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What are the actual threats to the State?

  • 01-06-2020 10:00am
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 5,818 ✭✭✭


    I thought it would be interesting to take other's views on this subject.

    The Defence Forces describe their purpose in short as 'to defend, protect and support' the State.

    At present, they capably undertake "aid to the civil power" (or is that authority?) roles like fisheries protection and maritime patrol and can be relied upon for additional manpower and skills in cases of serious weather events, for example. Our economy and prosperity benefits from this greatly.

    In the fledgling years of the State, I can imagine that the gravest and most serious threat to the integrity of the country or to the health and prosperity of the population - other than the Civil War - would have been a deterioration of relations with Britain such that they might have 'invaded' or blockaded the country to an extent. The Free State could have done very little in response to that kind of action. This is no longer a threat today, and even if it was Britain is too proximate a power for Ireland to contemplate deterring or threatening any conventional challenge.

    In the Emergency, the State managed to feed itself and maintain a supply of goods/energy etc to a certain extent, but it never really came to blows with any of the powers and would likely have formed no great resitance to either Germany or Britain occupying some or all of the State to further their wider interests.

    The State managed to avoid total anarchy despite the implosion in the North in the late 60s/early 70s.

    So my question is, to what extent can the State (via either the DF or other civilian organisations) defend and protect itself against internal or external, State or non-State 'enemies' today?

    What are the most likely threats? I haven't come across a document or discussion - by the DF, academia or anyone else - analysing or ranking the 'threats' to the State and whether the State is prepared to prevent them outright or mitigate their effects.

    In my view, the most likely threat of any kind is to our power, health, financial & banking information systems such that there would be widespread pandemonium and dire physical and economic consequences. This can be caused and plausibly denied by a State or non-State actor with a grievance against Ireland (or the EU/US). Russia and China are well placed in this regard, with the former said to pose a threat to Lithuania's banking system in recent years. What will it take to insulate these systems such that it is too difficult and costly to contemplate disrupting or crippling them? Other countries are developing sophisticated cyber elements of their armed forces with offensive and defensive roles.

    In the conventional sphere (i.e. as an island), suppose there is some sort of 'hot' war or confrontation between powers anywhere in the world. Are we in a position to continue the supply of energy/goods/materials by sea and air from Britain, the continent and North America if other states or alliances are threatening shipping, including in the Atlantic or even the Celtic/Irish Seas? What kind of merchant marine can we rely on? We cannot at present challenge surface, aerial or submarine threats to our interests, although it would likely only be the latter threat that would make it far enough to threaten Ireland given our distance from the West's principal foes.

    To what extent and for how long can we fend for ourselves? To what extent can we rely upon our neutrality and non-alignment to maintain our livelihoods, even where other parts of the world have gone to pot?

    My thoughts are that if the State was to seriously consider measures to counter its principal threats, it would invest in ensuring that networks and systems cannot easily be 'hacked' and that those systems are sufficiently redundant and 'decentralised' such that we can repair and/or replace them quickly and easily. Such efforts would deter any state or non-state actor from attempting to interfere with us in the first place. On the conventional front, the State would also develop an anti-submarine warfare capability to ensure, if Britain and France have eloped overseas to protect their interests on another front, that we can still move supplies to and from Britain and the continent by denying and deterring threatening submarines from operating in our approaches. Aerial or surface threats to our local interests seem to be very unlikely given that our most likely foes are (indirectly) Russia and to a lesser extent China who would be operating 1000kms from home with the former having to deal with a variety of other countries before reaching Ireland.


Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 23,716 ✭✭✭✭Larbre34


    The Defence White Paper of 2015, updated 2019, encapsulates the security environment, the resources and planned resources to deal with it and also acknowledges the gaps in resources.

    Now the new Government, which is going to be very cash-strapped for probably its entire term, may move away from the framework of investment and focus on certain capabilities in the WP, but if not, the WP provides for a 3 year cyclical review of defence priorities and a comprehensive Strategic Defence Review to be carried out next year.

    Is the document written by the same people who are the audience for it? Probably. Does it preclude any true root and branch reform for a modern unified operational force structure with all possible threats at least faced up to? Probably also.

    Any true external critique is only academic in nature, it would probably take an external analysis, with teeth, the likes of which took place across the Garda service and policing as a whole to fundamentally change establishment thinking on the topic of national defence, even among the mind of senior brass who might regard themselves as progressive, but only in the confines of the system to which they have become conditioned.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,749 ✭✭✭Smiles35


    donvito99 wrote: »



    My thoughts are that if the State was to seriously consider measures to counter its principal threats, it would invest in ensuring that networks and systems cannot easily be 'hacked' and that those systems are sufficiently redundant and 'decentralised' such that we can repair and/or replace them quickly and easily. Such efforts would deter any state or non-state actor from attempting to interfere with us in the first place. On the conventional front, the State would also develop an anti-submarine warfare capability to ensure, if Britain and France have eloped overseas to protect their interests on another front, that we can still move supplies to and from Britain and the continent by denying and deterring threatening submarines from operating in our approaches. Aerial or surface threats to our local interests seem to be very unlikely given that our most likely foes are (indirectly) Russia and to a lesser extent China who would be operating 1000kms from home with the former having to deal with a variety of other countries before reaching Ireland.


    I'm not sure submarines are a threat now. They 'say' the Swedish Gotland class is undetectable by normal surface combatants, that's after friendly exercises. I'd like us to buy plenty of CIWS and mothball them. Great for air launched, surface ship and shore launched anti-ship missiles. Actually, tying that into your strategy of keeping infrastructure going in the event of an all out shooting war then we should make the bullets for them here as well. It won't make much sence to any allies holding on to the last of our infrastructure if we are'nt actually making anything.


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,818 ✭✭✭donvito99


    Smiles35 wrote: »
    I'm not sure submarines are a threat now. They 'say' the Swedish Gotland class is undetectable by normal surface combatants, that's after friendly exercises. I'd like us to buy plenty of CIWS and mothball them. Great for air launched, surface ship and shore launched anti-ship missiles. Actually, tying that into your strategy of keeping infrastructure going in the event of an all out shooting war then we should make the bullets for them here as well. It won't make much sence to any allies holding on to the last of our infrastructure if we are'nt actually making anything.

    Agreed to an extent. From what I have read Russia no longer poses the same threat it once did in the Atlantic. But most of that commentary also agrees that it still has the capacity to pose a real, persistent threat in our part of the world. It seems to me to be in our interest to have the ability to make them think twice about operating in the seas between us and the rest of the world that we are hugely dependent on.

    Those same commentators agree that ASW has become fantastically expensive as it has become more difficult to detect subs. The barriers to entry are very high for us, but as we have no real expeditionary interests, we don't require costly blue water assets. Our area of interest is realistically Dublin to Holyhead and Rosslare to Fishguard/France, and to an extent the ability to escort a ship further afield. For the former task, a fixed system (e.g. SOSUS-esque) may work but is that too defeatable/predictable? A vessel is required for the latter scenario in order to be persistent/flexible.

    To an extent we have all the ingredients. The Air Corps could fly the ASW variant of the C295, and the navy could replace patrol vessels with ASW capable patrol vessels. What we don't have is money to procure and maintain the equipment or train the people to do these niche roles. in any case, it would take years to develop a competent ASW capability from scratch.

    Another thought - mines. Our European peers devote significant resources to MCM. Sitting out on the Atlantic, we don't appear to be in the same boat those states sitting on the Baltic or with interests in the Persian Gulf. If we were to accept that a submarine is a threat to our shipping, a submarine is also well placed to mine a narrow channel or an entrance to a port and snooker shipping in the first place. I believe there was talk of Ciara and Orla being replaced with vessels capable of an anti-mine/IED capability.

    What I am ultimately getting at is the fact that we are an island. We are hugely dependent on energy imports in particular. In the event of our neighbours taking themselves and (indirectly) Europe to war, either locally or on the other side of the world, we ought to be able to ensure that we can maintain some sort of normal supply. We can feed ourselves but we cannot fuel ourselves (at the moment).


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