If being an unaligned country with a large army is no deterrent to Putin's ambitions is it time for ROI to join Nato?
There is NOTHING but ocean between Ireland and Russia. There world looks different from an alternate perspective. Try the arctic view, where Russia has ports
It is why Canada has, in more recent years, gotten stuck into exercises etc
We arent that far from Russia from that direction. We are used to seeing maps from a different viewpoint.
This video on Lithuania I think highlights why its important for a small nation to be part of Nato
The desperation to find a majority....embarrassing?
Russia do not have even close to the capability to perform a massive sea invasion over that distance. It was an utter fantasy before they showed how terrible their army is in the last month.
Has anywhere done such an invasion over sea since 1944? And even then it took massive build up, air superiority and multiple countries being involved along with a massive amount of luck, and good weather on a far shorter crossing.
Since aircraft and radar were invented and people stopping rowing or sailing their warships such an invasion would have become massively more difficult as you can't take people by surprise.
As you mention, 1944 wouldn't even be a good comparison. There was a significant amphibious landing during the Korean war which might be closer in scope.
Nonetheless, Russia doesn't have the capability for this, everyone would see it coming from days/weeks out and they would have to sail through basically hostile waters to get anywhere near Ireland and the idea that NATO would allow a Russian occupied country on their western flank is obviously ridiculous.
So, there we are. We want the protection, of NATO, without the cost of it.
Hypocritical much?
I'm not hypocritical. NATO countries wouldn't allow Russia to invade Ireland entirely for their own vested interests. However, I neither desire nor need their protection because frankly, Russia would never be in a position to invade nor would they have any reason or desire to do so, so its a completely pointless hypothetical.
Are some of those opposed to joining NATO in this thread using this valid viewpoint as an excuse for their opposition to the recent Irish Defence Forces report recommendations for Ireland's military budget to be similar in costs to other European nations pro rata to the countries population? After all Sweden & Finland whilst seriously investing in their nations defence have stayed out of NATO since 1949 onwards. It was a valid policy for them up until recent events.
Does anyone opposing NATO membership actually agree with the findings of the above Defence Forces report, or are you happy with current negligible historically very low levels of defence spending / leaving the defence of Ireland's sovereignty to the rest of the EU & NATO. I can't see EU & European countries being happy with this stance in the future. They might still have an understanding of why the situation happened historically but we are living in a changed world for the foreseeable future.
I don't see any guarantee given either by NATO or the EU, nor Britain, United States or Western European nations such France, that they would come to Ireland's aid. in the event of violations of Ireland's sovereignty. Would Germany send military aid to Ireland, would a extreme right wing British government do so, would even Donald Trump have done so, or do so if elected again?
If Ireland had a defence treaty such as Sean MacBride tried to negotiate with the USA after deciding not to join NATO during 1949-50 it would be a different scenario, in effect similar to Iceland currently under US & NATO protection without serious defence spending.
Recent events would suggest that if Ireland didn't seriously fight back in military terms against an aggressor & make a defensive stand, there would be no guarantee of help & military aid arriving from anywhere else. Ukraine has only got serious aid due to it's defence of the nations sovereignty. They would have received little if they had not made a gallant stand against the invasion, certain military powerful EU nations are still reluctant to help them even after 6 weeks of total war.
There are many violations of our sovereignty short of a full-scale invasion that defence planners the world over make contingencies for.
It doesn't take a full scale invasion to seriously harm Irish sovereignty, territorial, economic and political interests.
A full scale invasion of Iceland is as unlikely as an invasion of Ireland. Yet there they are, with Article 5 protection and full members of NATO. All for the craic I'm sure.
I highly doubt Iceland, if not already a member, would be allowed join NATO now if they wanted to. As things stand we would bring nothing to the table and wouldn't be allowed into NATO, so the question is whether the massive escalation in investment would be worth the possibility of being allowed into the club.
I believe we should remain neutral, Russia doesn't pose an imminent threat to us directly.
Didn't someone claim yesterday the majority didn't want it to change.
Polls mean nothing though in the bigger picture
@Podge_irl As things stand we would bring nothing to the table and wouldn't be allowed into NATO.
We don't have to bring anything to the table that's not how it works ,
like already said you want NATO but you dont want to be IN NATO.
Russia can just do exercises off the coast again
So how come Ukraine isn't in it?
I don't care if Russia do exercises off the Irish coast.
I don't want NATO and in fact, I'm ambivalent about being in NATO. I have no strong feelings about whether we join or not, I'm just saying that whether we do or not, the chances of or ability of Russia to invade are zero.
That is how it works - its a mutual defence alliance
And yet there is smaller countries with Smaller defense forces part of Nato.
Do they have useful locations for stationing US forces to protect the rest of NATO from Russia maybe?
Ireland had something to offer NATO when the likes of Shannon would have been a nearly essential stop off point to refuel on the way to the eastern block. It isn’t really that useful a facility now, even though the US may still use it.
Well Iceland was a founding member and I highly doubt they would be allowed enter now, but we have no way of knowing that for sure.
It needs unanimity of existing members and it is not unreasonable to suspect several of them to wonder why they should let Ireland in considering we bring zero benefits.
We're the gateway to the Atlantic ,an ideal location for a Naval and radar installations along with Shannon airport ,
Could be an ideal location for training facilities
Its a terrible location with completely untenable supply lines for anything to do with Russia whatsoever. They're having enough trouble keeping Kaliningrad supplied at the moment.
This is fantasy stuff.
Reminds me of laughing very hard at this film when I saw it as a boy.
Ireland is a very useful location for the US to stage a liberation of Europe from, other than that not so much. Would have been useful decades ago for naval and radar, but doubt that is necessary these days unless the UK and rest of Europe has already fallen... By which point NATO membership really wouldn't matter.
If anyone wanted to invade Ireland, it would be with a view to invade Britain. The British are not going to allow a fleet of Russian warships or planes invade the land beside them, knowing what they are up to.
This NATO talk sounds like the lovechild of Simon Coveney.
So, again, rather than manage our own affairs we cling to the coat-tails of the UK.
Some sovereign nation we are
Were you exiled from Cork or to Cork?
I wouldn't say its that. More that any invasion of Ireland is the UKs problem ultimately so why worry excessively about it.
Ireland isn't in a position to repel a significant invasion force, but any force would only be doing so in order to attack the UK. Would be relatively easy for the UK/ NATO to take out any invasion and demolish their supply lines, so what does Ireland gain from NATO membership. Better off pleading neutrality and letting NATO and whoever slog it out amongst themselves.
Ireland should spend money on coast guard, smuggling, fisheries, immigration level responses. No point getting involved in a fast jet fight that they are decades behind getting started in and would never be able to accumulate the forces required to be useful in such a fight.
Joining NATO just makes Ireland a target. At the moment though it's a world of hassle for anyone to attack Ireland and provides zero benefits to any attacker as they wouldn't have taken out any NATO forces, but would get a response from NATO whilst they sit on an exposed island next door to one of the main NATO powers and multiple US airbases.
Attacking Ukraine was a daft move by Putin. Attacking Ireland as the next target would be totally off the scale of stupid military moves.
Ireland is useful for UK/ EU / Nato retreat from Europe, or for US liberation of Europe. Its really not a useful target at any point for an enemy of Ireland until well into a long WWIII that hadn't gone nuclear for some reason.
What's the alternative here? pump 2% GDP and put other Irish people's lives at risk so we wont feel a bit of embarrassment? We must have very delicate pride.
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