If being an unaligned country with a large army is no deterrent to Putin's ambitions is it time for ROI to join Nato?
If this is what Sinn Féin's approach to international relations will be, and voters have the right to know what their position is, you can count a lot of voters out.
There is widespread and genuinely held disgust across society at Russia's actions.
I think SF need to be extremely honest with themselves on this point, after a very recent volte face, the party was acting in concert with others in Europe as Putin whisperers.
They really need to own it. The 'prevention of escalation' line is a seriously limp dick excuse for what was a knavish and quietly Eurosceptic impulsive position on Russia.
I know they didn't anticipate the chickens coming home to roost so dramatically with such consequences for the European peace, but they have now, and the party needs to hold their hands up on this point.
Searching through thousands of your posts is not my idea of a fun day, but I stand over my comments.
But cannot back it up. Okie doke.
So go do some research on why parties in the EU did not always vote for sanctions. Mainly because they didn't want to escalate the situation to what has happened.
Right so prior to your earlier statements about..
I favour our defence forces being properly resourced by government. From cyber protection to coastal protection.
..you really just want to shore up some of the very basics but it still leaves us blatantly short and with still the weakest military in Europe, where the RAF will patrol our air space.
Option 2 would make more sense if we also purposed some military alliances. It doesn't have to be NATO per say, but certainly, we need to have others have our back as we don't want to spend enough to defend ourselves.
I stand over my summary of your position.
Fair enough, we'll put that in the vague scaremongering column then.
What 'realistic' external threats specifically? There are none currently that I am aware of.
The British patrol our skies to defend themselves from what they see as a credible threat. No skin of my nose if they wish to do that.
Are the British about to invade us? What intelligence is available on this threat I supposedly claimed? Can you point to where I have oulined a threat from Britain that would require the defence forces to repudiate? I'll not hold my breath waiting for backup.
You must have missed this post.
SF and Indos4Change leading the charge to be protectors of Putin from the big bad EU and NATO.
Space Invaders Francie. This isn't a pub quiz btw.
Francie is one of those who expects the British to step in and defend us from all realistic external threats, while simultaneously claiming that the British represent an external threat to us. Mind-boggling nonsense that there is no point in engaging with.
What is worse, he also wants to give the British a veto over the use of our armed forces through a constitutional amendment to enshrine that veto. It is godawful stuff.
What specifically are the threats Yurt.
What domains?
?
It's pretty obvious Francie. We have incredibly underfunded defence capabilities across all threat domains, extremely limited intelligence generating and sharing arrangements, limited formal defence guarantees with politically aligned states.
Of course we are among the most vulnerable.
Do you think that the Commission on Defence were joking around when they said our services don't have the capacity to defend the state credibly across these threat domains?
It's all a big lark apparently. Shur we'll rely on the "we're sound" defence doctrine forever more I suppose. Mothball the Department of Defence altogether.
So what does 'most vunerable country in all of Europe' mean specfically then? Lay that out and we'll see what can be done about it.
Credible defence and security of the state extends to matters far beyond scenario planning for an invasion.
Very few people in this thread are being alarmist about Russians sailing into Cork harbour. In fact an invasion scenario has almost exclusively been brought up by individuals poo-pooing either NATO membership or increased defence spending as a means to undermine posters asking for defence to be taken seriously.
We all know a landing force is a low-probability scenario.
Level 2 looks about right to me. We are under no threat, as pointed out by the less scaremongering, of a physical invasion.
It is imperative that we invest much more than this power swap have been doing though. Had they not hollowed out the defence forces we would not be faced by this huge cost.
So you favour the more expensive option to fund our defence forces?
Level of Ambition Three would bring Ireland’s military in line with other similarly sized European countries. It would involve a major expansion of the naval and air fleet, including the purchase of between 12 and 24 fighter jets. It would also increase Ireland’s capacity to participate in foreign missions. This option would need the most significant budget increase, a tripling to around €3 billion.
https://www.rte.ie/news/primetime/2022/0609/1303965-why-irelands-defence-forces-are-at-a-crossroads/
I favour our defence forces being properly resourced by government. From cyber protection to coastal protection. The evidence is that any breach's up to now have been caused by a woefully under resourced infrastructure.
If we value our security and can blatantly see weakness we should invest.
Russia carried out the HSE cyber attack? Really? I'm afraid we are going to need some evidence for that outlandish claim fella or move your post to the Conspiracy Theories thread. Last I read it was widely believed to be a Russian/ Ukrainian criminal gang goes by the name Wizard Spider. I'm open to correction of course.
Do you favour the more expensive approach to our Defence and National Security that will have us spending over 3 Billion a year?
The USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1978. What cultural history did they share? **** all tbh.
But the government is preaching one thing and was patently doing another before Russia's second invasion of sovereign territory. They were allowing the wholesale movement of Putin's cash and tripping over to Russia to beg his support.
One has to wonder at their ulterior motives, no?
If we are the 'most vunerable country of all Europe' why are they not front and centre in advocating for NATO membership Mark? Have they been caught sans trousers again, running with the hare and hunting with the hound?
The EU defence initiative is just the French looking to be set up a rival to NATO that they can be in charge of, given that the Brits and Yanks won't let them have a turn in the driving seat of NATO. Like all things EU, mucho bucks and no bang for them.
The important thing is we're still pissing almost 30 billion a year up against the wall on the frankensteins monster that is the HSE.
Best little country in the world.
Don't forget the opposition in Ireland in the form of Indo4Change and SF are among the most pro Russian/Putin politicians in the entire EU. One has to wonder do they have an ulterior motive.
We have people here contending that we are 'the most vunerable country in ALL of Europe' but who want to blame the opposition for not doing anything about that rather than the current government who are free to join NATO when they want.
Is there any chance that the ' we are the most' this or that, is all just shrill scaremongering, do you think?
Finland was part of the Russian empire until 1917. Also invaded by USSR in ww2
As you can tell from above, I never once advocated joining NATO. I am though very much in favour of joining a collective EU defense and security force as well as flat out Ireland developing a legitimate defense and security capability of our own. We are part of the collective that is the EU and we should stand up and play our part in the defense and security of the EU as a collective unit and stand up collectively for the free and open democratic societies we live in.
As for the US I agree with you their society has a real nasty element to it to say the least and their political system is utterly broken and dysfunctional. While for the most part their foreign policy is reprehensible. But and there is a but while I generally disagree with US foreign policy in the case of the current Russian invasion of Ukraine and the attempt at genocide that it is turning into the US are in fairness to them very much on the side of right this time. Plus I will also further add that while I disagree with much of what the US does internationally there is no 2 sides of the same coin when it comes to them and the Russian dictatorship. The Russian authoritarian regime is utterly evil and is a menace to free and open societies and democracy period end of story. The US are not in general the good guys either but they most definitely are not anything like the Russians.
"Finland who were part of the USSR"
I really don't remember that part of the history.
Well I would not object to Ireland taking part in an EU defence project. But as long as it was strictly defence and not go into other countries and toppling leaders because it does not agree with its regime etc.
I don't like Nato. Look at the US being the main player. A kid goes into school and shoots a load of his class mates and the reaction in the US is we need to have a gun in every classroom to protect kids against other kids with guns. I don’t want to be in a defence alliance with a nation of people who think like this.
