It’s worth remembering specifically why appeasement doesn’t work. The one trying to appease the egotistical bully thinks the bully had limited goals , so if you grant some fraction of that you can avoid their aggression. In reality, bullies don’t have limited goals (they will take exactly as much as they think they can take and no less) and only see appeasement as weakness, which further drives their aggression. That is why appeasement always leads to disaster beyong the immediate short term - it shows you can be successfully leveraged and threatened and so it invites more leveraging and threats.

I hate to use this example but Star Trek Discovery rather clumsily covered this concept in the first season in the Klingon war. The Vulcans realized that Klingons see war and conquest as an inherent part of their culture, and exploiting weakness in others is one of their core beliefs. So they adopted the policy of shoooting at any Klingon vessels on sight (“the Vulcan Hello”) , and the Klingons left them alone.

It’s anathema for people who believe in peace which is why the Federation couldn’t bring themselves to behave this way. It took ruthless logical analysis to arrive at that course of action.