The war in Ukraine functions as a grim laboratory for military experimentation, a proxy contest fueled by authoritarian powers, and a cautionary tale about democratic self-deterrence - much like the Spanish Civil War that raged from 1936 to 1939. A new report from the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies (HCSS) by defense scholar Iskander Rehman identifies three strategic lessons from that earlier conflict that speak directly to the choices Western democracies face today.
Rehman, a senior research fellow at HCSS, argues that the Spanish analogy - while imperfect - carries an analytical power that policymakers dismiss at their peril, "Hvylya" reports, citing the study published in March 2026.
The first blind spot concerns military learning. Just as interwar British and French officers observed the fighting in Spain but filtered battlefield evidence through pre-existing doctrinal assumptions, contemporary defense analysts risk either treating Ukraine as a crystal ball for all future warfare or dismissing its lessons as too theater-specific. Rehman warns that the real danger lies not in a lack of battlefield data but in the institutional filters through which it is processed.
The second blind spot involves deterrence. The 1936 Non-Intervention Agreement became a byword for diplomatic self-deception, with its signatories openly flouting its terms and handing Franco, Hitler and Mussolini the operational freedom they needed. Rehman draws a parallel to the way Western governments have repeatedly withheld advanced weapons systems from Ukraine, citing hypothetical escalation risks while authoritarian powers ratchet up their involvement.
The third blind spot is regional containment. The belief that the Spanish conflict could be kept within its borders proved one of the interwar period's costliest miscalculations. The war instead accelerated the Axis alliance and drew in volunteers from over 50 countries. Rehman argues that treating Ukraine as a manageable European affair rather than a stress test for the entire international order "falls into the same category of wishful thinking" that guided Western statesmen in 1937.
The report was produced within a framework agreement between HCSS and the Royal Netherlands Army Command. Rehman noted that Zelensky himself drew the Spain parallel during a 2025 visit to view Picasso's Guernica, connecting the 1937 bombing to the destruction wrought by Russian, North Korean and Iranian weaponry in Ukraine.
"Hvylya" earlier reported on why the Trump-Xi rivalry resembles a 1914-style leadership test that neither side appears ready to pass.