If being an unaligned country with a large army is no deterrent to Putin's ambitions is it time for ROI to join Nato?
It's you who needs a map and a lesson in geography ,more spoofing
The Scottish nuclear submarine base is in Clyde, which is on our side of Scotland ie East
So why would Russia not be able to sail via the channel as they have done for decades
There are 3 options. UK will likely make life very difficult if you take the one that goes up by their nuclear sub base in west Scotland if you choose the middle route, so really there are 2 options.
2 options between your home and one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.
Unless you're for some strange reason wholeheartedly set on going by the English channel then of course you're going to go pass the west of Ireland.
Jesus, get a map.
Take a look at a map Greencap. If they went due north from Portugal heading for the GIUK Gap, they would have been hundreds of kilometers away from our coast on the Western fringes of our EEZ. They were hugging our territorial waters.
It's late, and I'm going to bed, and I've heard enough sillyness for the day.
It's pretty much obvious they went out of their way ,
As I pointed out earlier,it's not as if our Island is in the middle of the med and they have to sail around us ,
But that's not the case
You don't know that they went out of their way.
Its a perfectly conceivable route if you were heading from the Med to Norwegian sea. Out of the Gib strait, right at Portugal and straight up north.
Is it a legitimate transit if someone with a known record of violence goes kilometers out of their way to drive by your front door slowly several times? Of course not, they're seeking to intimidate you.
Use the old noggin eh? Whose side are you on? Ireland's security is a big game to you.
Is it a legitimate transit?
No we didn't,
But they weren't "hundreds of kms off our coast" were they? They were skirting out territorial waters probably no more than 25-30kms from our coast at points.
Are the international waters some hundreds of km's "off our coast" not a legitimate transit too?
Ireland absolutely did not participate in the Iraq war. That's a load of cobblers. There is scant evidence that rendition flights went through Ireland as a matter of routine. I'm quite sure some did, and there may have been a degree of negligence from Ireland on this matter - and that is not to be condoned. But routine? Very little evidence for it.
I think the Russians have America comfortably superseded with the "worst war crime" tag of the 21st century. And that is of course with you even ignoring the war in the Congo and the completely indiscriminate aerial war Russia conducted for many years in Syria, which was leagues worse than anything the US did in Iraq or elsewhere.
You're claiming Russophobia, you don't even know or care half of what Russia got up to in Syria.
My point still stands. We still participated in an immoral and illegal war which was the worst war crime of the 21st century.
Doubt yous ever raised an eyebrow then. But I suppose with the massive Russia phobia sickness you suffer from its no surprise.
And that's a legitimate transit dealt with under the laws of the sea, because ships can't exactly teleport past a maritime chokepoint. If they pointed the bow towards Spain and sailed towards it, it wouldn't be long until fighter jets would be scrambled from the joint Spanish/US airbase outside Seville, which is the exact reason they are there.
When these same ships passed through the Gibraltar strait, they were about 7km's from either coast.
And no fighter jets as you claimed ,
Making it up as you go along
Rendition flights refueled in Shannon that had people on board who were forcibly removed from their countries and most likely brought to Guantanamo Bay to face torture. We basically colluded in rendition.
I'll repeat, no US fighter jets have ever landed at Shannon. If Ireland ever experienced an Islamic attack and an organised group offered up the troop transports as a pretext for terrorism, you may have had a point to stand on one leg. But that's never happened, so your point fails.
You will be aware that many other countries with state permission have used Ireland as a refuelling point for military aircraft and naval ships (though never fighter jets) - including Russia, and including when they were conducting wartime operations in the Caucasus.
U.S jets participating in an illegal war, which hundreds of thousands of civilians perished, stopping off in Shannon would surely constitute a bigger threat to the security of the state than any Russian federation vessel or aircraft coming close to our territory? It would of raised the threat level of an Islamist fundamentalist attack on our soil quite considerably as we have seen many attacks across Europe from western actions in the middle east.
The US along with 52 other countries have Also landed and fueled in Shannon including the Russians
First of all, the US has never refuelled fighter jets in Shannon. It's been troop transports exclusively.
Secondly, those troop transports have landed with the explicit permission of the state. And no adverse security events can be ascribed to that decision.
Thirdly, the Russian flotilla was not "a few hundred kms away from the Cliffs of Moher" - it was skirting our territorial waters.
You can cry paranoia all you want - you're cavelier about the security of the state - and it's no coincidence that you're one of the posters that has been a regular peddler of excuses for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
No, I'm just saying that being NATO members didn't stop that.
There is actually very little you can do to stop this, just as there is not much you can do to stop assassinations and chemical warfare on your soil unless you are prepared to go to war with Russia. Which we and NATO are clearly not for these things.
Russian naval vessels are allowed in our EEZ and outside of keeping an eye on them there is nothing we can do about that and there is no scenario in which that will change no matter how much we invest in our defence forces.
I would like the discussion to be centred in the realities of what we actually can do. If I was asked in a referendum tomorrow about joining NATO I'd be tempted to say yes, but I don't think the arguments for it are in particularly good faith. Were we NATO members the Russians would dick around in our waters just as much as they already do.
No we didn't .
Lies
Sure, but they also think they've mined undersea infrastructure in the Baltic sea.
They certainly do.
You want to take bets that Russia wouldn't do the same to critical infrastructure in waters we ostensibly are supposed to defend from unlawful acitivity?
Your a paranoid wreck about Russia. We allowed U.S fighter jets to stop and refuel in Shannon to go on and bomb children in the middle east, I would say that was a greater risk to the security of our state than any Russia sub sailing a few hundred kms away from the Cliffs of Moher.
It's not academic in the least. Russian vessels sailing as the crow flies in our EEZ going merrily on their way to wherever they're going to is one thing. A sail-by skirting our territorial waters over sub-sea infrastructure is a distinct and direct message to the state.
By the law of the land, people are permitted to incidentally stand outside the boundaries of your property. If someone made it their business to drive-by your front door slowly time and again, you wouldn't be long calling the Gardai, and I doubt you'd be satisfied with an answer that they are just going about their business. Nor would it be credible.
Again, it's obvious that for all the big talk, there's a lot of people that simply do not take the security of the state seriously.
A close sail-by of our territorial waters is designed to intimidate and send our government a message. This is not to mention the credible reports from several European countries that they are concerned Russia for the past year has been conducting a mass undersea sabotage operation of critical undersea infrastructure.
I just largely think that any movement for NATO membership should do so on the basis of joint ownership of the "rules based order" that has developed and a shared interest in Western interests and less so on defending Ireland itself as I think the latter is not something that will gain much traction cause its not a plausible scenario.
It's your script,
Let's here it
Why don't you invite them in for a cup of tea altogether?
We are (for the moment) a neutral nation, a Russian navy vessel entering our territorial waters without permission would be a gross violation of our sovereignity, and the legal effect and implication for our security is no different to a Russian jet doing a flyover of one of our cities.
For all the bloviating about keeping Ireland neutral, it appears the Russia apologists in this thread and outside it actually have no regard for the security of the state at all. It's all a big joke and apparently just something on the internet to grandstand about.
We're one incident or incursion away from the Irish government pulling the trigger and seriously making a go of a NATO application. And where will all the Tankiepoos here be then?
The distinction is somewhat academic.
Again, I agree that we should have the capability to observe these events, but we shouldn't frame it as the Russian vessels being somewhere they are not allowed be due to our weak navy.
OK, so time for a quick summary:
1) Ireland shouldn't join NATO, because Russian ships can't get out of the Baltic Sea without anyone noticing.
2) What about USA bombing countries too?
3) Ireland should consider getting nukes.
4) Russian ships in Irish waters are probably just sailing for fun.
That's Ireland's defense policy sorted then.
