Ireland's defensive frailty exposed by Russian exercise

What will a couple of hi-tech ships and radars "fix"?

No, that's all a bit south of the planned area. There are no cables really coming into the south-west, it's weird. I think it's cheaper to go around land them in Dublin than try to build a strong backbone from Cork/Kerry across the country.

This is sabre-rattling from the Russians. The perfect spot to piss off both the EU and the Americans.

100%

Absolute bolloxoligy to think we can afford investment and training in our defense forces at the scale required.

And if we did have the money, where the **** will we find defense force personnel?

We are told we couldn't increase ICU capacity in 2 years because of the training, infrastructure and personnel requirements, so I'm sure the defense force requirements are no different.

Utter rubbish.

We are one of the most heavily indebted nations in the world. 3rd I think.

The only people who would think we are one of the richest are people who have no idea about the GDP problem in Ireland

Investment in renewables is arguably a form of defence spending as it massively decentralises your grid.

If someone wanted to cripple our power supply now, two well-placed blasts at Moneypoint and Aghada, not to mention damage to the Corrib pipe, could leave us with rolling blackouts for months. And wouldn't require many people to carry out.

By contrast if you sent a gunship up the Atlantic coast to start opening fire on Wind turbines, you'd be barely halfway through your first field before US, UK & EU forces were on top of you. And Ireland's grid could cope with that loss

The point is how far behind in resources the irish military capability is, and even significant investment wouldn't bring it up to anything worthwhile.

The recent article about spending on charters for long haul flights because of not having a capable airceaft tells us everything you need to know.

The u8 hurling team with aspirations of beating limerick doesnt even have hurleys.

I dont think so Kermit. I think the real 'issue' is money and sense. As in having sense.

A country like Ireland just needs a token force to keep potential marauders and pirates out. And thats what we got.

After that ask yourself the question what are the possible scenarios for an armed conflict?

A country we could actually fend off sizewise is not going to attack us randomly. Like Portugal or Cuba or whatever. If we ever were going to be attacked it would be one of the big guns during what would probably be an all out war. So a) is not going to happen and b) well how big a force would you need to bloody the nose of a big gun? More than we can afford for sure. And what would the point of it be? Anyone who defends themselves too well usually has the sh1t bombed out of their population. Its a no win situation.

It just doesnt make sense. We'd be just lining more defence industry pockets with tax payers money that could go towards constructive things.

All the tension has been caused by NATO reneging on a commitment given to Russia not to encircle it with NATO weapons and countries. Perhaps we should start with asking for the disburdenment of NATO. It's raison d'etre is surely expired.

The cables are much deeper and better shielded than most of us can imagine. As they get closer to the shoreline, they switch to much thicker shielding to protect against impacts from ships and other such fun.

It's not really a case that a couple of depth charges from a Russian boat could kill them. They're tougher than that. They could of course have specialist equipment and teams, but at that location these cables are 1-4km below the surface. So you're not talking just a couple of lads in wet suits with blowtorches.