Future of warfare (How should Ireland build their millitary)

Problem isn’t identifying a means of defending our country… the problem is finding the cash to pay for it and with people like Covney and co. the will to do it…

we are an outlier of an island, vulnerable to attack from the air and sea if another state chooses to attack us. What assistance would EU states provide ? That scenario has never been tested. I wouldn’t be optimistic..

geographically the nearest EU country to us is France… I say EU country not ally… we just happen to be members of the same Economic and political Union…

an island nation without a single attack jet aircraft.

ireland has been identified as a weak link courtesy of underspending, under resourcing of our defense forces…The Commission on the Defence Forces report a few weeks ago confirmed….

billions per decade spent on overseas aid and now facilitating everyone else with everything else arriving here…but we cannot defend the country and its citizens…

while we might not have any enemies our geographical position as an outlier island nation with no Air Force, limited marine defense capabilities and general understaffing leave us vulnerable in the extreme ….

we need according to the report to triple our levels of spending…

more personnel, ships, jet aircraft, primary radar… which has incidentally been mumbled about for 7 years yet nothing..

Do we need this thread?

We have one for the outcome of the CoD, which is effectively this discussion, as well as acquisition threads for the Navy and Air Corps. Suggest a merge.

Defence of Ireland at the outset is probably a partnership task. Our principle aim is to make it a difficult task to take and hold mainly by a Denial and Delay strategy. All Service elements need updating starting with a modern Surveillance systems and use also locally of UAV's with links to optronic info and target designation systems. Weaponised drones should also be available.

Coastal Defence should be a mix of Strike Missiles, Landing denial by controlled seabed charges of about One Tonne each across shallow beach areas. Use also of gated mined approaches to key harbours. Denial in a Westerly or Easterly direction is available on the 120 mile stretch of the Shannon and it's key bridges. Arty needs a long range capability such as 155mm coupled with deployable mobile strike missile systems.

Infantry units need an upscaling of inventory to modern demonstrated standards. Irish industry needs to be harnessed to manufacture controlled sea mines and AP mines for land based use.

The Air side needs its MAP's, Rotary Gunships, and a range of interceptors/ fighters with some capable of torpedo attacks.

The Navy needs to rejoin where it was in 1949 and in 1980's and add strike missiles to it's armoury, assist with mine laying, clearance tasks at sea and Harbours, develop ASW, homing torpedoes, and co-jointly consider a future role in use of submarines.

We need to utilise MAXAR type systems and ensure that our systems are LINKED for integration of the common effort. Perhaps an EU mil linking system.

We have to be able to do more than wheel out a demo system to make a worthwhile impression on incursions OR provide a future defence. In world war 11, we had, I am told, a controlled mine field across the entrance of Cork harbour. It's cheap and easy to do with the right engineering skills-- watertight electrics and an energising set of buttons.

Our problem continues to be no joined up Defence policy. We HAVE radar coverage out to 16 deg. west and we are part of Euro control, yet our military don't tap in to the Irish owned Radar system. We binned the Naval system owned by the Dept. of Defence and tied up an air capable ship. We have the INFOMAR mapping the seabed and all the wrecks there on which is a skill the Navy should be outfitted to do. We also binned the Helos that went with the ship.

The Navy need passive and active sonar. Using two ships in passive sonar mode they could fix a submarine but would need a suitable aerial vehicle to drop a warning charge within the EEZ on the targets known position. The active sonar should be matched with 4 tubes for LRHTorpedoes.

We are not at war but must be able to fight one. The Cruiser off our coast was the one sunk by Ukraine recently.

What you describe as a likely scenario has been ongoing for the last 53 years centred on the spin over from NI terrorism, coupled with arms ,and drugs smuggling and the growth of Gilligan, Kinihan and the kidnapping gangs etc. Other than interceptions at sea and the shoot out where some Army personnel were shot, the main thrust is being borne by Garda and Customs. DOD unfortunately took a a Peace dividend from the GFA and started closing down Barracks (Letterkenny) and shedding Brigades. Are you saying that Sweden, Norway, Finland, and other Baltic States have lost the plot. Every Nation on our side of the Fence from New Zealand and Australia to EU and the USA are increasing capability and mobility adding to Fleets. We are lost in an ATCP capability and had to ask some nice people what we should do next. We can find out by buying the freely available operational manuals on warfare from GOV.Uk or the US Gov. where many of our brightest were trained on prestige courses.

There will be a lot of beef grinding before Nuclear war becomes a reality, as total war on that scale will kill off every nation, except the extreme ends of the Southern hemisphere. The temperatures in Europe would fall to -76deg Centigrade within 6 months.

Another bit of fallout from the Russo-Ukraine war is the exposure of just how weak the Russian systems and combat culture actually is, coupled with the systemic weaknesses from corruption and reliance on Western Tech for high end systems both civilian and military, has anyone noticed the rash of industries on fire in Russia over the last few weeks? Those nations closest to Russia are naturally increasing defence spending, what with the war, however in the mid to long term does Russia have the ability to do something like this again? Virtually all of its combat forces have been exposed in one shape or another to be at best marginal at worst deathtraps (have you seen the leaks regarding the combat status of the Moskva?). The threat Russia poses to Ireland was always limited by the nature of having to fight through the heart of NATO to attack us, now however it's a open question as to what level of threat they pose.

Long term the more likely conflict will be in the Pacific for a variety of reasons, and the US is likely to have to continue to pivot there, meaning Europe/EU should be taking on more capabilities to defend ourselves, and Ireland should be playing a part in that, but suggesting recreating Coastal defences is not an area that should be a high priority area.

Which is more or less my point. Our Defence Forces are not a "military" by most measures. They are a product of a militarily neutral and geographically isolated country which has only ever treated its military as a civil defence, policing and counter-terrorism force; with the funding to match.

If we genuinely want a capable military force then that can only realistically be accomplished in the context of a broader military alliance. We don't have the equipment, infrastructure, experience, or political impetus for a capable modern military. And that's even ignoring the amount of money it would require to modernise even with outside assistance.

So to me the choice is:

• Ireland remains militarily neutral with no domestic arms industry and no political necessity for a modern military. In which case call a spade a spade and laser focus on that remit and accept our Defence Forces are the Civil Defence Forces.
• Ireland joins NATO (or some other EU or appropriate alliance) and modernises in that context. Hosting NATO/EU facilities built with NATO/EU funding, likely modernising and pumping funding into one or two areas such as naval/air/cyber.

And to be clear I'm talking about systemic issues with the way the Defence Forces have been structured, used, and funded by successive governments; not making any judgements about the members who have to operate within that system.

Who is going to invade us? Now that the Russian military is destroyed for decades to come we are safer than ever. Now if we were invaded, it would much likelier be by the EU or NATO (very remote chance) who we could not defend against anyway. Even if we bought some top class navy ships they would all be sunk in the first few minutes of an invasion. Any resistance would likely turn our population centres into Mariupol.

But it wont stop a fire from happening.

So by doing our part within the EU, they will come to our aid in the future if something arises, just like it did in February when Russia decided they were going to play games inside our EEZ.

I never understand why a potential future unification situation somehow gets connected to NATO membership tbh.

You could, but that's not neutrality. The RAF MoU is not neutrality.

It amazes me the number of posters here and indeed people at large in Ireland, who don't understand that neutrality is mere words on the breeze, if you cannot assert it.

Neutrality means keeping out of third party conflicts, but it also means being able to protect everything you are responsible for, entirely on your own. Go and read up on the historical defence spending of Sweden, Switzerland and Austria from 1960 to 2020 and compare it to what we didn't spend. That's where the gap is.

And in terms of aggression, it comes in many forms that aren't foreign military. Drugs and organised crime, political sedition, conspiracy with foreign actors, cyber attacks and compromised data, espionage conducted on our territory, etc, etc, etc

We each have our geopolitical and geographical challenges.

Ours come from sitting in the middle of submarine alley and under the busy Atlantic sky lanes and alongside the communications cables that power the European-North American interrelationship - and we have some degree of responsibility for all three.

It doesn't change the basic premise.