If being an unaligned country with a large army is no deterrent to Putin's ambitions is it time for ROI to join Nato?
I don't think Ireland would be a logical target.... but an opportunistic one most definitely....
with the stuff coming out of Russia, who knows what direction this will take...
a lot of the naval assets in the Black sea transited the English channel and western Irish coast to get there on the months leading up to the war, so at some point they will transit back...
the PDF won't be sitting in wait tooled up to the teeth with anti armour weapons, and hundreds of SOF trained by UK & US SOF..
As mentioned above, there are "agreements" in place between the UK (and I suspect the the US also) for protection, but the details are still unclear as to what level, and are still held under state secret status....
Why Ireland?
Why not? If the war in Ukraine is going to ****, Transniteria doesn't fall, with Hungary siding with Russia and a land bridge to Serbia both not coming to fruition...
Why not have a quick stop off in a nice quiet neutral country, with little resistance, which would give Russia a place on the Western flank of NATO, contest the Irish sea, make sub movements in and out of Faslane more difficult, boarder with the UK, and free access to the Atlantic....
a lot will look at the above and thing what a load of made up bullshit.... but all I'm saying, is at least strategize about it... a lot didn't think Ukraine would happen, I think it would be wrong just to compare Ireland and Ukraine and think "ppfft, he hasn't a chance" and write it off..
Britain only does it because of our proximity.
The logic is unchanged. It benefits the UK and, in the process, Ireland.
As one poster put it, "If a neighbour hops over the fence and mows your lawn for nothing, let them crack on."
What?
People thought they were going to be over run and burned in their homes Bob. Any chance you could let that reality affect your view. Somebody needed to protect them.
Sure why would you bother with empathy when you can get a cheap dig in.
Thats really funny. I thought all the Republicans in the 70's and 80's wanted "The Brits out".
But now, no they did not want them out because that would have had to accept some responsibility for the situation. Much much better to posture "provoke a diplomatic incident to get the Brits to act" - that is both hilarious and idiotic.
This is the same position now with pan-European security, why act with some responsibility when you can posture.
Our defence forces are inadequate, why? Because despite many calls from the DF the government has hollowed them out and left them in the state they are in.
Ireland and the UK have an agreement to allow British combat aircraft to overfly the Republic. The UK isn’t protecting Irish airspace, the agreement is to benefit the UK.
Why do British jets 'protect' Irish airspace? (ukdefencejournal.org.uk)
A Twitter response, not giving that any seriousness, but the particular issue was addressed in my post. Rather than detract from the poll, it adds to the weight of the poll.
And you, as an ardent Irish Republican is OK with this? Along with the British Veto on our defence policy?
Not trying to embarrass you but:
Ah right, I guess you were one of those back in January giving out about Western scaremongering about Russian troops invading Ukraine. Putin-bots be like Putin-bots...
No. It's because of an unwillingness and inability to monitor and police Ireland's airspace.
I don't think people are jumping up and down saying that there will be T-90s ploughing up the N7 tomorrow. However, security is a lot more than that.
Just look the war crimes being carried out in Ukraine, the likes of Finland and Sweden are right to be worried, and are keen to join NATO. However, well all know security is more complex than that. We have some of the largest waters in Europe to defend yet our Navy is pretty much non-existant.
Again, my earlier examples about Ireland being an off-shore renewable energy superpower, and all those underwater communications and electric cables connecting everything? Cyber security? The Russian embassy is being used as a spy hub for the rest of Europe, we all know it because we are a soft touch.
Any data on how the Irish are thinking on that, if there's a 'trend' you should be able to evidence it?
The poll was taken after Neale and Leo made their pitches and there was a lot of talk on neutrality and NATO. The trend is as it has been since Dev i.e. we want to be neutral and we don't want to join NATO
Ah so the one poll?
Again, the trend is upwards in regards EU defence and Neutrality, separate questions really and what will actually happen here.
48 to 39 in favour when people reflect on the idea that we need NATO for security reasons.
Your poll is like the one where people want a united Ireland someday in the future. When hard practical reasons get considered like increased taxes the numbers change dramatically. In an ideal world, most people in Ireland don't want to be in NATO, which is what your poll shows. However, once the practical aspects of security are considered, the numbers change.
Yep, totally agree. Ireland currently has the best, and cheapest, form of NATO protection.
Just amazed that people think Ireland would be a sensible, or practical target for Russia to invade with their military. Maybe a target with cyber warfare, but not physical hardware.
More scaremongering about some nebulous threat in the future. Energy infrastructure could have been attacked at any time, in far darker days of East-West tension.
That is to allow Britain to protect itself Mark, and you know this.
See where 57% say No and only 27% say Yes mark?
No, it's not like that. We are by defacto under a bit of the NATO security umbrella by the fact that we share a land border with the UK.
We have an agreement with the RAF that lets them scramble their jets and intercept any rouge plane in our airspace. In some ways, we are kind of in NATO already. ;-)
These hypothetical Russian tanks driving along some border road and they mistakenly find themselves repeatedly entering NATO territory before they know where they are.
It's a bit more complicated than that, you know it but you play stupid because you want to have the same tired arguments again and again and again....zzz.
Put it this way, in 20 years' time, we are going to have approx 30 Billion euro worth of off-shore wind, supplying us and the EU with renewable energy via interconnectors.
If you think that won't be a target for any rouge nation-state, then you are a fool.
The world is changing and the way we think about defence will change too.
"No" to what?
You sound like Ian Paisley.
We're not in a room Francie and if we were the biggest laugh would be had from your plan for a UI twenty years on.
It is ironic that the 6 counties being in NATO gives us much more security than anything else.
The UI fanatics will have a hard time with this one.
Why would the British intervene if they cut our comms?
Which is it lads, NATO won't care if they invade/mess with our comms, or they will intervene to defend us?
Republicans aren't anti British, sure their upper ranks are agents of the British state now. All the militancy is performative now, wander around with a few flags and berets over Easter but after that it's back to the monthly direct debit from the chancellor of the exchequer into their accounts. Not really surprising that they'd look to mother England for matters of defence 😂
And the poll I posted came after all the pitches from Neale and Leo. Seems the Irish people still say No by a huge majority.
If what you say is true, an EU Defence Force or such will replace it in Europe, with Germany and France leading the line there. It will only hasten Ireland's involvement.
Like the sooner you guys get around to explaining to what end all of this would be for, the better.
I am beginning to wonder how you all sleep at night!
