Would you make a treaty with the Devil? It is a silly question, isn’t it? You would never do anything like that. And yet, nations do it all the time.

We could argue that no one would knowingly make a deal with the devil because he is a known liar and a sworn adversary. You wouldn’t believe him. You know he is your enemy. There is no way. The only reason he would make a deal with you is to do you harm. It would be to gain an advantage, to lull you into making a mistake, and eventually to do you in.

In reading Winston Churchill’s The Gathering Storm I was struck by how much the nations risked on the treaties they trusted to prevent another terrible world war. I think it is fair to say that we sometimes find ourselves worn down by the world. And so, while we would never make an outright deal with the devil, we are all too willing to make compromises with him, and for the same reasons nations made deals with Hitler.