Defence forces: Our policy of neglect is reckless

Earlier this week, Britain’s new £3bn (€3.3bn) aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth arrived in Portsmouth amid much fanfare and red-white-and-blue jingoism. The carrier is to be based there for 50 years.

Whether the commissioning of such an intimidating weapon is an anachronistic doffing of a threadbare cap to older ideas or a practical determination, as prime minister Theresa May insisted, by Britain to maintain its position as a “great global maritime nation” is a political question brought into sharp focus by the conflict between US president Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. One way or another, the project represents an extraordinary commitment of national resources to defence.

That accusation cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be levelled at our Government. A litany of defence force representatives and retired officers — or those lured to the private sector — have warned that our faith in today’s defence forces is misplaced. Those voices speak as one and warn that services undermined for so very long are not capable of delivering an appropriate response to atrocities like yesterday’s in Barcelona. That those warnings were current long before Brexit became a very real issue shows how serious the situation has become. Like many State services, our defence forces are chronically understaffed and underfunded. We have seen how this can have disastrous consequences.

Remember, four brave souls were lost just last March when Irish Coast Guard helicopter Rescue 116 crashed off Mayo because the under-resourced air corps was not in a position to respond to an emergency call.

The same principle applies internationally. The EU is deepening security and defence co-operation. There are plans to develop rapid-response forces and do more on

cyberdefence. There are also plans to standardise military equipment and command structures.

The pace of change, unsurprisingly led by Paris and Berlin, is expected to accelerate after elections in Germany.

This, as various responses to proposals from Britain on Brexit suggest, raises a difficult but familiar question for Ireland if we wish to be at the centre of a reshaped Europe.

It is unlikely that our EU partners will insist that we abandon neutrality, though a you’re-with-us-or-you’re-against-us ultimatum cannot be ruled out in this increasingly volatile world. It is unlikely, too, even if we retain the long-cherished principle of neutrality, that our EU partners would offer us meaningful support if our institutionalised helplessness is overwhelmed in one way or another.

Ironically, the best way to be in a position to preserve our neutrality, if that is what we really want, is to have a motivated, fit-for-purpose, defence force. Equally, the unspoken policy behind the neglect of our defence forces is the impression that Ireland is unlikely to be targeted by anyone so we do not need to commit scarce resources to maintain our security is flawed — that weakness is the very reason we might be targeted. We may not have to spend £3bn on an aircraft carrier but current policy seems needlessly reckless and dangerous.