How did the Western democracies respond to the aggression of the Axis powers during the 1930s?

The most
powerful Western European democracies, Great Britain and France, responded to Axis aggression
with a policy of appeasement. This meant they did not interfere militarily with Nazi land grabs,
hoping that if they gave Hitler what he wanted, they could avoid another devastating world war.
It should also be noted that Great Britain and France were made anxious by the Russian
Revolution and the potential spread of communism across the European continent. They wanted a
strong Germany as a bulwark against the Soviet Union. In other words, during the mid-1930s, they
feared communism more than fascism. Some in France and Great Britain, such as Neville
Chamberlain, also still believed Hitler, if given what he wanted, would "settle down"
and behave like a normal head of state.

Other Western democracies, such as
Sweden and Switzerland, opted for neutrality, vowing to stay out of any war. The United States
had retreated into isolationism, despite being the rising world power. The US wanted Europe to
handle its own problems, a policy that became increasingly impossible as time went on.

The Western democracies discovered too late that they had made a mistake in not
stopping Hitler when it would have been easy to do so. He was bent on world domination and was
not going to embrace peaceful coexistence with other states. They ended up fighting a world war
they had hoped to avoid.