The policy of appeasement was used primarily in the 1930s, before the outbreak of World War 2, rather than during the war itself. Appeasement refers to efforts to conciliate an aggressive nation in the hope of avoiding conflict (and, some have argued, potential world war). The term 'appeasement' became synonymous with the foreign policy of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain as it related to demands made by Nazi Germany in the latter half of the 1930s.