease program, and arguably exceeded his Constitutional authority by, if memory serves, offering up Navy escorts to transports crossing the Atlantic. Since they became thereby subject to U-boat attack, this was tantamount to getting us in the war, without Congressional authorization.
In any event, it is hard to argue that we did not have a vital national interest in helping defeat the Axis powers, particularly Germany. Thus, what Buchanon is doing in his book “Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War” the same thing leftist Nicholas Baker does in Human Smoke: deny that Hitler needed to be fought at all.
This is not just an argument about WW2, but serves as a proxy argument for all American interventions overseas period, including most recently of course our conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, which I assume Buchanan opposed.
Now, I could know one hell of a lot more about this than I do. I have read reviews of both books, but have not read the books. I could be wrong, but this feels right to me, based on the not inconsiderable number of facts I do possess.