Is it time to join Nato

All clear now for Finland and Sweden to join NATO.

Ireland is now the most vulnerable country in all of Europe when it comes to its own national security.

Vulnerable because some think there is no need to be in a Security Alliance. The opposition has been shown in recent research to be one of the most friendly parties in Europe toward Russia. They ranked in the top 10% I believe.

Of course, if any party wanted to up the Defence Budget, there would be outcry and talk about the homeless, etc... Again, there was never a call from any of the opposition party to seriously up Irelands Defence spending.

There was never really a need to join NATO before, even though Ireland came close in the 1950's.

As the thread title says, "Is it time to join NATO", the question is, is the time right, to join NATO.

You think not, because you see NATO as bad as Putin and Russia, which of course is untrue, ahistorical and right out of the ex-KGB talking points, but alas you are free to your uninformed Putin-Bot point of view. This is Ireland, not Russia ;)

I'm referring to the thread title Francie.

But, you want to go down the rabbit hole of blame. Clear to see what you are up to.

But on other threads you say the opposition are useless and ineffective to defend the government, now you are saying the opposition are effective to ...eh, defend a government who are ignoring what Mark believes to be the case - 'that we are the most vunerable country in all of Europe'.

Cake and eating it methinks.

We live in a republic. Let us have a conversation and then vote. I will vote not to join nato and very confident that would win. There is more risk of us being in a war in nato than outside.

We have a housing crises. Housing along with food being the only necessity you need to live but some fools want us to spend billions more on defending ourselves against an attack that never will come or getting in another's nations dispute.

Is there any example where a democratic country like Ireland has been invaded by a country it has no cultural history with? The only country we have history with is the UK and considering they want to dump the part of Ireland they have and are also in Nato themselves futher reduces the logic of joining. We are not in the same boat as Finland who were part of the USSR and have russia bordering to its east. That is a no brainer for them but us it makes no sence.

The threat of physical invasion is very remote no question about that. But the threat of been attacked is not. Russia attacked and caused upwards of 100m euro in damage to our health system with their cyberattack never mind the actual damage it caused to people because of the disruption to health services.

But first and foremost the argument I hear about well we should not spend the money on defense its better spent on A B or a C. There is no reason why we cannot fix the fundamental problems we face as a society such as housing and spend the money to develop a legitimate and capable defense and security of our country. It is not an either or situation. We can do both. Further more we are a member of the EU a collective from which we have gained enormous benefit over the decades and from which we of course benefit still greatly. We live in a free and open society and have a democratic system for all its ills that is pretty robust and progressive. We have an obligation and a duty to play our part albeit a small one but nonetheless play our part in defending our democracy and free and open society. To say well the US or irony of ironies the UK will take care of it for us is at best utterly selfish saying sure we want all the benefits of the collective that is the EU but we don't want to pay anything towards the costs of defending that collective.

We spent roughly 1.5% of our GDP during the mid 80's on defense spending now I know that number is distorted these days in Ireland by the multi nationals but we should spend 1.5% of our adjusted GDP on developing a capable and legitimate defense and security capability and do our duty in defending our country and not asking others to pay for what we should be doing ourselves. We live in a partnership with most of our European neighbours who have similar free and open societies and democratic systems and we should all stand together in the face of the sheer evil that is the Russian dictatorship.

"Finland who were part of the USSR"

I really don't remember that part of the history.

Finland was part of the Russian empire until 1917. Also invaded by USSR in ww2

Don't forget the opposition in Ireland in the form of Indo4Change and SF are among the most pro Russian/Putin politicians in the entire EU. One has to wonder do they have an ulterior motive.