"Ukraine is our Spanish Civil War" Topic

VD Hanson

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Hanson is always spot on. I can easily see the Ukraine being the current version of the SCW. They are using a lot of US/NATO weapons in actual combat. And mostly quite effectively.

Likely true. But I the Spanish Civil War I can't support either side. You have Fascists on one side a Communists on the other. With Ukraine it is very clear who to back and support.

Well there are de facto Communists on one side currently …

Same same – no white hats in the SCW.

A major difference, of course, is that in the Spanish Civil War most countries refused to provide arms to the beleaguered Spanish government.

The SCW was truly a civil war…Russia invaded Ukraine, a neighboring independent country.

Having said that, I think VDH is correct in his analysis.

That was agood read

A good article in the context of the Spanish Civil with some parallels to the War in Ukraine. However, it was true civil war unlike the conflict in Ukraine. This is an invasion of a sovereign and democratic nation by a larger by an authoritarian dictatorship while most democratic nations look on.

A better analogy is the carving up of and subsequent invasion of the democratic nation of Czechoslovakia during the insipient World War Two. First the annexation of the Sudetenland (German speaking region of Czechoslovakia) by Germany on 1 October 1938 (= Crimea & Russian speaking portion of the Donbas, 2014) while the European nations signed the Munich Agreement (= Minsk Agreement re Crimea and Donbas) to legalize the German invasion. The European nations sacrificed Czechoslovakia to appease the dictator Hitler and to avoid a larger European conflict. After a few months Hitler ignored the Munich Agreement and invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia on 15 March 1939.

Does this sound familiar today in Europe? It seems that Europe is standing by while Ukraine is being steadily sacrificed bit by bit in the hope of preventing a greater European war.

Not a perfect analogy but pretty close.

Iron Duke!

Plus…something, anyway.

Though the huge and invaluable (and increasing in value) supply of armaments to Ukraine is certainly a few steps from truly idling by while the crime is being committed.

It's almost like the "too Gentleman" who won't get into the fight, but knows who he wants to win and is doing the best he can short of actually taking his coat off and wading into it.

TVAG

A fair comment TVAG and I agree.

I am sure that the Russians have some ethic Russian fighting for them from the Ukraine. But it seems that most/ a lot of the ethnic Russian/ Ukrainians know what the war is really about.

IronDuke makes good points.

I do want to beat down the knee-jerk tendency to extol the virtues of victims, here – the Ukraine government was known for its incompetence and corruption, and this made them vulnerable to their local neighborhood creeps. However, Ukraine has a right to be ruled by their own incompetent and corrupt politicians, without being invaded and ruled by a neighboring country's incompetent and corrupt politicians.

TVAG is spot on when he says that tis is a lot more like Czechoslovakia though, and I'm not seeing the Spanish Civil War in this – maybe if a large portion of Ukrainians were fighting for the Russians, OK. But this is a straight-up invasion. And the major difference is the USA is – once again – explaining what a spine is to most of Europe, little that they deserve it.

Still, glad someone is putting on their thinking cap…

Hanson's 1st point is a proving ground for new military tech. This only applies in a minor way to Ukraine in the present war, Russia is using Soviet stuff and there is no sign of the T-14 Armata, Ukraine is being supplied with mostly old stuff. In Spain the Soviet tanks proved to be better than the Panzer I. Russia is not showing much new in tactics, strategy and logistics.

"an anemic League was not all that much different from an impotent United Nations" – Russia should not have allowed to grab the USSR's veto. If the USA didn't insist on a veto before joining the UN in the 1st place there wouldn't have been these problems with Russian and Chinese vetos.

Plenty of wars have involved sanctions – so nothing special here.

Having foreign fighters involved is nothing special that links the SCW to the 2022 invasion of Ukraine – as all the Russian invaders are foreign this makes it very different to the SCW.

"The Spanish Civil War was a different 20th-century ideological struggle", but, the invasion of Ukraine is an ages-old grab for territory and power. Putin's propaganda doesn't change that – Hanson is wrong here.

"Ukraine, like Spain, has awoken us from our false sense of security that has grown since the end of the Cold War."
Not really, the SCW being a civil war did little to provoke rearmament before the threat of Hitler eventually did. This especially applies to the USA.

IronDuke596 + 1

Druzhina
Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers

"Russia is not showing much new in tactics, strategy and logistics."

Indeed, my understanding from what I've read and heard is that Russia is actually falling back on WWI tactics – heavy artillery barrages then throwing masses of badly-trained conscripts [as little as 2 weeks of training] at the enemy in waves.

The question is when will the Russian people realize all this and protest it?

Another thing to keep in mind is that the Spanish Civil War was fought on a continent with a dangerous, well-established totalitarian regime – the Soviet Union, which was a force for disorder and anarchy everywhere they could project power.

Today, Russia is demonstrating that they can't even dominate their neighbors, or successfully conduct a war against a relatively minor weak country. Sure, they can make trouble in Syria, where they are interfering with a civil war, but that's because they are backing a local who is in power.

Putin's Russia is more like Lenin's Russia than Stalin's Russia.

Well like the Condor Legion, Italian & Russians in the SCW. The US/NATO & Russia get to test out their weapons systems, ammo usage, etc. in a "conventional conflict". Not like the more recent A'stan & Iraqi insurgencies, or ISIS hunt in Syria.

Even if Russian tactics, techniques, etc. are more like WWII or even WWI in some cases.

Indeed, my understanding from what I've read and heard is that Russia is actually falling back on WWI tactics

To be fair artillery would have been the backbone of any Cold War-gone-hot operation by the Soviets.

The problem with Ukraine is it has parallels with so many other past conflicts but in truth is unique. For example its relatively easy to draw comparisons with the the League of Nations and the UN but Russia's veto is backed by a nuclear determinant. Something without a precedence in the 1930s. Without that I'm fairly certain the "Gentleman" analogy scenario would have played out more along the lines of the US and the EU telling Poland to 'leave it, he's not worth it…' about 5 seconds after Russia got kicked in the teeth. Assuming NATO hadn't decided to just curb stomp them in the first place.

the comparison with a civil war like Spain is irrelevant weird and grotesque, and even legimitizing the Putinian vision denying to Ukraine to be a separate state and nation from Russia,
not to mention in the SCW the internationalization of the conflict, not with simple volunteers of the International Brigades as the International Legion in Ukraine, but others States with the already mentionned direct help and participation in the conflict of 75 000 Italians, Air, Navy, Army & MVSN's Corps of 4 whole divisions (3 blackshirts and one Regio Esercito Divisons) and the less numerous but more famous Nazi German Condor Legion allied to Fascist Spain

Czechoslovakia doesn't offer a good comparison…no war between the nazi Germany agressors invaders (more Poland taking a piece) and this country in 1938-1939 coming from the former Austria-Hungary

better comparison is the Winter War with Finland, a previous Great Duchy belonging to Russia, independant since 1917 and attacked by Soviet Union
Finland was then supported by France and Great Britain and others countries all supplying fighters aircrafts artillery ammunitions weapons etc…
and despite much more – 47 times – demographically superior Soviet Russia lost more men than their heroic neighbours in 3 months of war giving a disastrous image of the Soviet Russian Army of that time

"Today, Russia is demonstrating that they can't even dominate their neighbors"

Sort of… Russia actually dominates mamy of its neighbors very well. Dagestan, Chechnya, Tuva, Sibirsk, Buryatia and even Belarus all effectively cowed by the Muscovites.

There are exceptions.

I see how this war is a proving ground for newer conventional equipment and tactics on a European battlefield, as was the SCW, and hopefully it's not a precursor to a horrendous worldwide conflict like a WW3. But it's starting to feel that way.

But it's not a civil war, it's not an ideological war, it's a war of defense against a foreign aggressor. Legion 4, I'm curious who you feel are the defacto Communists? I'm guessing you mean Russia? I can see where your coming from, given Putin was ex KGB or whatever. But other than the authoritianism of the Putin regime, I don't think there's anything communist about Russia. They're not even pretending to be leftists, but don't tell that to the Socialists in my country…

To be fair artillery would have been the backbone of any Cold War-gone-hot operation by the Soviets.

That would be a given. We expected that if the Cold War went hot. One of the questions it came down to was how long the war would last. If losses maybe high in troops, equipment, ammo, spare parts, etc. If the tempo of combat was thought as fast and brutal it could be. With modern weapons and tactics. Even with no WMDs. We kind of see this paradigm in the Ukraine.

Legion 4, I'm curious who you feel are the defacto Communists? I'm guessing you mean Russia? I can see where your coming from, given Putin was ex KGB or whatever. But other than the authoritianism of the Putin regime, I don't think there's anything communist about Russia. They're not even pretending to be leftists, but don't tell that to the Socialists in my country…

Well I really was not assigning who would be who in the SCW paradigm. Just the fact that major nations would be testing out their equipment. In the first major conventional war in the 21st Century. Was like what happened during the SCW before WWII.

But of course, if I had to point fingers the Russians would be the Communist from the USSR.

However, today as we know Putin's Russia is not Communist like we saw e.g. before, during and after WWII. If anything, Putin's Russia seemed clearly more imperialistic, than anything else. And yes authoritarian …

We also know of Putin's rumored desire to reclaim lands of the former Imperial Russia. Which was never going to happen anyway. Especially now as we see the Russian high losses and inability to fight modern mobile maneuver combined arms warfare. Plus Finland & Sweden joining NATO.

However, reports are Russia, China and India don't like how the world order fell out after WWII. They are looking to create a new world order. With the US no longer being in the place it once held only a few year ago. For a number of reasons, many I have talked about before. As well as most of the Western Europe nations having downsized the militaries to the point of almost being almost irrelevant. In a modern conventional war.

We have a number in the US, who are self-proclaimed or want-to- Socialists, some in our gov't. But I don't think they really know what they are talking about.

Ideologically Putin appears closer to the Nationalists than the Republicans (and their spectrum of left-wing supporters)! Though you could draw a kind of tenuous comparison between the relationship between Wagner and the regular army and the internecine struggles that dogged the Republican's. Like I said this war offers to many comparisons…

The thug faction won out early after the Russian revolution, The democratic Socialists and other socialist were round up. The verse that these thugs clung too, was "the means justify the ends." Which they used to horrific extent, completely losing their way and eventually driving the Soviet Union into the ground, Putin is a direct decent of that faction.

The Soviet invasion of Finland is a better comparison to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

On the other hand, there are many better comparisons to the Spanish Civil War.
Compare the American War of Independence.
New military tech was tried. The Rebels had the Kentucky Long Rifle, the Crown had the Ferguson Breech-loading Rifle. There were new tactics, strategy and logistics. The British introduced the 2-deep line.

The were foreign fighters:
Hessians in the AWI – International Brigades in the SCW.
The French in the AWI – The Italian Army in the SCW.
The French Fleet in the AWI – The Condor legion in the SCW.

The was an ideological struggle in both – democracy vs tyranny.

In addition to the comparisons Hanson makes there were also volunteer militias on both sides in the AWI & SCW; and the CinC of the rebels became the president, Washington in the AWI and Franco in the SCW (but democracy won in the AWI – tyranny in the SCW).

…

Hanson does not define who he means by Our Spanish Civil War. I will assume he is comparing the early 20th century USA with the early 21st century USA. The USA was completely isolationist before, during and after the SCW. Although there was a tendency towards isolationism during the term of the previous POTUS, the present USA is interventionist not isolationist.

Druzhina
18th Century Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers

better comparison is the Winter War with Finland, a previous Great Duchy belonging to Russia, independant since 1917 and attacked by Soviet Union
Finland was then supported by France and Great Britain and others countries all supplying fighters aircrafts artillery ammunitions weapons etc…

The Ukrainians themselves were using the Winter War allegory already in the early weeks of the war. Though with the Russian military advances having stalled, the war getting prolonged and the talk of Ukrainian counter-attacks, this might be starting to look more like Winter War and Continuation War rolled together.

The quantity of material aid that Ukraine is receiving from a multitude of sources is superior to what Finland received in Winter War (and coming from a larger number of countries), and over better logistic routes. However, as in the early days of WWII, those countries providing material support have realised that they also need to increase their own stockpiles, due to the impending threats, limiting the amount of aid that could be provided.

Another similarity between Ukraine in 2022 and Winter War in 1939 is that the attacker found to their surprise that their vaunted military would not be able to roll over the weaker defender in a couple of weeks as planned.

Another similarity between Ukraine in 2022 and Winter War in 1939 is that the attacker found to their surprise that their vaunted military would not be able to roll over the weaker defender in a couple of weeks as planned.

Appears the Russian Military does not read or understand their own history … Or maybe they just forgot ?