Fighter jets for the Air Corps?

The first line is something the Irish public doesn't want to hear. Imagine: A neutral country gets fighter jet coverage from a NATO country and from the much hated British and former colonial masters who run the RAF.

All full of irony.

If Ireland would be serious about neutrality Ireland must have fighter jets. And even if Ireland joins NATO at some point, fighter jets for the Air Corps should be there as well.

With the exception of Switzerland, the concept of neutrality is a lame joke for most neutral countries.

Nobody could ever claim that there is a high risk of anyone trying to come in and "take over". Unless the UK goes rogue at some point in the next decade, under a far right government or whatever. In the World we live in today, its not impossible, but lets say unlikely.

Where the risk to Ireland is - and its a risk that has increased steadily with our modernisation and economic success - that our assets, resources, infrastructure, energy, data, environment, and citizens are vulnerable to damage, incapacity, ransom, and theft.

It's all about asymmetric conflict these days, and our military neutrality is just a red herring. A distraction from reality, for many.

I know. In order to have peace, one must prepare for war. It's sadly more true than ever.

Sadly the majority of the Irish still thinks that the risk for Ireland is low. Russia would never ever consider Ireland, that's what the Irish are thinking.

If I was Putin, I would exactly attack a country where they don't expect me to ever invade, and where the population would even deny that a threat exists.

An island in the North Atlantic is always of strategic interest. It's only the luck of the Irish nothing happened, like back in WW2. And Dublin seen a fair bit of air raids as well, as far as I know.

Ireland needs to do more, in terms of fighter jets for the Air Corps, and also a a bit more for the Navy. I don't think it's unwillingness, but more chronic underfunding.

I can only agree.

Even if a warship such as a multi-purpose Frigate were never to leave the Irish EEZ in its lifetime, the justification for one, or even two of that type being operated by the NS certainly exists.

I would go further and say that a maritime nation like Ireland, that is so massively dependent on its ocean resources, and which intends to further exploit our island geography for clean energy and ecological protection, should have at least two modern diesel electric submarines, similar to the Type212CD project of Germany and Norway, or Type 214 of Portugal, to provide a genuine and capable presence in the million square kilometres of sea territory that we are responsible for.

I listened to an interview of a China analyst in Chatham House lately who described the intentions of the PLAN and other Chinese government vessels to head off around the World, with factory ships and whalers and cable layers in tow, and just take what they want and do what they want, in any area outside a 12 mile limit, unless they are vociferously challenged.

I don't think there is even a remote understanding in official Ireland that this is the sort of risk coming down the tracks at us.

Yeah

.. both germany and sweden build superb smaller subs which dont cost the earth and dont require a massive crew.

Two would fit the bill nicely.

Wow, if only there had been some sort of Commission made up of outside professionals as well as domestic stakeholders to review defence capabilities and options, and make recommendations about the level of forces and equipment…. That would be mad wouldn't it…

Supply ships really aren't a huge necessity for us operating within the EEZ, not unless you would be talking about significantly increasing duration of missions (particularly as more capable ships means automatically larger than current hulls), they would be more useful for multinational missions.

Subs without question bring a huge amount of upfront costs long before we would see them operational, starting from nothing its likely a generation of work before they would be usefully operational. Perhaps though looking at the new range of XLUAV's as a long term option?

You have no clue how ridiculous you sound. Not a notion what your level is ignorance is. I'd say whatever books are in your home have never been troubled by a page turned in anger, have they?

Here, perhaps if a book seems too intimidating, you might try this for size fella.

@blackvalley While I can sense that your question is rhetorical, I will never the less sketch out an answer. Ireland is unlikely to be the target of a single one on one attack from another nation (unless England decides in some dark future to disappear down a MAGA type rabbit hole) in any likely scenario we can foresee in the short to medium term. There is likely to be much greater instability in Europe however, in the future. Russia, the US, China all pretty much, to a greater or lesser degree, have it in for the EU and the kind of liberal democracy it represents, perhaps is becoming the last outpost of that form of government, which, as we know is very imperfect, but would we prefer Trump or Putin's style of rule?. Any future conflict is likely to be one where someone is targeting the EU generally, not Ireland alone, although it may become a theatre of operations, especially if it is seen as weak and vulnerable.

In the new world of hybrid warfare action can take many forms, cyber warfare, undersea cable disturbance are all areas where an malicious actor can cause a great deal of mischief without killing anyone directly. Beyond that border conflicts, sponsoring internal dissent, fermenting civil wars and sponsoring terrorism are all areas where one can expect some of these regimes to be active. Also while these antics may stop short of full scale war, they massively increase the chance of a full scale war happening. With so much tinder all it takes is a spark…And while I am a peacenik at heart, look around you, are there reliable dependable adversaries who we can deescalate with (at least the USSR was a rational entity, are Trump, Musk or Putin?).

Ireland does not need to be able to singlehandedly stand up to a great power, but it must not be a weak spot in the wall, for two reasons: 1. we will not be living up to our obligations to countries who have, over decades, stood by us, helped us develop and allowed us to escape from under the apron of our former Imperial mistress; 2. The weak spot in the wall is where a malicious actor will go for, by being weak we invite trouble.

So what is that going to take and how much will it cost? As I said Ireland will never need to face down the whole of a foreign powers military, but realistically Ireland needs to roughly treble the current manpower of the DF. The army needs to be mostly mechanised, better protection for troops with new and heavier artillery more anti-tank capability. It needs to develop cyber capacity, ground based AA and anti-drone technology. There is probably several billion of equipment and buildings for the army, but the lives of these systems etc is thirty years or so, so it isnt billions in gear and infrastructure every year.

Moving to the Naval Service (Navy in future), it needs real subsurface surveillance capability, and teeth to back up its requests to foreign actors, naval vessels, subs etc to move on when challenged. That means refits of our current vessels with AA missiles, AS missiles etc, sonars and AS radars. That will probably come to 100m per ship for the 4 writers class OPVs. Then the NS really needs two good general purpose frigates 400m each.

In the air the Air Corps (Air Force in future) will need to increase its infrastructure on the ground, with a lot more technicians, hangars, ammo stores etc. It will need the (about to be ordered) military radar systems to get a picture of what happens in and around our airspace. It then needs aircraft to patrol our airspace and engage threats if necessary. That is, at a bare minimum, going to be a squadron of jet fighters, and to be really secure Ireland probably needs to have two squadrons of multi role jets, with pilots trained and ordnance for different roles. In addition the AF will need to do more to patrol our maritime area and also more air support for the army. I would envisage the AF going from a 25 aircraft to a 75 aircraft force. The cost of this is, again, several billions, but again these systems last thirty years or so. When people say a squadron of jets cost a billion, that is a billion over thirty years.

Our defence budget will soar. It will be 3-5 billion PA by the end of all this.

The biggest expenditure, long term, in the DF will be its people, not the fancy boxes. And this is why, in many ways, defence spending is not always lost, the Euros spent circulate more through the economy than you might think. Now if only we had an indigenous defence sector….

You are not refitting the P60's with that armarment, forget it, just no. They are not warships, they can not be made into warships, thats not even pissing away money, they just won't be able to do that.

what the actual **** has that got to do with this topic other than low energy stupid trolling?

in the short term I don’t see many alternatives. Obviously they would not be suitable for high intensity environments, but then need to be able to see above and below the surface need some kind of medium / short range AA and anti-missile defence and if possible (not much room left I know) something else in the offensive department.

I could ask you the same thing.