Should Ireland Abandon Its Neutrality???

bigeasyeah

No

Scofflaw

The idea of Irish neutrality I was used to during the Eighties was that we were neutral not for our own benefit, but so that we could be an even-handed voice in conflicts, because we had no vested interest in the outcome. We had no geopolitical interests of our own, because as a post-colonial nation geographically separated from any others, we had never had any overseas adventures of our own.

Back then, we didn't really have much in the way of trade interests in the wider world, because the UK was close to being our sole market, and everybody knew that we weren't going to automatically side with them. Insofar as we had relationships with other countries, they were largely through our religious orders and their missionary and educational activities. However, given the very close ties between the ordinary Irish public and the church at the time, that gave us, in certain senses, an intimate connection with the world, and an interest in it, at an entirely different level from trade interests and governmental contacts.

So, we were post-colonial, which gave us an insight into the post-colonial issues of much of the developing world. We were poor, as most of the post-colonial world was (and still is). We had no imperial, or even military past, no axe to grind in a conflict in Matabeleland or Rongo-rongo. We weren't part of NATO or any other military/geostrategic club, so we weren't looking at countries as for us/against us. At the same time, though, we were English-speaking, we were in the EC, so we shared a table with the ex-colonial powers, and we had a special relationship with the US - so we had contacts, and we couldn't be ignored. We certainly felt we had a role, and I think we played it, and knew we played it, quite well.

All of that made us an authentically neutral voice in resolving conflicts - especially in the developing world - and our UN activities were a reasonable extension of that. Our military ineffectualness was actually a plus point - not only were we not interested in your country from a military or colonial point of view, we lacked even the capacity to be, and we weren't shilling for some heavy-weight ally either.

I think it's certainly harder now for Ireland to play exactly that role in the world these days, which could easily make our neutrality a passive and rather self-serving thing instead of what it was. It's harder partly because of our closer relationship with the EU, and partly because of the very visible US use of Shannon - but mostly it's harder because we simply haven't lived up to it. As we've become more prosperous, we've been less willing to rock the boat, and for reasons that are visibly self-interested. Simultaneously, Irish society has moved away from the religious orders (partly to stop them fondling us, of course), so we're losing that layer of connection. We're also, as a public, more inclined to the niggardliness of the wealthy than the generosity of the poor. Finally, the increasing weight of the EU in soft power terms, and our membership of it, puts us in one sense at least very visibly on a particular side, at least as far as trade matters go - oddly enough, it's probably our devotion to CAP that makes us more visibly non-neutral than anything else.

Does all of this make our previous form of neutrality untenable? I would say not, if we were prepared to actually put our hearts into it. If we're not, then it becomes a self-serving passivity and a cloak for not bothering. If we are, it becomes something worthwhile again. None of the arrangements we are either currently in, or are considering entering into, preclude an active and engaged neutral foreign policy - all that has happened, here as elsewhere, is that we've taken our eye off the ball. We've been too busy living the material dream to put any thought or effort into something as fundamentally moral as our neutrality, but nothing prevents us doing so again except a lack of will. The choice seems to me to be ours, and I would favour putting the thought and effort into active neutrality and the resolution of conflicts by diplomacy and negotiation, just as it says in our Constitution.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Birdnuts

There is now a permanent NATO presence at Shannon AP in the form of officials working full time there. Ireland is about as neutral as an American aircraft carrier:(

The Volt

You mean our non-belligerent status?

We were never neutral

rant_and_rave

mega man wrote: »

Please state your reasons.

Here we go again. The perennial debate.

It's very simple. This is a list of European countries that were neutral prior to the start of WWII i.e. prior to Britain and France declaring war on Germany after the invasion of Poland. These countries either remained neutral or abandoned neutrality only after AFTER they were attacked so Ireland's position was not unusual. It was the norm. Any talk of Irish neutrality being some sort of expression of anti-British resentment is just rubbish. If Ireland had been attacked by Germany it would have joined the Allies. Simple as that.

p, li { white-space: pre-wrap; } Ireland(Neutral)
Switzerland(Neutral)
Spain(Neutral)
PortugalNeutral)
Turkey(Neutral)

Sweden(Neutral)



Iceland(Neutral until occupied by Britain)
Norway(Neutral until invaded by Germany)
Denmark(Neutral until occupied first by the Allies then by Germany)
Belgium(Neutral until invaded by Germany)
Holland(Nneutral until invaded by Germany)
Greece(Neutral until invaded by Germany)
Yugoslavia(Neutral until invaded by Germany)


Ireland remains military neutral because there is no imminent threat to it's security. If that situational changes it will jump into bed with whatever ally is best positioned to meet it's security needs.

Dr. Baltar

If anything we should fully disband our 1.3 billion euro a year defence forces with the exception of the navy who actually do stuff.
Yes I know the army assists the gardaí and i reckon that small part of the force is all that's required.

conchubhar1

O'Coonassa wrote: »

We're waving guns at people in several far flung places. Hardly neutral, just hypocritical.

ah halfing knowing what actualy happens and making an ignorant comment on that


peace keeping is not waving guns at anybody

no we should not abandon our neutrality

Dr. Baltar

conchubhar1 wrote: »

ah halfing knowing what actualy happens and making an ignorant comment on that


peace keeping is not waving guns at anybody

no we should not abandon our neutrality

I believe we're "peace-enforcing" now which means that troops have the right to fire at anyone causing harm. Peace Keeping means you can't do anything unless fired upon.

Martinog

IRELAND OF ALL PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW WHATS ITS LIKE TO BE INVADED BY A FORIGN ARMY AND THE REPROCUTIONS,

If Ireland abandoned its neutrality, It would give the right for the EU to drag us into Business wars, The Lisbon treaty tried to get us to do it, Ireland is a small country with no beef with none of these supposedly terrorists countries which Irish people would be sent to die there if it was abandoned, sent by the EU.


THE ANSWER FOR ALL IRISH PEOPLE SHOULD BE AN ABSOLUTE **** YOU BRIAN COWAN YOU SELLOUT BOLOX.

Het-Field

Regardless of people's opinions vis-a-vis our neutrality, or lack thereof, I am still quite dubious.

At very least the triple lock is mandatory. Patricia McKenna, and Roger Cole's attitude to neutrality is far too isolationist for my liking. I would rather we abandon all adherence to neutrality. Neutrality is not simply about war, and I dont believe that its in Ireland's interest to stand idely by and say nothing when lives could be at stake. A carte blanche with regard any or all military activity is foolhardy, and PC.

Naturally it would take a referendum, which the Government of today would never agree to.

Manic Moran

Sir Baralot wrote: »

I believe we're "peace-enforcing" now which means that troops have the right to fire at anyone causing harm. Peace Keeping means you can't do anything unless fired upon.

I believe the UN makes the distinction that peace-keeping requires the approval of the UN's troops from all sides in the conflict, and peace-enforcing does not require universal approval.

(I'd be surprised if any ROE outright prohibits shooting first in any UN mission)

NTM

KerranJast

I think the "triple lock" is unnecessary. It should be enough that the Dail and Government alone should be able to decide when our troops see action. There's going to be certain times when the interests of the big 3 nations (USA, China and Russia) will be contrary to what the UN wants to do in peacekeeping/peaceinforcing and so those big countries will veto any involvement of UN troops. Does that mean we can't contribute to a just cause when all our European friends do their part just because the UN couldn't agree? Look at Darfur. China has massive business interests in the region and tried really, really hard to prevent any UN agreement on the issue.
Anyway how can we be really neutral in the 21st century anyway? The vast majority of the world are friendly to each other. There are only a handful of hostile states and those states wouldn't distinguish between us and English/Americans anyway. Are we saying we are not an enemy of North Korea? or Al Qaeda? or the Taliban? Time for us to grow up.

turgon

Het-Field wrote: »

Naturally it would take a referendum, which the Government of today would never agree to.

It actually wouldn't, funnily enough. Neutrality has always just been a government policy rather than a constitutional position.

nesf

Apologies, I missed your reply until today.

Manic Moran wrote: »

True, but I think you might be drawing the wrong conclusions. It was not so much that Ireland was safe because it was geographically irrelevant, it was not. Both the UK and Germany had eyes on Ireland as the gateway to the Atlantic. The problem, at the time, was that it would have been technically difficult to conduct a major operation across the water to do anything. However, there are two counters to Ireland's WWII policy being effective in event of conflict today.

1) Equipment ranges have expanded to the extent that Ireland is now in the modern area of interest as regards a conflict in continental europe.

2) Ireland's status in the 1940s would have been directly dependant on whether or not Germany was defeated by the Allies. Ireland may not have admitted it, but was completely reliant upon the UK and US for its future existance and yet could contribute nothing effectively to that effort.

I agree with you here, I don't think Ireland's geographical position ruled out invasion in WWII, only that it made invasion not a foregone conclusion. Also arguably Germany didn't have the technology to mount a decent sized invasion of Ireland in WWII considering that Britain could mount a counter operation quite easily. If Britain had been successfully invaded then Ireland would have been almost certainly invaded by Germany I think.

conchubhar1

Sir Baralot wrote: »

I believe we're "peace-enforcing" now which means that troops have the right to fire at anyone causing harm. Peace Keeping means you can't do anything unless fired upon.

no, i am nearly certain you can not fire unless you are fired upon or you see someone firing upon a civilian

conchubhar1

KerranJast wrote: »

Are we saying we are not an enemy of North Korea? or Al Qaeda? or the Taliban? Time for us to grow up.

enemy?

possibly so - but you would advocate us declaring war on them in the future or now?

or to come out and declare we are their ''enemy''?

do you want ireland to abandon neutrality or to cause a possible war?

Poccington

Sir Baralot wrote: »

If anything we should fully disband our 1.3 billion euro a year defence forces with the exception of the navy who actually do stuff.
Yes I know the army assists the gardaí and i reckon that small part of the force is all that's required.

You're dead right, the Army doesn't do a tap. It's not like we have troops in countries right across the world or anything... Oh wait.

As for the "small force" that assists AGS, pretty much the whole force takes part in ATCP throughout the year.