Is Russia at war with Europe? UK thinks so, possibly by 2030. Is Ireland ready defence wise?

How's that going to be paid for? It's not me you need to convince but the Irish middle classes. I don't see them going for it.

We have independence.

The Dáil is elected by the people so they need to be convinced. Given that they won't spring for housing or healthcare any more than they do now, vastly expanding national defence isn't going to be a runner.

Do they show support for tax rises to support this?

Spend the Apple tax money on a new naval fleet and a sea drone factory.

You are misremembering if you think that the Iraq War was presented as you describe in Europe. It may have been presented that way on some news stations at the very beginning with shock and awe, but it certainly did not last long.

I remember watching Shock and Awe live on Sky News at the time and even then right at the beginning, everyone could clearly see through the American propaganda. It was not long before people were marching here in the streets against that war, including myself.

Whether people want to admit it or not, Iraq, Yemen and Saudi Arabia are not within our European sphere. Attacks on them are not seen as attacks on us. We can find them abhorant and protest, but it does not feel like a direct threat to us.

An attack on Ukraine by a nuclear superpower is a completely different thing to people living in Europe. It is a direct threat to us and our way of life. We do not need to be 'measured' in our media response to this.

You are really just creating a moralistic whataboutery - people are allowed to feel differently about different events, that does not make them 'selectively moral' hypocrites.

And why exactly should they?

Pumping money into weapons manufacturers for a threat that may or may not exist.

Theres much more value investing in diplomacy, rather than pandering to the whims of the savages amongst us and the multibillionsaires and political class whose families and themselves are sheilded from the horrors of war.

You can only predict the future defence by looking at what exists today and what was done in the past.

On that basis it could be 3030 and Ireland wouldn't be ready to defend anything.

Correction Ireland are very quick to defend doing nothing. Nothing about defence, housing or healthcare.

Ireland govt idea at spending lots of money badly does not seem to work well.

I get that. I do. However, you don't need to convince me. You need to convince Ireland's middle classes to pay for it. You'll also need some kind of concrete metrics. How big of an army do you want? How many ships for the navy? Planes?

I'm in the UK and I see various recruitment campaigns for the Armed Forces. They're really struggling to get people. I went to see Masters of the Universe last week and it was sponsored by them. People just don't want to join in the numbers required. It's like the problem with building houses.

I recall an interview with a senior American General who said that the UK can't even defend itself from invasion.

Ireland piggybacks off the UK because that's pretty much what it's always done. It's a tradition that goes back centuries. I've no problem with people wanting to change that but you're going to need to make a serious case for it given Ireland's insanely privileged geographical position.

That is why you join an alliance, hello NATO, let us in.

Russia is the biggest threat to Ireland. Cyber attacks, cable attacks, drone attacks, we are very vulnerable to modern warfare.

I'm certainly very anti-conscription and very opposed to anything like it.

Things are a bit different on the continent though. Germany are members of NATO and the situation in Ukraine has forced a volte face there in terms of defence policy. Ireland's very far removed from that situation.

Maybe it could be done for fairly cheap but a quick google shows that the army is less than 7,000 full time soldiers which seems awfully small for a country of over 5 million.