Appeasement Is Rational Response to Power Shift

Appeasement is just what we call compromise when we're giving something away in response to a rising power: when a nation dramatically rises in wealth and influence and claims a sphere of influence, the rational move for others—because war is costly—is to concede, as Russia did when a weak post-Soviet state watched the U.S. expand NATO to its borders, and as the West later did over Crimea, Syria, and Kazakhstan when Russia re-asserted its strength.