Appeasement has been long criticized as an abused conciliation policy intended to buy peace at the expense of concessions. Indeed, the history of the interwar‐period Europe, particularly the shameful Munich crisis, endorses a negative image of appeasement in the sense that appeasers are seen as cravenmen who mistook weakness for charity and sold leverages of negotiation too cheaply in return for peace. Against this conventional account for appeasement, this study sets out to demonstrate the two different dimensions of understanding appeasement policy by revisiting historical trajectories of interwar Europe: ‘power‐based appeasement’; and ‘fear‐based appeasement.’ While appeasement could be a policy of optimism at times of strength, it could be relegated to a shackle of pessimism when appeasers are inferior to aggressors. With this logical division of reasoning, it briefly attempts to analogize Europe’s appeasement to South Korea’s sunshine policy towards North Korea. Also, it suggests that comparative analysis of appeasement policy with the cases of contemporary events is our future task ahead.