Tomorrow, the annual Munich Security Conference will start. Munich will briefly become the global capital of diplomacy, but I think it’s worthwhile to remember - especially right now - that Munich was also the site of one of the biggest diplomatic failures of 20th century. It was in Munich, in 1938, that UK and France signed an agreement with Germany and Italy to appease Hitler. The agreement is also known as the “Munich Betrayal”. It allowed Nazi Germany to annex the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia, where many ethnic Germans lived. This decision was made without Czechoslovakia’s participation, and the country was forced to accept the terms to avoid war. The United Kingdom and France, pursuing a policy of appeasing Hitler, hoped to maintain peace in Europe. However, this only strengthened Germany’s aggression—in March 1939, it occupied all of Czechoslovakia, and in September 1939, it launched World War II. The Munich Agreement became a symbol of the failure of diplomatic concessions to an aggressor. I hope this weekend, and the next crucial weeks will not go down in history as the same.