The Irish public are blissfully unaware that the Third World War has already begun
Ukrainian soldiers work on a Leopard 1 A5 main battle tank during the visit of German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius and his Danish counterpart Troels Lund Poulsen to the Bundeswehr military site in Germany in 2023. Currently, all countries in the Baltic region are preparing for war. File photo: Klaus-Dietmar Gabbert/dpa via AP
“You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”
The above quote is a paraphrase of Leon Trotsky’s comment on dialectics made around 1940. The precise quote was made by Harvard’s Professor Michael Waltzer, in his book (1977).
Waltzer was referring to ‘the vortex that war inevitably creates, sucking in whole communities and individuals who have thought of themselves as neutrals or non-combatants’.
The Irish people do not really accept that Ireland could be sucked into ‘the vortex of war’, and no octogenarian armchair colonel in Navan will ever convince them otherwise. Still, History tells us what happened to those neutrals who suffered brutal occupation during the Second World War.
They were not interested in war, but war came to their shores, nevertheless. When the Second World War was over, they never again trusted neutrality as a policy of national defence. They joined Nato.
It is interesting now to remember how we, who served in the Defence Forces during the Cold War, thought about national security and defence in the event of WW3. The Cuban missile crisis, in October 1962, highlighted the threat of a nuclear war and was taken very seriously, at least by the Irish military leadership.
The main threat to Ireland was perceived to be deadly radiation from nuclear fallout after the anticipated initial exchanges of nuclear attacks on the Continent and on the UK. The prevailing winds would seal our fate. In those days before the Jet Stream shifted south, the winds came from the east in the winter period, and from the southwest in the spring to autumn seasons.
The Irish public have long been conditioned into thinking that the most important issues are housing, childcare, the economy, the health services and to a lesser extent, education and immigration. I would argue that, in all these, admittedly valid, areas, we are already coping better than most other EU Member States.
They are not, per se, existential life and death issues in modern Ireland. National life expectancy is improving all the time. We know very well that, as one of the top 20% richest countries on this planet, we are well capable of solving at least the homeless problem, if there is the political will to do so.
However, the threats to national security and defence transcend our internal national problems. These include cyberattacks and cyber warfare, disruptions to communications and trade, climate change, attacks on our energy infrastructure, regional wars, epidemics and pandemics, CBRN (chemical, biological radiological and nuclear) attacks, uncontrolled immigration and invasion.
Our greatest asset is that we can feed several times our population, with fertile land and abundant seas. This is also our greatest vulnerability. As the planet loses its ability to sustain life forms, through wars and climate change, undefended Ireland will be ripe for invasion and occupation.
All countries base their national defence strategy on the deterrent principle. This includes having the military capability to make it too costly for a potential enemy to attack or invade their sovereign territory.
Over the past 40 years the decline of funding for defence has hit such a low level that we are unable to provide the minimum military capability to deter a potential enemy. At 0.2% of GDP, we are paying proportionately less than one eighth of the EU average (1.6%).
As a result, the army is simply not equipped to function on the modern battlefield. The Naval Service has not got one warship capable of naval combat. The Air Corps has not got even one jet fighter interceptor capable of defending our air space.
The sad fact is that, while we may be neutral, our Defence Forces are well and truly neutered. Moreover, we are the weak link in a key location, at a time when tensions between Nato and Russia have never been higher.
In August 2008, Russia won a short 10-day war against Georgia and consolidated its control on the provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. It then used its veto to force UN and OSCE peacekeeping missions to withdraw from Georgia but agreed to an EU Monitoring Mission being deployed to supervise the withdrawal of Russia forces.
I joined this mission at the beginning and stayed for two years, working in the Eastern Sector along the border with the Federation. At that time both Georgia and Russia co-operated with EUMM, and the ceasefire was maintained.
It was quite clear to me then that the future of Georgia and Moldova would depend on how things turned out in Ukraine. By 2014, Russia had taken Crimea and “its little green men” were engaged in a proxy war in the Donbas Region.
In 2016, General Sir Richard Shirreff, former Deputy Supreme Commander Allied Forces in Europe, wrote his fictional masterpiece “War with Russia”. He laid out a scenario on how such a war could break out in the Baltic. He also exposed the UK’s lack of preparedness for war due to prolonged periods of cuts over decades.
Currently, all countries in the Baltic region are preparing for war. Ukraine is losing its war with Russia. Georgia’s links with Western Europe are being gradually undermined by Russia, in particular, its aspirations for membership of the EU and Nato. Belarus has been integrated into Russia’s western defence alliance.
Germany is reviewing its civil defence, with the focus on preparing air raid shelters for its population. The Irish public are blissfully unaware that the Third World War has already begun, however low-keyed.
Unlike the First World War and the Second World War, the Third World War is a hybrid war, where military means are co-ordinated with non-military means. The non-military means include economic warfare, information warfare, psychological warfare, cyber warfare, lawfare, political warfare (i.e. interfering in elections).
The current domains of war are land, sea, air, space and cyber space. Over the horizon threats may include environmental warfare, as the technology already exists, locally, to control the weather. The late Stephen Hawking listed AI and alien invasion as the greatest threats to humanity.
Some defence analysts are of the view that, if any one of the Big Three, US, Germany or France, withdrew from Nato, Nato would collapse. Some of the staunchest supporters of Irish Neutrality assume that Nato will come to our aid if we are in trouble.
They quote the “secret agreement” of RAF air cover if a hijacked aircraft enters Irish air space. In time of war, however, when multiple threats prevail, the RAF has to put the UK’s interest first and foremost.
At the height of the Cold War, Sweden and Finland, remained neutral/non-aligned, even when the nuclear war drums could be heard in the background. The Ukraine War was their wake up call. They joined Nato knowing that a Russia-Nato war is looming on the horizon.
The lack of public awareness in Ireland of national security and defence issues is a serious problem. RTÉ has 1,700 employees but no Defence Correspondent.
Somewhere, in a parallel universe, there must be another Ireland where the multiple threats facing our national security and defence are taken seriously.
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- Dorcha Lee is a retired army colonel and defence analyst
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