If being an unaligned country with a large army is no deterrent to Putin's ambitions is it time for ROI to join Nato?
leo varadkar is not a man to trust. Any person who wants Ireland invading countries and fighting wars are maniacs. Neutrality is a thing to be proud of
"So where would you like the British Army bases to be located NOW, to protect Ireland in any future conflict."
Nowhere. There is no need. You did not mention little detail when you went on about Norway. That Norway is about 45x further away from UK than Ireland if we disregard NI. If we count NI then Brittish are already here.
No it wouldn't the cost wouldn't increase in multiples of billions ,you can throw 2 billion into the hse tomorrow but guess what it won't solve a thing unfortunately
Yeah. 2-3 now then another couple more. Then only 4-5 so we could add on and maintain what we got for first 2-3...
We already do have black hole which swallow everything we toss in it. Just imagine how can we reduce some of waiting lists if we toss another only 2-3 billion to HSE to increase our chances to live little longer. Investing in prolonging life expectancy beats investing in killing machines and toys for big boys.
Get call of duty and enjoy your wars.
It's not that attacking a defenceless nation would be stupid, it's that invading an island, off the coast of another island, off the coast of a continent you are ultimately aiming to attack is stupid when you have to get around and over that continent before invading that defenseless island.
No, Ireland has no strategic value for someone wanting to attack NATO.
Therefore why join NATO? Ireland also has nothing of value to NATO. No large military, no natural resources and whilst use of Shannon and somewhere to put up radar monitoring would have been useful in the 50s, it's of no use to NATO now and the US is already using Shannon.
Most useful thing Ireland has to offer is being neutral, of sorts, and speaking the same language and close in mindset to the UK and USA so useful for negotiations at the end of WW3. But that's about it.
Ah ok so for historic reasons you don't want permanent British Army bases on Irish soil but you do want the Brits to get involved if Ireland is actually threatened. But Ireland is never going to be threatened because to do anything against a defenceless country would be "stupid"
Thanks for sharing
Not needed because invading UK or Europe via Ireland is a stupid move for pretty much any country, except if Ireland itself is about to invade.
Russia taking Norway would make slightly more sense as they have natural resources, and better access to the North Atlantic than Russia currently does. Ireland gains Russia nothing except making their invading forces an easy target.
You have missed the point, I would see Ireland similar to Norway from a defence perspective. The UK I tasked with defending Norway as part of Nato. The UK has permanent bases in Norway for this purpose storing equipment that cannot be brought across quickly. Basically how it works is the soldiers get on a plane and fly there, pretty much everything else they need is already in Norway. They also train regularly in Norway.
So where would you like the British Army bases to be located NOW, to protect Ireland in any future conflict.
We do have Guinness and some good whisky, there must be a lot of sitting around and socialising for NATO when there's no wars on.
You can take my neutrality from my cold dead hands!
Hyperbole but that is along the lines of how I feel. We should not wade into the bloodbath that NATO, Russia, China and all these super powers are happy to inflict on the world. IF the UK and the US want to defend us in times of peril then amazing, fair play to them that is an amazing sacrifice and we should be glad of such friends. But that doesn't mean we should be expected to capitulate. We should increase our military spending but we will never have a NATO level force nor should we want one. We have no need to project power. We only need to defend our own shores and infrastructure. Some patrol ships and some Logistics aircraft would be ideal. Surveillance and Operations and a massive increase in cyber security is all we really need. Anything else is pissing in the wind compared to the forces these countries can muster.
Let's not throw away decades of foreign policy and peace keeping because of this dick waving contest between NATO and Russia that is causing such untold horror for the Ukrainian people. We should have nothing to do with nations like this. We can do far more to prevent an invasion by being sound and staunch in our assertion of neutrality no matter how much of a sham that neutrality is in reality.
We have shown the world that a former colony can have a good relationship with its former oppressor. We punch far above our weight globally due mainly to our impartial and neutral nature.
Who cares. The point is around WW3 and the membership of NATO or not at that point matters not one bit.
If the hostile force against NATO/ UK invades Ireland then the neutrality of Ireland then really doesn't matter. UK will either do something about it, or Ireland will ask the UK to do something about it first if they are looking to make it still seem polite. If the UK isn't itself already overrun and has forces to spare during this WW3 scenario they will respond immediately to Ireland being invaded as the only purpose of the invasion of Ireland is to then attack the UK.
Only spanner in the works for that scenario is if Ireland had for some reason declared for the other side against NATO and invited the Russians in for example, but that is even less likely to happen than anyone being overly upset about UK forces in Ireland to repel the invasion of a hostile force.
Since you are happy for the UK to defend Ireland, where do you suggest the new British Army bases in Ireland should be located?
Oh also bear in mind that this is likely to be the parachute regiment as they are the mainstay of the UK rapid reaction forces.
If WW3 kicks off fully then there is even less reason for the opposition to NATO to be wasting efforts in invading Ireland. You don't fly over, or drive your boats around, a bunch of NATO nations who are fully engaged in attacking you just to get to an empty bit of land in the west that just leaves you open for being taken out whilst you assemble your forces... But then even if you do manage to take a hold you just have to make another assault on the next island across, and then another again before getting back to the main land of Europe.
Any invasion into Ireland by Russia would be easy pickings for the UK.
Considering we only spend 0.3 people can hardly complain , they go on peace keeping not even properly equipped for fecks sake ,we wouldn't be dragged into foreign wars , unless another member is attacked and call an Article 5 which as only ever happened once in the history of Nato ,it's called collective defense , but we're expecting others to come and defend us but we can't assist another country ...
We're edging closer ww3 on a near daily basis and as seen in Ukraine promises of help don't always come to fruition
Should Ireland join Nato ?
NO ...
... because 2% of our GDP will need to go to military waste/folly AND we will be dragged into foreign wars.
AND a quarter of our country is missing, lets focus on getting it back before we look at other countries problems.
Our peacekeeping missions around the world are viewed as a success and we should be proud of that fact.
Did he quote any data on the 'nuclear weapons in extremis' contention? I have never heard anyone use it as an objection to joining NATO.
Of course they would,the same for military transport aircraft,
We are already spending tens of billions on other areas,the defense forces are only looking at 2-3 billion to increase our capabilities.
If WW3 kicks off, it probably won't matter if we're part or NATO or not. We won't be the country that is first invaded (especially in a scenario where they don't have forces to defend us) so **** has really hit the fan there, and no matter how much investment we do we won't be able to defend ourselves against a major power anyway.
If WW3 happened those boats would not get anywhere near us. It’s not realistic. Even if that suicidal plan worked, what good would a small Russian force with little equipment achieve in Dublin.
Investing in self sufficiency in agriculture and energy would be a far far better use of the money.
I can't imagine the Russian navy being able to carry marines all the way to the North Atlantic without causing suspicion.
A number of days ago, in the Indo, John Downing wrote that NATO's willingness to use nuclear weapons in extremis is a reason for opposition in this country to joining the alliance. Obviously, the issue of Northern Ireland is not in the equation anymore - it was the reason Ireland refused to join NATO during the Cold War.
But if WW3 kicks off properly they might not have the forces to defend US ,they wouldn't be flying jets from Germany to cover us 24/7 , hence why we need the ability to defend our own shores and skies.
Just using Russia as an example they could easily land men and boats anywhere along the west coast and drive into Dublin several hours later , we've don't have the ability to stop them or anyone else , once they land it will be very difficult to remove a foreign military force
Funny seeing this after the show which I mentioned earlier.
I agree. Britain and America would automatically regard the presence of Russian troops in Ireland as a threat to NATO.
Any international change that requires a new sharing of sovereignty requires a referendum - that is why we have EU referenda on new treaties.
So, yes, there is no constitutional bar to neutrality, but sharing defence sovereignty would require a constitutional amendment. Associate membership of NATO without the Article 5 commitment might be ok without a referendum, but that is one for those more familiar with the details of the NATO Treaty to argue about. Might read up on it myself later.
The west absolutely would not allow Russia to invade Ireland, regardless of whether we were in NATO or not. Us being in NATO would achieve nothing.
Neutrality is government policy and is not a constitutional clause AFAIK
If we were to join an EU alliance we would require a referendum since the Nice Treaty I think.
I doubt a government would be brave enough to end neutrality without a referendum..
Apparently, Ireland can't join NATO without approval by the electorate in a referendum. But there is no constitutional obstacle to Ireland joining NATO, is there?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ireland%E2%80%93NATO_relations#Potential_accession_of_Ireland_to_NATO
Anyway what has NATO do with any of these places?
My point exactly.
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