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Concept
Western betrayal
Summary
Western betrayal is the view that the United Kingdom, France, and sometimes the United States failed to meet their legal, diplomatic, military, and moral obligations with respect to the Czechoslovak and Polish states during the prelude to and aftermath of World War II. It also sometimes refers to the treatment of other Central and Eastern European states at the time.
The term refers to several events, including the treatment of Czechoslovakia during the Munich Agreement and the resulting occupation by Germany, as well as the failure of France and the UK to aid Poland when the country was invaded by Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939. The same concept also refers to concessions made by the United States and the United Kingdom to the Soviet Union during the Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam conferences and to their passive stance during the Warsaw Uprising against Nazi occupation, and post-war events, which allocated the region to the Soviet sphere of influence and created the communist Eastern Bloc.
Historically, such views were intertwined with some of the most significant geopolitical events of the 20th century, including the rise and empowerment of Nazi Germany, the rise of the Soviet Union as a dominant superpower with control of large parts of Europe, and various treaties, alliances, and positions taken during and after World War II and continuing on into the Cold War.
"Notions of western betrayal" is a reference to "a sense of historical and moral responsibility" for the West's "abandonment of Central and Eastern Europe at the end of the Second World War," according to professors Charlotte Bretherton and John Vogler.
In Central and Eastern Europe, the interpretation of the outcomes of the Munich Crisis of 1938 and the Yalta Conference of 1945 as a betrayal of Central and Eastern Europe by Western powers has been used by Central and Eastern European leaders to put pressure on Western countries to acquiesce to more recent political requests such as membership in NATO.
Official source
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