There’s a Word for the West’s Appeasement of Militant Islam

The first half of this decade has given us all an opportunity to reacquaint ourselves with the concept of appeasement and its consistent record of not just failing to deter aggression but of inviting more of it. But the history of appeasement is tied to geopolitics, and it typically describes how nations — even those under the sway of a single strongman — behave.

How might we describe a similar program of mollification designed to quiescently pacify an aggressive culture that might be unbound to national borders? At the height of the Global War on Terror and as the phenomenon relates to militant Islam, we did have that word. It described the impulse to respond to acute threats with supplication. We called it dhimmitude.

About the Author

Noah Rothman

Noah Rothman is a senior writer at National Review. His third book, Blood and Progress: A Century of Left-Wing Violence, was published by Hachette in May 2026.

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The first half of this decade has given us all an opportunity to reacquaint ourselves with the concept of appeasement and its consistent record of not just failing to deter aggression but of inviting more of it. But the history of appeasement is tied to geopolitics, and it typically describes how nations — even those under the sway of a single strongman — behave.

How might we describe a similar program of mollification designed to quiescently pacify an aggressive culture that might be unbound to national borders? At the height of the Global War on Terror and as the phenomenon relates to militant Islam, we did have that word. It described the impulse to respond to acute threats with supplication. We called it dhimmitude.

About the Author

Noah Rothman

Noah Rothman is a senior writer at National Review. His third book, Blood and Progress: A Century of Left-Wing Violence, was published by Hachette in May 2026.