Daniel McConnell: It's time for Ireland to grow up and abandon neutrality

While embracing the US, and co-operating with Nato-led missions, Ireland has shied away from joining Nato. Until now.

There was an air of unreality about the planned war games off the Cork coast in January, the Vice-Admiral Kulakov and the Marshal Ustinov among the warships. Fast forward a few weeks and we all know now that Russia's firepower is very real indeed. File picture

In 1974, the US, unhappy with having to keep hundreds of thousands of troops in Europe, said bluntly that it was “up to Europe to look after its own defence”.

President Richard Nixon, along with his controversial adviser Henry Kissinger, articulated their view that maintaining a large US military presence in Europe to combat the Soviet Union was becoming increasingly intolerable.

At the time, it sparked a debate in Ireland about whether or not to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or Nato as it is more commonly known. Formed after the end of the Second World War, Ireland resisted joining alongside the UK on foot of a dispute over the recognition of the North.

We didn’t join Nato, and the government grasped on tightly to our stance of neutrality in public, while seeking to curry favour with the US all the time. 

Ireland, in the wake of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, began cooperating with Nato-led peacekeeping missions, but has always shied away from the ultimate step of becoming a full Nato member.

The events of the past month — both the threatened Russian military exercises off the Cork coast and the actual Russian invasion of Ukraine — have again begun a debate about Ireland’s security and its strategic alliances post-Brexit.

What now for Ireland, with war again upon us in Europe? Where do we go now that our closest neighbours have left the club of Europe? Who are our allies? Where are our strategic alliances? Who can we depend upon in an expanded EU without any natural partner to rely on?

These questions and their implications have come into sharp focus given events in Ukraine and the naked aggression and murder of Vladimir Putin.

However, the threat of Russian wargames off our southwest coast brought into sharp focus just how flimsy and pathetic our defence capabilities are.

A report published in recent weeks spelled that out.

That report told us the Defence Forces are not adequately prepared to meaningfully defend Ireland against an outside attack.

The Commission on the Defence Forces identified “striking gaps” in the State’s capacity to police its air and maritime areas of responsibility and to protect its national security from external incursion by sea or air.

That a bunch of Cork fisherman stood ready to face the Russians because of an absence of an actual Irish force was only mildly funny.

Such a deficit in defence readiness has been perennially treated almost as a joke, as it was not a political priority. But if you take the war games saga combined with the crippling cyberattack on Ireland’s health service by agents of Russia, the joke is on us.

Tánaiste Leo Varadkar hit the nail on the head in the Dáil on Thursday when he said the assumption that we have made for 70 years is that nobody would attack us because we are a country that is neutral militarily.

“Ukraine was neutral militarily,” he said. “It was not part of any military alliance. It was attacked because it was politically part of the West, or at least wanted to be.

We make the assumption that, even if we are attacked, the British and the Americans will come and save us anyway. I am not sure that is the kind of assumption a sovereign country like ours should make. 

In other words, how can we, as a sovereign democracy, expect to be taken seriously when we can’t defend ourselves?  It is frankly embarrassing when you consider we can’t even man the few boats we have due to a shortage of personnel.

We also know that, in 2020, Russian planes were intercepted off the Irish coast, not by our air force, but by the RAF. Irish authorities believe many more flights were taking place entirely without the State’s knowledge. As well as lacking any aircraft capable of intercepting the bombers, Ireland is the only country on Europe’s west coast that lacks a primary radar system.

This is a scandal.

While we have maintained our dubious policy of military neutrality in this country, successive governments have taken it to mean we can afford to neglect their basic duty to their citizens to ensure their safety. For example, in 1980, spending on defence in Ireland amounted to 1.6% of GDP. Today it is just 0.2%.

The decision by the 2011 Fine Gael and Labour government to downgrade the Department of Defence from a full Cabinet ministry should not be underestimated in this context.

A Ukrainian soldier at his position near an armoured vehicle as the Ukrainian army vowed to keep fighting. Picture: Andrew Marienko/AP

While Simon Coveney accepted the findings of the Commission on the Future of Defence report — especially the need to dramatically increase funding in the coming years — it is not enough.

Ireland must, first of all, get its house in order, and State funding must be made available and ringfenced over the next 10-year period to bring the country into line with what is  now expected of a modern European country.

We really must stop the drivel we often hear from left-wing politicians that such spending is tantamount to Ireland becoming a military aggressor. It is not. Defending yourself properly is not only a legitimate expectation of a people for their Government, it is a duty.

Multi-year increases in funding will allow our Defence Forces to plan the modernisation that is so badly needed, step by step. 

In tandem with such an increase in defence spending, Ireland now virtually alone in Europe must rethink not only its strategic alliances within Europe and around the world, but the time has also come to end our farcical insistence that we are a neutral country.

Ireland has stood proudly over the past 60 years on the side of democracy, peace, and freedom.

We signed up to the EU’s Permanent Structured Cooperation (Pesco) in 2017, and we must also be open to the discussion of Irish troops being part of a European army.

This public stance of neutrality is now outdated and no longer serves our needs.

In that vein, Ireland must look to becoming a full member of Nato.

Both Coveney and Taoiseach Micheál Martin have risen to the challenge in recent weeks when it comes to condemning Russia and being to the fore of supporting painful sanctions and helping Ukrainian people.

US troops loading equipment onto vehicles in Rzeszow, last month as the country sent nearly 5,000 troops to its Nato ally, Poland, in addition to the 4,000 on permanent rotation in the country. Picture: Czarek Sokolowski/AP

By insisting Ireland cannot be neutral in the face of such evil, Coveney and Martin give voice to the reality that a madman like Putin, sooner or later, will have to be faced down militarily. Martin’s comments yesterday that Ireland will have to consider Nato membership is a most welcome development.

By being part of that club, Ireland’s international influence can only grow.

It is time for Ireland to grow up, stop relying on others to defend ourselves, and start playing our part in terms of securing Europe. The best way to do that long-term is to become a member of Nato.