September 3 marks the 60th anniversary of the beginning of the bloodiest conflict in human history: World War II. Two days earlier, Hitler's troops had invaded Poland, initiating a conflict that would cost 57 million lives--including 293,000 American servicemen. Now, as we are about to enter the 21st century--in a world armed with weapons far more powerful than those used in World War II--it is important to understand the causes of that conflict, to make sure that we have learned its lessons and are able to prevent similar future bloodbaths.

The primary cause of the war was, of course, the totalitarian ideology of Nazism, which held that the state is all-important, and that the individual must be sacrificed to the good of the state. Hitler put this ideology into practice, sacrificing individual lives by the millions. But the success of German military aggression was not inevitable. The free countries of Europe had several opportunities to stop Hitler prior to 1939--but at each turn they offered appeasement rather than resistance.

In 1936, Hitler sent German troops into the Rhineland, on the border between Germany and France. This was the first major step in the Nazi military buildup and a direct violation of the treaty of Versailles (signed at the end of World War I). The German military was still small; if France had attacked, Germany would have been unable to resist. Instead, the French simply dropped the issue. In 1938, Germany annexed Austria; again, the democratic European nations did nothing. Later that year, Hitler demanded possession of the Sudetenland, an ethnic German enclave in Czechoslovakia. The European powers met at a diplomatic conference in Munich, where they acceded to Hitler's demands, promising, in British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's now infamous words, that this concession would ensure peace in our time. Within a few months, Germany had seized all of Czechoslovakia.

By the time he attacked Poland, Hitler had received a consistent message: In the face of demands, threats, and outright aggression, the free nations would simply give in.

What could explain this weakness in the face of such a clear threat? France and especially Britain were nations whose citizens lived in freedom, who could claim a tradition of individual rights and the rule of law; their enemy was a racist dictatorship whose stated goal was to enslave and murder. Their attitude should have been one of righteous outrage and swift action to destroy an obvious evil. Yet their actual attitudes were the reverse. Hitler was the one who issued his demands in a tone of strident righteousness, while the free nations replied with compromising timidity.

The incredible truth is that the nations that best represented freedom and individual rights had lost the certainty of their own moral convictions. They were unable to muster the moral confidence necessary to threaten war in defense of their own freedom. Have we learned the lessons of World War II? Take a look at American foreign policy. In Iraq, where a nationalist dictator is attempting to develop weapons of mass destruction, we have let the issue drop. North Korea is building missiles and developing nuclear weapons to use against our allies in Asia; our response has been to appease them with money and aid. And China, which echoes Nazi Germany in its threats to annex neighboring territories, has met with the same appeasement that emboldened Hitler in 1938. In the face of Chinese missile threats against Taiwan, for example, we are now busy affirming our agreement with China that Taiwan should not declare its formal independence.

The only time we have had the nerve to face down a dictator has been in the tiny province of Kosovo - where the threat to American interests is insignificant.

The reason for U.S. appeasement is chillingly familiar. While the Chinese furiously denounce our attempts to impose our values on them and interfere in China's internal affairs--our president flew to China last year to acknowledge, in a televised broadcast, America's past faults. The same pattern is repeating itself: Strident moral certainty on the part of dictators, met by mealy-mouthed compromise on the part of free nations.

What is needed to oppose these threats--and avoid the necessity for a future war that will break World War II's record for carnage--is moral confidence on the part of free nations, followed by firm action. But the message to the world's dictators must be the opposite of the message given to Adolf Hitler prior to 1939.