Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Up to 40 of them, and maybe a few more according to the report.

I don't doubt it with them and a fair few in Europe variously pretending to be natives of whatever country their in, getting a toehold in areas of interest and or ever so innocently promoting the motherland and Putin on social media and elsewhere. A watchful eye on social media by Europol etc could yield a lot of interesting results imo

I'd say the bigger problem is that there's still no awareness amongst political circles about the volatility of the current world situation and the precariousness of Ireland's position. To say nothing of the ignorance and intransigence of the general population. I'd say that, combined with a dysfunctional political system that rewards short-term vote getting over long-term plans, is the main block to ANY major changes in Ireland's security policy.

Putin hasn't long left so it makes no difference to him if it escalates,to nuke warfare, everyone is watching Russia,China is also trying to take land but force tiawain so it t can control the waters around their coastline, Yemen the dirty war that has been going on for near if not more 20years again American armed,same as talabian they are better equipped than Russia and Ukraine soilders,or meceranairy lads the assif battery,WORLD ABOUT US=BAD WAY

Nothing short of a violent invasion and long brutal occupation would move the ostriches in this country from their ultra-complacent mindset.

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Just regarding your point about the Dutch making a move on him so quickly, it stands to reason that they, and possibly other intelligence agencies, have been following him for a while. From what I've been able to gather, at least from books and other third-hand accounts since I'm not involved in the intelligence community myself, the general principle seems to be to just keep an eye on foreign intelligence agents unless they're about to either uncover something important, penetrate a particularly sensitive area, say, the inner circle of a head of government, or because you need someone for an exchange with whoever is on the other side.

This way, you're able to find out more about their networks, any informants they might be cultivating, their own contacts and handlers, and so on. Remember, an agent may operate alone, but they're always going to be part of a network. Also, every time you apprehend a foreign agent, you run the risk of accidentally disclosing your source, whether that's because you've been tracking their handler, one of their sources, or have gotten it from other sources, such as cracked codes or similar. My personal suspicion is that the guy was simply not considered a risk whilst he was mooching around in college but only became a concern when it became clear that he would want to get into the ICC. Once that happened, it was decided that taking him down presented less risks then letting him set up inside the ICC and possibly start cultivating sources in there, so they moved in. Having witnessed myself how the Dutch Police take down suspects they've been looking for at Schiphol, I'm pretty sure it was a VERY rude awakening for the guy.

id Say it will take a dressing down from Brussels or some sort of major incident before any serious change in posture on Irish intelligence.

I often think of the interaction between the American ambassador ( I think ) and DeValera during world war 2 where the ambassador asked de Valera what he would do if the Germans arrived at our shores and De Valera answered “ I don’t know” . We have not moved on much since then IMO, and I can see that De Valera mindset reflected in many of the older generation today. They just can’t perceive the threat from such a distant foreign country and often are not interested in discussing it.

The US are led by a war mongering arms industry more powerful than any government on the planet. I find it mad when people are up in arms about Russia, and supportive of the states. Both destabalise the world for their own gain and we shouldn't take either side, they're both horrible.

I don't particularly take a side between america and Russia -

But I definitely take a side when Russia invaded Ukraine again - remember Ukraine were neutral when Russia invaded the first time ( well the first time this century ... )

It's understandable that the public is not going to be generally worried about a potential event somewhere in between soft-touch espionage and hard ordinance. Not because nothing can happen but because life would be un-livable to think too much that way.

The big one I can think of as far as "Intermediate" threats go is cyber-attack. At least some of this threat can be mitigated by continuing to educate the public to "think about that link" and enforcing good safety practices in government departments. There haven't been any massive cyber attacks in the West, that I know of, since this invasion began. I would say it's something the USA is keeping a real close eye on and is disseminating advice to allies and partners on how to protect themselves.