Interesting articles

roadmaster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120691697#Comment_120691697

What are the media going to do when the shinners take pauls seat.

Larbre34

SF wouldn't be without a few tankies theirselves.

And the chances of all the People Before Logics losing their seats in one go is slim, so we'll still be treated to the dulcet tones of Bríd or Gino or RBB.

Larbre34

They are right in this case.

The first IMG stood up in 2002 and where are we now? No further. Perhaps even worse off.

The brass wanting to persist with a mechanism which has quite obviously failed, is literal madness.

It needs a Tribunal of Inquiry into the historical stuff and then, with a clean sheet, application of an external template implemented by HR specialists, before returning normal operation of the new process to the DF.

sparky42

A reminder that the NS isn’t alone in suffering recruitment/retention issues, though given how small the NS of course it’s getting hit harder faster.

https://www.navylookout.com/not-enough-sailors-another-royal-navy-personnel-crisis-is-brewing/

Larbre34

It wouldn't shock me to see some form of national service re-introduced in Britain, to cope with long term demands on leading NATO members. Obviously the likes of Germany already had in place a routine military service obligation.

sparky42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120722429#Comment_120722429

I honestly can’t see the U.K. going that way, it would be political suicide for whoever brought it in.

Larbre34

Possibly. But then, why isn't the Rwanda relocation plan proving unpopular in the polls? Yes the NGO rights groups and left wing media hate it and arguably it is far more extreme and right wing than any suggestion of national military service, but its not causing convulsions among voters.

I couldn't see a Labour government ever doing national service, but if you look at Tory policy in the round, I wouldn't put it beyond possibility.

Migration and youth employment and gang crime and street assaults are all big issues in many parts of Britain, many a law and order Tory would argue that national service is an excellent youth diversion programme, not to mention a giver of life skills, leadership and self worth...

sparky42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120722550#Comment_120722550

The Rwanda “plan” isn’t causing any issues as it doesn’t affect Joe blogs in the street even wider/when it happens. It’s just a continuation of their “Hostile environment” policy.

National Service, and particularly one that likely isn’t going to be for everyone will affect Joe blogs and their kids, it will matter at the ballot box. I don’t get why there seems to be this view that nations that traditional have been against national service will suddenly revert to what are usually full wartime actions.

mupper2

Not sure if APOD over on IMO posts here, so here's his post from earlier today..

"Request for Info (RFI) published on the new etenders site for provision of the new Defence Forces Combat Clothing System (DFCCS) in Irish Transitional Multicam Pattern (ITMP).

ITMP is a bespoke pattern developed in conjunction with Crye"

Larbre34

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120722609#Comment_120722609

Because we (NATO, EU, the 'global west') are at a much higher baseline defence condition than we were in 2021, or even 2013. Military expansion is the order of the day among the allies.

Any gap in capacity causing a shortfall in capability needs a contingency ready to solve it. No matter how big a policy step that may be.

Only 20% of NATO members have it right now, but it is certainly a live issue of debate among them all.

https://www.dw.com/en/europe-is-compulsory-military-service-coming-back/a-65880469

sparky42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120722926#Comment_120722926

Keep flogging the idea, I’m not buying it, the nations that have used it might restore it (Germany won’t I’d bet, not with their issues), but the US, Canada, U.K… not a hope.

Larbre34

I'm not flogging it, I'm merely citing that it has become a live issue for militaries being forced to ramp up their capabilities and their commitment.

I'm not sure how many senior British officers I've heard quoted at this stage, warning the government there, over and again, that a massive expansion is needed. Drastic times, drastic measures.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120723316#Comment_120723316

I'd imagine also that those same officers would react in horror at any suggestion they were going to be given recruits \ short timers who don't want to be there.

It wasn't brought in in the 1980s after the Falkands \ USSR Cold War threat when the likes of Norman Tebbit was in Cabinet, I can't see it happening with this Conservative Party.

sparky42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120723316#Comment_120723316

Senior military officers don’t have to get elected, politicians do.What you/they are suggesting for the “Anglo sphere” hasn’t been done in decades if not longer and would need a complete restructuring of the militaries before it even started. The is no capacity within those nations to train the volume of people a national service produces, let alone the impact on unit cohesion and morale.

Or put it another way, the RAF can’t sort out its pilot pipeline and the RN can’t handled progressing it’s newly inducted sailors in a timely manner as is…Maybe national service isn’t going to do Jack to change that.

Larbre34

A soberly teutonic assessment from Der General-Leutnant.

As always the comments make me want to go boil my own head.

sparky42

Yeah the comment sections on anything defence related get swarmed by gobshites.

sparky42

Interesting article from Tony Connolly:

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2023/0617/1389644-neutrality/

While the IT has a few articles

https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2023/06/17/voters-want-to-keep-ireland-neutral-but-increase-investment-in-defence-poll-shows/

https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2023/06/17/neutrality-poll-more-people-support-a-change-in-neutrality-but-few-agree-on-what-it-should-be/

sparky42

Looks like Mickey D is weighing in on defence, front page on the Sunday Business Post it seems:

https://twitter.com/ConorGallaghe_r/status/1670119105230254083

Larbre34

Well now. That's an overstep. A big one.

That could snowball into quite an unpleasant outcome for him. I'm quite shocked he's gone there.

sparky42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120728414#Comment_120728414

Given his old school Left views on defence and FP are you really? I mean remember his "wife's" letter on the war...It does seem like a giant leap into an active political discussion so yeah, its going to be interesting to see how this plays out.

thomas 123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120728351#Comment_120728351

Its Gov + Co policy to ram through nato membership for us by the looks of things.

They could not predict the outcome of the citizens assembly so instead we are getting a summit with only one Pro Neutral speaker - according to TD Paul Murphy.

https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/politics/micheal-martin-paul-murphy-neautrality-30241564

I think its mad we are not talking about this more.

Excerpt ---

Mr Murphy said: “The list of invited speakers gives the game away to an extreme degree. “You have one anti-war speaker in the form of Roger Cole and multiple people who are on record as being in favour of joining NATO, have links to NATO themselves and so on. Does this not just give the entire game away?”

The Tánaiste hit back at Mr Murphy as he accused him of suggesting that people he did not agree with should not speak at the event.

He accused him of “personalising” the debate as he suggested he had also made comments about the forum’s chairperson.

He replied: “It is a sickening form of politics that you engage in, Deputy Murphy. I find it abhorrent.

“But a more sinister element behind it is to snuff out debate. You talk about freedom of speech and so on in Tunisia. You're nowhere near that, I'm not suggesting that.

“But what you are trying to suggest is certain people can't speak because they have a view. “That is what you're saying. They should not be allowed to speak. If there is up to 50 or 60 speakers, if one or two have views that are contrary to Deputy Murphy or Deputy [Richard] Boyd Barrett, they should not speak.

“That is intolerance. You guys are no great advocates of freedom of speech at all.

“I shudder to think of the day when you would never be an authority. Because by God would you put the jackboot on people who might have views different to yours.”

---

The language from MM is mad, instead of belaying the fears raised by PM he goes straight on the attack which would indicate to me that PM hit the nail on the head. Now I am no fan of PM but it only appears to be himself and a few others questioning the gov on this.

sparky42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120728453#Comment_120728453

Bullshit!

mupper2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120728453#Comment_120728453

We couldn't join NATO even if we wanted to.

thomas 123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120728490#Comment_120728490

Apologies, Ive used "Join Nato/Ram through Membership" in the place of "question or alter our neutrality to be Pro Nato".

sparky42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120728499#Comment_120728499

We have been in the PfP for decades. And our "neutrality" has never been anything more than "sit on our asses and get the UK to protect us", nothing at all about any "enlightened position" of non violence.

sparky42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120728490#Comment_120728490

Not even close, hell there was an article in RUSI suggesting that at least one member has already declared they would refuse us, and the French told us to go do one apparently when we floated them taking over the Air Policing from the UK.

thomas 123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120728506#Comment_120728506

We have not been dragged into any conflicts that we did not choose to be present at - ie Peacekeeping.

We do not require protecting and to date the UK has not had to protect us from any actual nation state threat. (That I am aware of)

We should not entertain the idea that any of our kids should ever go to war for any reason other than protecting this country from invaders.

I'm all for ramping up our defense forces with modern equipment, more numbers, decent pay and facilities etc but under no circumstance should we put ourselves in a position where Irish People are fighting wars in the interest of any group of countries.

^^ In my opinion ^^

sparky42

The full article:

Ireland is “playing with fire” during a dangerous period of “drift” in its foreign policy and must avoid “burying ourselves in other people’s agendas”, President Michael D Higgins has said.

In an exclusive interview with the Business Post, President Higgins has given a strongly worded warning about deviating from Ireland’s traditional policy of “positive neutrality”.

He said that the country finds itself in a particularly acute moment, noting that “the most dangerous moment in the articulation and formulation of foreign policy and its practice, since the origin of diplomacy, has been when you’re drifting and not knowing what you’re doing”. He added, “I would describe our present position as one of drift.”

Ireland’s traditional policy of neutrality is currently under review, with a four-day debate over the country’s foreign policy set to begin at the Government’s Consultative Forum on International Security Policy.

The panel is set to discuss a number of issues about Ireland’s international relations, including the country’s long-standing tradition of military neutrality and the possibility of membership of Nato.

President Higgins said that Ireland should avoid the “strutting and chest thumping” of those who would espouse a “hold-me-back version of Irish policy”, and who would want Ireland to “march at the front of the band” into military alliances such as Nato.

“We’re better than that,” he said, adding that Irish foreign policy should be based on the country’s tradition of international cooperation.

The country must avoid abandoning Ireland’s right to belong to any group that it chooses in relation to non-militaristic international policy, he said.

In relation to the Consultative Forum on International Security Policy, he said that the composition of the various panels was mostly made up of “the admirals, the generals, the air force, the rest of it”, as well as “the formerly neutral countries who are now joining Nato”. He asked why there was no representation from still-neutral countries such as Austria and Malta.

He was critical, too, of the European Union for its increasing military posturing, citing French president Emmanuel Macron’s recent comments that “the future of Europe is as the most reliable pillar in Nato”.

He said, “Any time that Ireland puts itself behind the shadows of previous empires within the European Union it loses an opportunity of expanding and enhancing and using its influence for the world.”

The president was speaking in the context of a wider analysis of the need for reform of the United Nations, which he has on several occasions described as the foundation of Ireland’s foreign policy.

President Higgins was ‘despondent’ in relation to the decline of the United Nations, which he said was the result of “an incredible failure of diplomacy and failure of commitment to the United Nations” and “should never have come to this point”, he said.

The future of the UN, he said, lay in the countries of Africa, South America and Asia rather than Europe, because “some of its principal partners are too heavily involved in undermining it”.

“I think the change that will represent the population of the world, the best prospect in relation to globalisation, the best prospect in relation to climate change, in relation to migration, in relation to all of these issues, is going to come from that side.”

Ireland, through its foreign policy, ought to engage in “a more inclusive, deeper, more wide ranging, more self-confident [foreign policy], not just in consultation with the fading imperial powers, but with the emerging populations of the world”, he said.

Ireland’s freedom to join any group that could “break the impasse of the decline of the United Nations has to be incredibly important”, he said.

President Higgins also expressed reservations about further investment in the Irish Defence Forces while it had yet to resolve the cultural issues revealed by an independent review group of substantial institutional problems with sexual misconduct, bullying, discrimination and career obstruction.

“We haven’t put in place any guarantees yet to say that when we invite young women and men to join to serve Ireland we will offer you a career in which you will be treated with dignity, you will be upskilled, when you decide to leave you will be a person with confidence,” he said.

“I have to say I am absolutely heartbroken at the fact that people have had to wait for justice.”

Notmything

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120728499#Comment_120728499

We've always been pro NATO, just like we were pro allies in ww2.

Psychlops

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120728490#Comment_120728490

Course we could, Iceland are in it & have ZERO Mil capability.