If being an unaligned country with a large army is no deterrent to Putin's ambitions is it time for ROI to join Nato?
Looks like we are not very high up the list in Moscow.
Why would we want to be a part of NATO?
Its mandate to exist disappeared well over 30 years ago. But instead of being disbanded as it should have been as was the Warsaw Pact, it continued, not longer as a defensive alliance but as a tool of aggression, answerable to Washington DC.
Since then NATO and NATO member states, separately and together have destroyed the rule of international law, destroyed socially uplifting economies, destroyed democratic political economies, killed millions with their wars of aggression and created millions of refugees.
But then, sure think of the money/debt we would bring in by joining.
?? We didn't know the top 5 in the UN had a veto?
That would be a savage indictment of FF and FG. Even a secondary school student would know of the veto.
I actually don't believe that. Our neutrality has always been a fudge and poorly thought out.
Yes, and we knew that when we made it our foreign policy.
What was it you wanted to do without the blessing of the UN anyway? Oh wait! we can't do anything.
ROFL
our foreign policy is to take the direction of the UN......
....which can be vetoed by the Americans, Brits or Russians.....
How many times mark: our foreign policy is to take the direction of the UN.
Sorry, this is foreign policy 1st year stuff.
On EU defence, I can easily see an EU treaty of sorts coming down the line, and we will need to vote on it.
Denmark is holding a ref in June about this.
Will be interesting to see if the usual cranks are in power next time out if this happens and they call, yet again to reject an EU treaty.
When it comes to starting wars I wouldn't trust either.
But you trust them enough to veto Ireland's foreign policy? :)
Realpolitik is not your thing is it?
No whataboutery in my post. If you think the US and the UK are not the primary powers in NATO that is a delusion only you suffer from. When it comes to starting wars I wouldn't trust either.
While neutrality doesn't require a referendum I don't think even FG and FF would be stupid enough to proceed without one but who knows. Any joining of an EU force requires a ref,
Well done.
Whataboutism x 4.
NATO is not the UK..
Back on topic, Lemass in 1962
Irish government position in the 1980's
TLDR:
Irish Neutrality was always a stop-gap until something more convenient came along. It's also not enshrined in the constitution, unlike what some think.
1950 mark? There would have been many alive and well who had been through independence and a decade of carnage. I wouldn't expect them to trust Britain. Would you trust Boris? What about Iraq and WMD? Would you have been happy for your children to be dragged into that obscenity?
The majority now think that our concept of Neutrality is out of date.
We also contemplated joining NATO in 1950, but wouldn't because the UK was a member.
This is a good thread on the issue. Adds some facts to the debate, rather than emotion and fake news.
We really do love a bit of Myth-making in this country.
Oh I understand...no worries.
100%
People also forget that part of this island is part of NATO already. Hence we get 'some' sort of defence by proxy. I would not be surprised if in any UI discussions this comes up.
No, I am not saying that.
I have repeated myself numerous times.
You cannot or do not what to understand.
Apparently, if we don't have it as a leash, us savage Irish would be invading countries left, right and centre.... or something to that effect.
Surely this war has brought it home to us that Europe's security is our security also.
By in large, we make no contribution to the defence and security of Europe, and the Russian navy episode is surely proof-positive that our underinvestment in defence is a liability for the continent. God knows what that Russian flotilla was really up to. Having witnessed the shocking events of the past two weeks, I don't think we can say with any confidence that those ships weren't in fact targetting the undersea cables.
I think if we understood the full extent to which Ireland is a safe harbour for malign activities from being a base for espionage on the continent and just generally a soft touch, we'd be shocked. The Russian embassy as an espionage hub for Western Europe has been in the press for a few years. The Gardai and Defence Forces more or less advised the government that's what they believed the extension of the embassy compound was about. I was a bit suspect about that assessment and thought it might be excitable Garda detectives sexing-up an extension and playing Jason Bourne. Now I'm not so sure.
Why would we need to be in NATO to deal with an internal threat? I get your point about the need for an army.
I would argue that the only threat to our sovereignty in recent times were all the various terrorist organisations in the North. That's why we need an army.
The UK is protecting itself. Far as I know we give them permission to. Nobody has threatened our sovereignty since the early days of the state and that was a now NATO member. Other than that, nobody has or shows any signs of it.
We need to patrol our waters for various reasons and need a navy. You could talk me out of a land army if you wish, I would be easily persuaded.
Sovereignty is more than repelling invaders, it's about protecting your borders, and maintaining the safety of the state. Right now we rely on the UK to protect our airspace.
Regardless if there is on threat to our sovereignty why would we need any army?
Of course we could defend ourselves , just takes investment in the right places and capability ,
It's not exactly easy to get 150-200,000 men on to an island with no land bride ,
You either fly them in and face massive Loses of men and aircraft or you send them on boats and it takes an awful lot of boats to bring in that many men and vehicles.
As seen in Ukraine you can remove the threat of an aerial invasion with the right weapons and deterances .
Just takes a little spending
We don't rely on another nation. We have no threat to our sovereignty militarily. We might just as well spend billions protecting ourselves from alien invasion.
Explain why we need a triple lock and what good it serves in the defense of Ireland
Overseas missions are not defence policy, I've been on them, have you? The reality is peacekeeping is done at the behest of the DFA.
How can a defence policy be coherent when we claim neutrality but rely on another nation for security? A nation some maintain occupies a part of the country.
It is coherent, we just need to properly fund the DF to do what they do.
We go in and help stablise regions affected by war, generally involving a NATO country to some degree or other. That has been and will continue to be a valuable service.
Exactly why we need a coherent defence policy and be part of an alliance, be that Nato or the EU with a common defence policy, but that will also mean us having to up our own capabilities.
Unless of course we adopt the stance you seem to prefer, just bend over and accept what happens.
We can't defend our own country anyways on our own so doesn't matter how much we spend.
150k foreign troops arrive in Ireland and how are we supposed to beat them?
Geography is our greatest defence, our greatest weakness is our inability to defend that same geography.
People don't want us to increase defence spending, that's fine, people don't want us to join a defensive alliance, that's also fine, but at the same time people are happy to tolerate a foreign state effectively policing our airspace.
We, as a nation, need to decide what exactly we want to do in terms of defence.
