Ireland - now considered one of most vulnerable countries in the EU (defense wise)

NIMAN

I, for one, will welcome our new Russian overlords when they sneak in via Malin Head.

techman1

The argument about we need to spend money on other areas is just an excuse.Surely with all the money we've saved by not spending of defence over the years means we should have absolutely zero issues with infrastructure and housing .Not spending on defense has provided no benefit to the country as there are massive shortfalls in infrastructure and housing.

Exactly the money that is not spent on defence is just wasted, how many ngo's on large salaries is the government funding, alot of money is thrown away in high welfare spending and high wages for the people on the state payroll whether directly or indirectly.

Another reason why army is chronically underfunded and resourced is because of the left wing bias of most of the commentariat in this country, it allows them to grandstand on global issues like gaza from a left wing perspective. Because ireland has a tiny under resourced military and is not in NATO that facilitates left wing agendas. If we had a bigger more powerful military then those voices would be stronger and weaken the left wing bias in irish public life. Therefore the left wing power base is vehemently apposed to any strengthening of our defence capabilities

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121848550#Comment_121848550

it allows them to grandstand on global issues like gaza from a left wing perspective

Is calling for the stop of the absolute systematic slaughter of 10s of 1000s of women and children and forcing a country into mass disease and famine left wing?

You sure?

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121848534#Comment_121848534

Hmmmm not so sure about this.

How much would primary radar cost?

How much would sonar capabilities cost?

How much would getting our navy fleet out of dry dock cost so our waters could be patrolled?

riffmongous

Is it really freeloading? Would the British not be happier with the current situation where they can have free reign in our skies with our agreement to intercept any threat that's coming for them? Whereas if we had some capability they might not be too happy to have a potentially hostile government (for example a SF gov in the South if the North ever kicked off again) right beside them that could block off access to a large chunk of their western flank

L.Ball

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121848550#Comment_121848550

What would be the point of a fully funded Irish Army? What would it's purpose be?

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121848534#Comment_121848534

Yeah, if there's one thing that can absolutely drink public money, it's an air force, and a proper navy

We already have a civilian coast guard for air sea search and rescue operations. It might not be acceptable to them, to incorporate them into a militarised coast guard

So do we need to create another branch of our military, or do we just expand the navy, double the fleet and recruit 3 times as many enlisted servicepersons to be able to maintain and operate an expanded service?

Our current expenditure on our military is about 1.5 billion per year. If we doubled this to 3 billion a year, what would that get us?

For 1.3b-1.5n, about the price of a Childrens Hospital, we could get a single Frigate class naval vessel (but nobody to crew it, or service it, or anywhere to moore it)

Or for about a hundred million each, we could get some modern patrol boats, again, without the the costs to crew them, supply them, moore them, service them etc

The cost or a military grade radar system is at least 300 million for capital costs and would take years to deploy, but it's probably the most useful thing we could spend our money on if we were going to increase defense spending and this has already been investigated by the dept of defence

https://www.thejournal.ie/primary-radar-air-defence-ireland-5881009-Oct2022/

Deploying Military grade sonar to cover our vast international waters would be either impossible, or extremely expensive, and probably impossible to defend and easy to avoid or ignore

highpitcheric

I think theres room for spending on some systems which for a relatively small investment can change the game.

For example an anti ship missile/torpedo system of some kind. Because even having 1 advanced demonstrable system really throws a spanner in the works of any would be naval power with a bad intention.

Theres little reason to have a problem with Ireland as it already is, if we had just 1 antiship system then theres a combination of little reason to bother, plus the risk. And it places additional demands on the aggressor.

Having 1 demonstrable system to point to may even allow for careful bullshtting that we may/may not have a few more in secret. The aggressor would have to cover all sorts of new possibilities. Really screws up the equation.

A disproportionate return on investment.

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121848726#Comment_121848726

Yeah so the primary radar is a no brainer and will detect other military aircraft with transponders turned off.

So once thats up and running and we detect a non Irish military aircraft that isn’t an RAF military aircraft, in our airspace, what do we do about it?

highpitcheric

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121848828#Comment_121848828

The raf must do something about it.

And if they dont then they dont have further permission to fly in our airspace.

Its coming for them anyway. Whos attacking Ireland?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121847724#Comment_121847724

We do have a space programme - it’s called the ESA. We partake in it and contribute to its funding. It would be nice if the ESA was given a lot more funding - it’s a civilian, science driven organisation and does some absolutely amazing things on a tiny shoestring compared to NASA’s budgets. Loads of scope for spinoff into the European tech sector and to be a catalyst for fundamental research, partner with 3rd level institutions etc.

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121848844#Comment_121848844

Ok so Ireland detects the aircraft with primary radar and then we ring the RAF to fly into our airspace and intercept- have I got that right?

GreeBo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121848855#Comment_121848855

Or in other words, we don't have our own space programme.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121848873#Comment_121848873

That’s the whole point of the ESA though. There isn’t much use in a tiny national space programme. We’ve pooled our resources, as have all the other participating countries. That is a space programme, unless you want to take the Irish version of some brexity point of view and insist that it has to be a “local space programme for local people. There’s nothing for you here.”

We get way more effective use of money spent by working within programmes like that than attempting to go it alone.

highpitcheric

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121848860#Comment_121848860

Yes.

Thats the deal. If they dont want it, fine. They can wait for whatever is on the radar to be over the Irish sea before they can react.

GreeBo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121848889#Comment_121848889

I'll point out that this is a thread about Ireland having its own military, rather than relying on others.

We should and could have a reasonable and entirely peaceful formal arrangement with the RAF and possibly several other air forces that can provide cover.

We aren’t realistically capable of going it alone on that. The threats are also likely not enormous, so it would make more sense to run it cooperatively.

The problem people tend to have with NATO has generally been its involvement in things that weren’t purely defensive.

I think Ireland would be a lot more comfortable with some kind of purely defensive EU Sky Shield type programme, but the rest of Europe seems to he fine with NATO and has reason for wanting the ‘nuclear umbrella’ due to Russian threats.

LastFridayNight

In terms of increasing spending on Defense, we could do worse than to start with our national cyber security effort. It's a national joke that the head job in Ireland's NCSC unit earns about the same entry-level security analyst role at any of the big tech companies here.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121848912#Comment_121848912

The point is you need both your own military and properly designed cooperation agreement with neighbours.

At the moment we just take this moral high ground point of view, which is fine, but it has signifiant drawbacks if push ever did come to shove.

The biggest issue coming down the tracks fast is that the U.S. is increasingly very politically unstable and very inwards looking. NATO itself might not be very relevant if you get Trump or some successor of his deciding that they’ve need for allies or involvement beyond their own borders. Most of Europe is still very much depending on holding onto American post WWII / Cold War apron strings.

highpitcheric

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121848943#Comment_121848943

The threats in Irish airspace are threats to nato in the first place.

Its purely a nato/russia thing, we just happen to be in the way.

Why should we pay a penny for that.

Now if we were to join nato we would be part of the dispute, and we would have a responsibility.

LastFridayNight

Also, we can't rely on the protection of other countries. Never mind the unstable nature of UK and US politics, the coming EU immigration crisis due to climate migration (at least 10x size of the current crisis in the EU) will fracture support very rapidly across alliances. If we even get that far. It's hard to see the wider Europe avoiding direct conflict in the coming decades. Ireland hasn't even a wet stick put aside to defend itself with.

GreeBo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121848997#Comment_121848997

Clearly we don't though, as we haven't had one for years and no invasions yet.

If push comes to shove there is zero that we can do about it, regardless of much we might spend on military. It has nothing to do with any moral high ground, its just facing reality and not wanting to throw money away on some paper exercise.

Who is it you think is going to invade anyone btw?

Well, if you’re increasingly a cog in the broader western information technology, pharmaceutical, banking and other networks, you become a part of the equation.

We are also an EU member, a founder of the Eurozone and we have in reality very intimate links with the U.K., including a completely open border and common travel area.

We aren’t some little agrarian outpost in the Atlantic anymore.

We’re small, but we’re highly connected and we regularly throw far more than our own weight around diplomatically. Ireland got involved politically and made very regular and strong statements during the Ukraine conflict for example.

We aren’t and never have taken Swiss like positions and we certainly didn’t go down the route of ‘Finlandisation’ with absolute neutrality of politics.

Ireland is very much aligned to the Western point of view and values, we are just coming at it from an often very poorly defined philosophy of pacifism.

I mean for example, our self imposed triple lock is reliant on the UN whose security council has a Russian, Chinese, American, British and French veto.

quokula

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121848997#Comment_121848997

And?

What plausible scenario can you come up with from there that leads to a serious negative outcome for Ireland with our current level of defence, that an increase in defence spending would mitigate? If there is some kind of all out breakdown of civilization leading to WW3 then no possible realistic amount of spending from a country our size will make a difference. Any other possible scenario there is little to no motive for anyone to attack us to begin with, and much larger motives for those with the resources to defend us.

It is very very hard to come up with a plausible scenario where spending more on defence proves genuinely useful, but every possible scenario where we increase military spending definitely reduces the available funding for education, healthcare, housing etc, which are all things we definitively actually need. And don't underestimate the value of our soft power, something that depends on funding core services to keep attracting multinationals and immigrants and creating cultural exports, which wasting money on military spending will only hinder rather than help.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121849042#Comment_121849042

There are strategic issues we aren’t protecting adequately notably subsea infrastructure.

There is a lot of talk about cables, many of which don’t terminate here at all. They just pass through Irish EEZ waters, mostly terminating in SW England or NW France etc.

We should be more aware of what’s going on in our waters, in a purely self centric way - risks are to cables that do terminate here and also do our gas connections, including domestic ones to Corrib. Our entire economy increasingly depends on subsea infrastructure and we are going to be adding a ton of off shore infrastructure in terms of wind power which has significant cables and connections that need some degree of security.

We have been unable to detect Russian bombers in our airspace which are a hazard to civil aviation. Even the ability to detect them is a deterrent in and of itself.

We also are likely going to be dealing with larger scale drugs issues and we should be able to ensuring we don’t end up as a signifiant transshipment point, but with very limited naval resources that’s likely.

Then you’ve attacked on infrastructure using technology, by state actors and organised crime. The HSE hack should have been a major warning. We don’t have anything like adequate resources or strategies in place for any of that.

aidanodr

Relevant to this discussion:

https://www.military.ie/en/public-information/publications/report-of-the-commission-on-defence-forces/

Here is link to the PDF - https://www.military.ie/en/public-information/publications/report-of-the-commission-on-defence-forces/report-of-the-commission-on-defence-forces.pdf

UPDATE on Same March 23 - https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/96eb7-update-on-high-level-action-plan-for-the-report-of-the-commission-on-the-defence-forces/

Recent article on this:

https://www.thejournal.ie/irish-defence-neutrality-policy-international-6199536-Oct2023/

Despite the identified problems regarding defence policy the report also found: “It was frequently expressed, and rarely contradicted, that there is currently no popular mandate in Ireland to abandon the policy of neutrality”.

“Maintaining a policy of military nonalignment along with active political engagement in global forums will continue to pose a challenge for Irish governments and diplomats, as will the need to balance a values-based foreign policy with taking seriously the security concerns and responsibilities of our partners,” Richardson wrote. 

She said that there were “clear indications of support for increased spending on defence”.

She said that the speakers at the event and in the submissions show “clear public support” to make a significant increase in spending on the Defence Forces and to invest in cyber and protection of critical maritime infrastructure.

Well if you wanted to cause economic chaos here, be you a state actor or someone else - just snip the gas pipes and a small number of near shore cables and basically we’d never know it was happening until the lights went off.

We even went into a moralising knot about having an LNG terminal, even as strategic back up. We only have very minimally adequate strategic oil reserves because the EU hammered the point.

There are risks as an island and we aren’t taking them seriously.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121848912#Comment_121848912

How many squadrons of fast intercept fighters do you think Ireland needs to have on 24 hour notice to deploy immediately on detection of an incoming threat?

What exactly is wrong with outsourcing that to either France or the UK given that they already have those capabilities and a material interest in making sure that no threats get through Irish airspace because we're immediately adjacent to theirs?

Geuze

755 staff in the Naval Service?

Is that not enough to provide crew for at least 3-4 ships?

Palmach

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121848711#Comment_121848711

It is hard to put in to words the sheer bone headed stupidity of this post and the utterly unserious and immature attitude to defence and security that pervades in this country. Every serious country takes steps to defend itself. You need to patrol your skies and know what's up there and patrol your waters and know what's under them. If nothing else for the safety of your own citizens and to prevent bad actors from creating mischief. Russian Bear bombers would think twice before entering our airspace if we had radar, anti-aircraft defences and fighter jets. FG and FF have a lot to answer for. They have simply left the field and let the whole defence and neutrality debate be hi jacked by loony left micro groups who care not one jot for neutrality but have anti-Western agenda. Remember that little smirking **** Paul Murphy said he saw no difference between NATO and Russia and China. Every time defence and neutrality are debated in the media he is invited on or those of similar ilk.

Plus we have signed up to the EU which includes a clause that commits us to come to the aid of any member that is attacked.