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Admittedly there is a risk in any course we follow other than this [surrender], but every lesson in history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face - that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight and surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand - the ultimatum. And what then? When Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we are retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary because by that time we will have weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he has heard voices pleading for 'peace at any price' or 'better Red than dead,' or as one commentator put it, he would rather 'live on his knees than die on his feet.' And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don't speak for the rest of us. You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin - just in the face of this enemy?

Ronald Reagan#30

Cold warPolicySecurityForeign policyResistance

About this quote

What does it mean?
Reagan argues that appeasement is riskier than resistance and that accommodation eventually leads to surrender.
In plain terms
History teaches appeasement is riskier than standing firm against aggression.
What can you take from it?
Avoid appeasement; history shows accommodation leads to surrender and weakness.

Where it applies

  • diplomatic crises
  • security debates
  • historical comparisons

Putting it to work

  • analyze appeasement cases
  • advocate deterrence strategies

Questions to consider

  • When does accommodation become appeasement?
  • Is war ever the safer choice?

Another view

It treats all accommodation as surrender and may justify escalating conflict unnecessarily.

More from Ronald Reagan

  1. The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road …

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  2. Later variant: For many years now, you and I have been shushed like children and told there are no simple answers to the complex problems which are beyond our …

    Permalink to quote #28
  3. You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on Earth, or we will sentence them to take the last…

    Permalink to quote #32

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