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I suppose an EU ruile had to be made to counter likes of Hungary. I would say the rules will need further refinement than this, new rules even, that apply to all .. and rules that can remove a state from the EU also
it’s not just a question of Putin playing 4d chess. Russia has been de stabilizing countries for 100s of years. They have multi century uninterrupted intelligence experience at this. A militarized , de stabilized Europe is good for Russia. When Europe was stabilized peaceful and prosperous Russia suffered. Just trying to understand Kremlin logic. And it’s easy enough for them to cause chaos in Europe as we are seeing.
More like further instructions from Putin to Trump on what to do with Ukraine
A CONTRACT to DIVIDE UKRAINE?
The difference in previous thinking, to me, is that it would have been thought that Europe would be under strain financially from buying US arms. That's not happening now, it'll be inhouse and drive employment.
Hell, i could see Britain looking to reopen shipyards if this route keeps going
It's just a side-effect of the 'special military opertion' and Trump wavering in his support for Ukraine, don't think Putler is that much a 4D chessmaster that he'd be gaming out stuff like that…
Was just thinking about Putins logic in creating conditions where European countries feel the need to re-arm. Is it that it is advantageous to Russia to have Europe burdened with rearmament? Does he want to create conditions where welfare states and economic advancement come under pressure from rearmament programmes. You would imagine from a military point of view it would be better for Russia if European militaries remained in their atrophied state. Is he trying to create economic chaos and hardship by forcing Europe to re-arm.
The next step is that when Europe does re-arm army’s will need war to justify their existence. Im just imagining if the British army goes back up to over 150k troops and Some nut job like farage gets elected in 5/10 years time. They will have to do something with that many soldiers. They won’t just leave them in a barracks. They had 30 thousand of them on this island 20-30 years ago. And if you have similar numbers in army’s all over Europe, they won’t just sit around polishing rifles.
It wasn't just the US and UK, Poland sent troops to, but also 8.000 troops from Ukraine.
I bet they thought that partaking would guarantee some form of US loyalty in the future and not the oval office ambush.
I can assure you that Norway would be apoplectic if Ukraine tried to pull something like that. Norway’s territorial situation in the far north is pretty tenuous as it is, and having ballistic or cruise missiles coming in from Norway to take out a key strategic asset would give Russia all the pretext it needs to straighten out its border and remove the salient around the border town of Kirkenes. I was up in Norway’s far north back in November 2024 and was able to get a glimpse of just how close things really are up there. Take the photo below for example:
I took this photo aboard the coastal ferry Havila Castor whilst we were tied up at the pier at Kirkenes, the end point of a coastal supply route known as the Hurtigrute. See that body of water in the background? That’s Elvenesfjord. It leads right up to the Russian border, which is hidden behind those mountains you see at the far back of this image. That’s less than 16 kilometres. That’s not a huge distance, and I highly doubt that the GSV Ranger Batallion, based at Kirkenes airport, would be able to mount an effective defence of the town in time. At the same time, if Russia limited itself to that, I have my doubts that Norway would be able to get an Article 5 request through the NATO council.
And then, there’s Vardø. Ostensibly a small Norwegian fishing town, and another stop on the Hurtigrute, this town is notable for three things:
Those domes sitting above the town itself are a part of GLOBUS, a Norwegian radar system that is officially meant for the tracking of orbital objects and space debris. However, it’s just 40 kilometres away from the Kola Peninsula and has a direct line of sight to many of the fleet and air bases on the peninsula. It is generally understood that the system is meant just as much to monitor nearby activity as it is to monitor orbital activity, and the presence of three separate radar dishes (hence the three radomes) indicates that the system might be able to monitor all three domains (sea, air, space) simultaneously.
Russia is obviously aware of this system, and has protested against it multiple times, claiming that it is a threat to their national security, a violation of disarmament treaties and part of a plan to attack Russia. There’s a cruise missile unit on nearby Sredny peninsula that’s been put in place to counter the Vardø radar, and you can bet that the Kremlin would just love to get an excuse to take out that radar installation.
(Never thought I’d be able to put my holiday photos to use in this thread, but here we are 😉)
Europe AND the EU is an important point. The EU is not Europe even tho its head honchos imagine themselves as rulers of the continent.
Mr. Trump is deconstructing NATO while keeping the US within. He declared he may or may not support any members who are attacked. Mr Bush was very happy to get NATO support after 9/11 from countries including Ukraine but eaten bread is soon forgotten.
A Russian ship off the coast of Ireland can pound the centre of Galway city to dust. What happens then? An emergency meeting of the security council? lol.
Putrid wants peace piece of you, and you…
Some speculation another piece he wants is the Svalbard islands.
Ukraine is developing a 3,000 km range drone and even a ballistic missile. Put the 1,000 km Neptunes on a ship and Olenya could be in range from the northern Baltic or off the Norwegian coast, but Finland and Norway might not be too keen on them passing through.
Sounds like Ireland came within a whisker of having a cable severed. If anything happens to the gas pipe to the Uk, we are toast, thanks to dimwits like ER and An Bord Pleanála.
We don't need an LNG plant on the Shannon Estuary, oh no, think of the CO2. This country has way more than it's fair share of mental midgets involved in it's energy infrastructure planning.
We are a lovely stepping stone into Europe.
Russia does see us as part of the “west” and thus as a potentially hostile nation. However, even though we’re right next to a number of NATO countries, it would be foolhardy to expect that we’re under some sort of “extended protection; because of our location. NATO will always prioritise the protection of its member states over that of neighbouring friendly but non-aligned nations like Ireland.
Then, there’s the question of actual military capability. NATO is often portrayed as a military juggernaut, ironically primarily by individuals or organisations opposed to it, but the fact is that the militaries of many NATO member states have been wound down to barely sustainable levels. Britain is a mere shadow of its former self, with a significant number of Royal Navy vessels laid up and/or decommissioned simply for a lack of crew, its ballistic missile submarines regularly heading out on patrol with only a portion of their missile launch tubes actually loaded, whilst the Royal Air Force is torn in multiple directions at once by conflicting requirements for its combat aircraft. The RAF only recently regained any type of serious maritime patrol capability and its still lacking any Airborne Early Warning abilities, given the decommissioning of the E-3 Sentry and the delays in the delivery of its replacement, the E-7 Wedgetail.
It’s a similar picture across the alliance. Germany’s deficiencies have been discussed ad nauseam in this thread and its predecessor, and it’s a similar picture for the Netherlands. France looks to be on a more solid footing, but they have global commitments due to their overseas territories, whilst Italy and Spain are located in or near volatile areas whilst at the same time dealing with significant budget constraints. To be perfectly honest, I can’t see how many NATO members could send much our way to protect us in the case of any military conflict involving Ireland, even if they wanted to. And even if NATO a) had the capability to come to Ireland’s assistance if needed and b) had the political will to do so, there’s still the question of time. It would take at best several days to start sending any type of protection force our way, and that’s only once the political decision has been made.
Forgetting about Iraq (you are quite correct to point out NATO members were very divided on that, with France and Germany opposed and catching huge stick over that from supporters of the invasion), I might be overinterpreting, but I think there is a broader point in that post on the risks when you have powerful militaries available as a tool.
Anyway, we can only deal with what is before us now IMO.
Europe (and the EU) does need to band together and rapidly arm for its own security in face of Russia, and at best an unreliable and at worst a hostile US (regardless of risks a better armed Europe might pose in future).
Not doing so could even increase the chance of further wars in Europe when dealing with gamblers like Putin, who are not shy about use of military force when they think it will gain them something.
The fear as always is justifiably that we get dragged into illegal wars like the Iraq invasion
It's not justifiable in the slightest. It is a complete strawman argument that is somewhere between simple bad faith and nonsensical depending on how it is put forward.
Nobody got "dragged into" the Iraqi invasion. The Americans and British governments were incredibly gung-ho about it (and it had far more popular support than people are willing to admit to now) and about half of NATO implacably opposed and it caused significant diplomatic ructions.
Wake up
Whatever notions and delusions about the world order you had are gone
The world we knew has radically changed, Russia, China and now the US have taken a wrecking ball to the structures and institutions and certainties we might have had
Just to recap, we were never constitutionally neutral in the Swiss sense, just non aligned in the world that emerged after WWII.
As cited already many irish volunteered to the great war in response to posters that stated it was an Irish person's duty to defend small nations like Belgium, only for them to survive that hell and come home to see the British burning Irish towns and cities.
Since brexit the majority of the EU are small nations, so a common defence alignment isn't opposite to our constitution.
The fear as always is justifiably that we get dragged into illegal wars like the Iraq invasion so even a defence pact that restricts activity to European borders can not guarantee that at some future date an EU member will compromise everyone else with some far flung military adventurism that could endanger all EU citizens.
While Russia is an existential threat it can't be a pretext for neo European imperialism.
Unless your in, you're in. We've all seen how useless 'security guarantees' are. I would have doubts about our security and reliability of allies
Are we not kind of under a NATO umbrella though? I'd imagine Putin would effectively see us as part of NATO…
True enough. Sending troops abroad is a tricky business, but I'm thinking in terms of self defense. I think it is a bit rich for us to depend on others to defend us when we are adamant that we won't defend them.
As far as I am aware the neutrality took such an unopposed role in the formation of the new Irish state as there had been so many Irish killed fighting in the British armed forces in Wold War One. About 35,000 dead from the approximately 200,000 who served fighting on the continent for the British forces. A very significant number for the population of Ireland which was not at immediate threat of invasion. There was a long history of Irish forming a large portion of British forces when they built up a huge global empire and Ireland was just another colony that did not benefit from the loss of Irish lives fighting for the British authorities.
I acknowledge your point that this is in the past but from my point of view it is very understandable and I see no issue with us avoiding sending Irish troop to fight on foreign soil. I do have an issue with the government not doing anything about developing drone technology Ireland could use to defend itself and help in conflicts where one side is so deserving of assistance in defending itself like Ukraine is. The related reports on RTE are crying out about lack of people joining the Irish armed forces yet there are no moves by government to utilise new technology that has proved to be so central to fighting in recent and current wars and bring our military forces and in my view very necessary drone production capacity up to date.
Saw a political guy on tv recently (forget who he is), said our neutrality is "sacrosanct". Nobody asked why that should be. And why should it be? We can't just live in the past because it worked in the past.
We really are easy pickings.
No way to defend ourselves and not aligned with any defense organization.
Sandwiched between the USA and UK.
Now Putin knows he can do anything and get away with it since that buffoon has been elected to the White House.
Very uncertain times for people who don’t have their head buried in the sand.
Talked to a neighbour yesterday. She got spooked by seeing this on the news:
https://news.sky.com/story/amp/france-reportedly-preparing-to-issue-survival-manual-to-all-households-13332429 I got told I was being “cold” talking about a possible war with Russia (that stung), she seemingly thinks the prospect is much too scary to contemplate, has close relatives in London and because nukes/WW3/Armagedon etc. while I was merely pointing out that European history has never seen a century without at least 2 major conflicts going on at some point. So I never thought it was that likely to start being peaceful in this one. I’m from eastern Europe, she’s from the western part (also not Irish). I think this makes up a lot of the difference.
80 years of peace and prosperity, and the few generations of people who haven’t lived through a war (even though their parents may have!) seem to live in some kind of an “I’m alright Jack” bubble and are all of a sudden shocked by a prospect of conflict with a country who they can plainly see on the news is on an imperialistic warpath on the continent (as she acknowledges, however the seriousness of the conflict, the bloodbath element of it never truly penetrates through the primary concerns of daily life, family issues, and the general me fein attitude - and this person considers herself to be supremely empathetic, btw).
It seems that the heartbreaking plight of the Ukranians is something to tsk-tsk about from “far away” watching Sky News, rather than an incentive to stop living in one’s own little bubble and start contemplating that the orange idiot and the KGB murderer are carving up the spoils and readying to wreak more havoc where possible. I do have a problem accepting that denial and “look the other way and maybe it will all go away” mentality are so easily a part of human psyche. I’m no spring chicken and this lady is even older than me. If you want to look at the phenomena of Scholzing, prevarication, indecesiveness in the face of evil, mealy-mouth, half-heart, softly softly approach to issues which really require a robust and quick response, all of which is so pervasive in (Western) Europe and EU in particular, and if you want to know how that happens, this neighbour of mine is a good starting point, she could be anyone’s neighbour and in a way she is. Denial, fear, evasion of uncomfortable facts. God only knows what to then expect of younger generations on these, given certain circumstances come to pass, existential, issues.
@aidanodr"If we discover Russia is behind the substation fire that has brought down Heathrow (a big if) how do we respond?"
"If we discover Russia is behind the substation fire that has brought down Heathrow (a big if) how do we respond?"
That's at least an Article 4.5
It might have suited Ireland to be a neutral country up till now . It made sence in the first few years of the country’s recent history ie when we became independant and trying to get that position embedded and not to be beholden to anyone. NOW we are in COMPLETELY DIFFERENT AND DANGEROUS TIMES - especially from a national security point of view. If a country from THE THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD wanted to ‘cause us problems’ it could Cut our service cables, set fire to any big facility , interfere with the internet,, fund groups that can cause serious problems in the running of our democracy, etc, etc.
all of the above and more can be achieved by using a combination of tools such as:-
Drones
Sleepers
Submarines in ‘ international waters’
’ICT Farms’ that remotely- obviously- specialise in attacking websites to spread false information, extract money, etc.
IMO we are COMPLETELY fooling ourselves if we think that we can defend ourselves and be successful against most countries that might attack us except for a handful such as auS, Russia Germany ,Italy, France and a few others. I reckon that we might have a chance against for example ‘Malta’ , Moldova , Morocco, and other such countries of a similar and population. instead of putting our money and effort building up our stock of jets, ships , guns and suchlike armoury we should concentrate on building up our intelligence capacity so that we have state of the art ‘EYES AND EARS’ to see what is happening around us. Of course all of this is futile if we can do nothing about any threatening information AND THIS IS WHERE JOINING SOME GROUPING THAT CAN ADEQUATELY RESPOND eg NATO , arrangement with UK, etc
A noteworthy juxtaposition of news stories in your screengrab there as well. This is at the milder end of the spectrum for all the people who want to put their head in the sand and question why they should be bothered about Ukraine/Russia/USA.
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