If being an unaligned country with a large army is no deterrent to Putin's ambitions is it time for ROI to join Nato?
So no actual link then? More conspiracy theories.
In 74% of all ransomware attacks, the proceeds end up in Russia. These Russian gangs are well known to the Russian authorities but operate with impunity.
So no links to the Russian state, none whatsoever.
No one in Russia makes money without the big lads getting a cut. Or they would be in the ground.
Hang on a second there and I'll just dig out a Russian government press release where they in great detail set out their agencies' involvement in sponsoring ,cultivating and sheltering cyber espionage and infrastructure attack groups.
The naivety of some people.
Haha love how you continue to try and distract from the fact of Russia's clear and present danger to Ireland while ignoring the names of just some of those in the Irish government who very publicly stated who attacked our health service.
This must be a CT too.
What exactly Ireland should do from a security and defense standpoint is a debate we have to have but what is clear is we have to act as Russia is a clear and present danger to Ireland to the EU and to the democratic world in general. Our current posture of basically having no viable defense and security force is no longer tenable IMHO.
A gang of teenage phishers are a threat to us because we haven't resourced those entrusted to protect us nor the equipment/infratstructure neccessary to carry it out. We left ourselves vunerable and criminals took advantage.
Russia nor nobody else is a physical threat to us so Coveney is right when he says 'we won't be joining NATO anytime soon'. Our neutrality is of no value to warmongers or the geopolitical gameplayers but it is and has been to those who need time to build and benefit from peace. Not glamourous or exciting but a valuable thing to offer all the same.
What a load of codswallop based on 1950s ideas of warfare. You seem to think that a cyber attack is a gang of teenage Shinnerbots piling on Leo on Twitter.
Christ almighty, if you can shut down our air traffic control through a cyber attack, how is that not a physical threat to us?
Was just reading about Gotland which has been described as an unsinkable aircraft carrier in the middle of the Baltic Sea. Do you not think that Ireland could serve a similar purpose as a staging post off the west of Europe?
What value is our neutrality to those who need time to build and benefit from peace? What sort of fairytale nonsense is that? Does it have any real meaning?
The point you spectacularly missed in order to mention your nemesis is that there are steps we can take to protect infrastructure but we haven’t. We have hollowed out our defences.
Which is why we are now committing to restoring them (hopefully it is not just placatory kite flying) and senior government ministers spelling out that we don’t need to join NATO to do that.
Sorry Vladimir, but we've got new friends now and we're not playing with you any more. Maybe Ireland can be a friend too, sometime in the future?
Yes, because I'm sure Putin will be invading Ireland very soon, Christ above!
And now they wont be invading Sweden and Finland either.
Since when did Ireland border Russia?
I'm sure you are aware not all NATO countries border Russia.
If we were next door to them i would be for it but we're not and they're certainly no threat to us, Irish government is squandering enough of peoples money as it is, don't need to be signing upto this shiote
You must have missed the link I posted. here is a Quote.
"The latest oversight report on Ireland's spying laws has “sounded the alarm” on the scale of the threat posed by Russian intelligence services to Ireland."
We let the Russians funnel money through the IFSC.
Will this have to be stopped if we join NATO?
Probably not as big players like Germany with an unhealthy reliance on Russian Energy and Questionable relations of some of the politicians seemed to be ok.
We are now the only European country that Russia can reach without violating NATOs borders. That's very much bordering Russia.
I mean, it very, very much isn't.
Ireland needs to improve its defences against Russian spying and cyber attacks, but the idea of Russian troops rocking up on bantry bay remains utter fantasyland stuff.
Who mentioned Russian troops?
We're so defenceless that Russia can **** with Europe via us in innumerable ways
Speaking of fantasyland stuff, It is really interesting to see the resistance to NATO membership though, all fuelled by the irrationality that the Irish media has peddleld since the 60s.
I'm not particularly resistant to NATO membership, I am ambivalent about it. I just think the risk assessment people are doing is way out of kilter.
If you don't mean Russian troops then what in the name of god do you mean by "We are now the only European country that Russia can reach without violating NATOs borders." What numerous ways could they **** with Europe via us?
Will they only be attacking the 26 counties if they arrive? Bombs and stuff that don't cause damage over the border
To my knowledge, very few to zero people in the thread have posited 'the Bantry Bay scenario' as probable or realistic. Just those that are trying to insert a line of arguement that isn't there.
What people have been positing is that there are very credible threats from Russia across other threat domains short of Russian landing craft in Cork that should be of concern to us.
We are concerned, we are upping the investment in our hollowed out defence or at least that is what the government are saying they need to do.
The government are unconvinced by the need to join NATO it seems though as they are not prepared to do it.
Sure, but NATO seems fairly irrelevant in the context of cyber warfare and espionage. Ultimately NATO is only ever going to be relevant in that scenario
The Shannon area is strategically significant for a number of reasons
Russia won't want to take over the whole country, but in the event of real war being a threat, simple enough to take over those strategic facilities over a relatively small geographical area and force Europe to fight on two fronts. It is a low risk improbable scenario, but it isn't a zero risk scenario.
For that fantasy to be even 10% accurate they would have to attack NATO anyway and it wouldn't matter if we were in it or not. It would actually be more likely if we were in NATO as it would be an imperative to take us out.
None of these things are strategically significant unless Russia are already engaged in a war with Western Europe and even then most of them are pretty questionable. Russia has zero need for gas storage on the west coast of Ireland and I have no idea what on earth you think they'll be doing with a runway in the west of Ireland which will be completely disconnected from any other airspace they can access. If they are already engaging with Western Europe they will be fighting "on two fronts" for all of about 5 minutes - Russia would be completely and utterly incapable of maintaining that kind of a beachhead while at war with NATO.
Ireland is not a strategic anything, which is why only our near neighbours ever bothered invading us.
