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British foreign policy faced a number of pretty much well known challenges in the run up to the second world war: German grievances from the 1919 Paris Peace Conference (reparations etc), the Spanish Civil War, and the rise of Italy and Japan as fascist powers (and their respective invasions of Manchuria in September 1931 and Abyssinia in October 1935. There were four options available to policy makers in Britain in response to these events. The first was to do nothing, the second was heavily armed isolation, the third was a reliance on Allies (whether that was through the League or otherwise) and the last was appeasement. .
The first option - that of inaction - seemed no longer viable. Unlike the USA, the stretch of water between them and the belligerent powers was not hundreds, but tens of miles wide. Baldwin (who really establish appeasement into the Conservative consensus) summed up the way in which the Great War, and the development of new technology, especially aircraft (which was a particular concern of Baldwin) had changed the rules of defence. When you think of the defence of England' he explained in 1935 (?) you no longer think of the chalk cliffs of Dover, you think of the Rhine. That is where our frontier lies'. The simple point about inaction is that it did not translate into a maintenance of the status quo - in the respect of the expansionist ambitions of Italy, Germany and France, an active participation in foreign policy affairs was necessary for national security. A reliance on the power of public opinion was also not a viable alternative in countries where democracy had been abolished. In fact in Nazi Germany, Hitler's rise to be power had been based on an exploitation at a popular wish to regain international respect. Public opinion supported his belligerent approach. .
The second option of heavily armed isolation, was indeed a favoured option by a number of Conservative backbenchers.
