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brickstser69
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Reports Armenian President Pashinyan's plane was stuck in the sky in Moscow for an hour because of Ukrainian drones.
How does he manage to get to the frontlines and back without drones taking him out?
Shows either how clueless he is or he is deliberately being disingenuous to falsely state that investing and developing our currently almost nonexistent defense forces is somehow abandoning neutrality when the exact opposite is the case. Firstly having a capable and fit for purpose defense and intelligence capability just strengthens our creditability in terms of our military neutrality. Secondly we are not neutral in any case, we are very much one of and supportive of the free, open and democratic societies of the world. We are simply militarily neutral in the sense of not being in any military alliance but there is no question we are not neutral in a general sense.
What they did with Article 122 is indefinitely block the transfer of Russian Central Bank assets on the basis that to do otherwise would damage the EU's economy. This is the first step to using those assets to help Ukraine.
Belgium proposed many amendments that would have made it more complicated. The Belgium PM protested that we are not at war with Russia, and compared seizing the assets to going into an embassy and taking all the furniture.
But he said Belgium is willing to go along with this if three conditions are met:
Silicon Wafers says that France is still protecting over €18bn in frozen Russian assets there.
Japan is refusing to join the use of the assets to fund Ukraine.
The US behind the scene tried to block the seizure of the Central Bank assets behind the scenes.
Meanwhile there are rumours the UK will join the EU move to use the Russian frozen assets.
But where is this huge military force you speak of ? every day we are hearing reports that Russia is on the brink of collapse! any yet you fear its going to invade Europe….makes no sense.
Fresh fish…
It not about today or tomorrow. It is about in 5-10 years time. It takes time to build military defence.
See it as an insurance policy. You think you pay for nothing until you need it and it is not when the accident happen that you can take one to cover yourself.
Most likely the biggest advocates for Ireland increasing our military spending will be military suppliers. We are flat broke and have no provision for our future social welfare commitments.
Its a pure nonsense to think we can scale up to the level to ward a force of the signicance that would invade us. Greece spent something like 11 billion on US weapons and god knows how much on German stuff including submarines some i believe which were never built pre their crash. I'd personally prefer to see money spent getting rid of the current invaders i.e. single male bogus assylum seekers and not some bogey man threat
Murphy going on about increasing expenditure on the army/ our defence capability- and from a VERY LOW BASE- is saying GOODBYE to our neutrality. Switzerland is a VERY neutral country and ALL Swiss are trained in basic arms use , is well stocked equipment wise, etc, etc, etc. in case it is ever attacked. Also Finland was similar to Switzerland up to recently ie neutral, etc. But when the SMO came along it felt very threatened going forward and joined NATO as a result
So how does Murphy SQUARE all of the above. Another case of he being ‘ found out’ again?
As mentioned earlier in the thread,Ukraine expanding their sanctions program
It is currently in Ukraine, invading an European country.
So the estimated 700,000 Russian soldiers currently fighting in Ukraine, do you think after any settlement is reached & fighting stops they'll all just go back to being prisoners/drunks/wasters in Russia?
how does anyone not understand this?…. makes no sense
You are missing the time dimension. If Ukraine is foolish enough to accede to the Putrid/Trump trojan horse of peace, Orcistan will continue to run a war economy and in just a few years will be re-equpped and ready to take the rest of Ukraine and some baltic states.
Russia will be ready for war with NATO within several years. The Russian army is already increasing its military potential, and a number of factors will be decisive for the start of an invasion, the Danish Defense Intelligence Service reports.
https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/danish-intelligence-outlines-preconditions-1739431091.html
Flat broke? WTF?
https://www.independent.ie/business/ireland-had-eus-biggest-budget-surplus-at-the-end-of-2022/42307477.html
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/2024/09/28/cliff-taylor-there-will-be-no-shortage-of-manifesto-promises-with-a-budget-surplus-of-25bn/
The €25.4 billion budget surplus that the Government is forecasting for this year is a modern record for Ireland and one of the highest as a percentage of national income recorded by any country.
apart from our 210 billion debt we are not flat broke - we just are wasting it left right and centre on over budget projects, ipas for the entire world, social welfare for those that can work - we can tighten up on a few things and pay for our defence like other neutral states
They have already invaded the United States and Hungary and are working on France, Britain etc.
It makes no sense from a modern European perspective but Russia is not such a state. For Putin, war is just another element of government policy that helps him maintain power. He does not dread it like we do.
Exactly, for Putin, war/aggression is simply another tool used to keep an iron grip on power.
For Russia to function as it does today, it MUST have an enemy, someone "trying to destroy them and their fabulous way of life" etc…. otherwise why have Putin the Brave/Putin the Strong/Putin the Wise as president for life? He's the only one that can fight off all this evil…
It was always the West (headed by the U.S.A.) up until this January this year, now it's just Europe on its own… but either way, someone is Always the enemy, as without an enemy, there's no need for Putin to protect them anymore…
And you'll notice in their rhetoric every single time…. they were forced to invade here, genocide there etc…. they are really a people of peace but everyone around them forces them to attack them…
The constant daily turning of Darth trumps USA toward the dark side
No doubt replacing Canada for potash supply
"Canada has the world's largest potash reserves, with 1.1 billion tonnes of potash, which is 5x larger than U.S. reserves."
Channeling Bonnie Prince Charlie?
Make Russia Great Again.
@Say my name Darth Trump, Vance & Emperor Putin etc are also trying to MEGA ( Make Europe Great Again )
Isn't the aim of having a military , and defensive equipment, to not have to use it ..
You buy good locks and an alarm system because you don't want to have your house broken into , the dodgier your neighbourhood and the more you have to protect - the more you spend on security and the better you want your security to be .. but you don't really want it tested in Ernest ..
I imagine Paul Murphy's idea of personal ,and home security has ( rightly ) evolved when he became a TD , when he had a partner , and more over a small child in the house , and when arseholes made threats against him and his , and turned up outside his door ..
As the threat evolves , you evolve your protection, not just bitch about the alarm business
Ireland is not flat broke. In fact, most countries would love to be in our financial situation.
Also, it has nothing to do with asylum seekers. We can do both.
I don’t understand how people think that not spending on military is a good option. You need to be prepared for any situation and the current climate is making it more urgent. Ireland got rich because it benefited from other countries by being in the EU. We shouldn’t expect the same countries to spend on military to protect the EU and us doing nothing. Being neutral doesn’t mean you shouldn’t help. If my next door neighbour is being attacked in his garden, should I just stand there and watch it while saying “sorry I am against violence”?
I see a lot of arguments against spending on our own defense focusing on "Who the hell are we gonna beat?".
But that misses the point. We aren't gonna beat anyone singlehandedly with only an initial few billion quid. What we can do however is make ourselves into a very sour lemon. So that the juice isn't worth the squeeze. The UK aren't gonna allow us be fully invaded. But we can be more than just freeloaders.
I wouldn't mind seeing us cheaply operate a few dozen Ukranian sea baby drones, couple of European AA batteries and a handful of Gripens or Mirages. Beef up our cyber security operations while we're at it. Let the Russians worry about whether they'll lose cable cutting ships or a few Su's if they violate our space.
Being militarily neutral doesn't mandate we be politically unaligned or completely defenseless.
I’d say that Putin is watching this no very carefully as he wants AS FEW OF THEM back on the home turf as is possible. Although , as a mark of respect, he should have no problem in they returning but in body bags and he probably glad to supply same
The British could equally have said in 1940 "What's the point of this Home Guard?" Of course it wasn't going to stop the Wehrmacht or significantly hurt the panzers, but, it would have wasted Germans' time, provided intelligence and given that little extra time for more important and more capable units to prepare for battle. Not that Ireland is comparable to Leonidas, but Thermopylae showed that faced with a superior enemy every little can help.
whatever little we can have will be better than not having it and it’s as simple as that. If you can’t stop a superiorly equipped & numbered army, you can certainly slow them down…
Look at how important the Javelin, Stugna & NLAW anti tank missile systems were in the early days of the war at repelling mechanised assaults… without them Kiev would have been reached easily…
… operate a few dozen Ukranian sea baby drones, couple of European AA batteries …
Need more than a coupla AAs for the drones 🤣
Sorry, sorry - couldn't resist!
If the waters off of Ireland are a nexus of important undersea cabling, I believe it would not cost billions to put up decent 24x7 surveillance over key areas. Probably something patrols of undersea drones could manage if you want to start out cheap before you have submarines or whatnot to do it. Perhaps the UK/US/Others do this already and maybe Ireland's involved.
It's defense we're looking for, we're not going to invade anyone.
