If Russia invaded us in the morning, who would come to our aid?

It's all the west can do without escalating the war.

Before the war Ukraine sat on the fence politically so as not to antagonise Putin. Made no difference he invaded Crimea then Ukraine regardless.

Ukraine had "relatively" small military before the war. It's the war that Putin created that has enlarged it. Nothing to do with the west.

Ukraine had about 8 years warning, and they decided to prepare for it. I doubt we'd have a government that would prepare

The Brits would come to our aid, of course. Silly question.

Since you are dealing in hypothetical scenarios, Russia is a land power, artillery is their M.O., the Russians would never invade Ireland. It's an island country next to the biggest US aircraft carrier in Europe (i.e. the UK), easy to block off the country and they don't have a suitable navy unless you count the oligarchs yachts (Russians spent $4.1 billion on yachts and $3.x billion on their navy.). The actual Russian military view of Ireland is that they should deny the Americans the use of landing strips here using nuclear weapons as part of a larger conflict.

If you want a hypothetical scenario to chew on. Ireland is only strategic to Britain. Consider a case that relations between Britain and the UK & NI broke down to the extent that sanctions are applied to Britain by the EU including a military and economic blockade. With access to trading routes impeded and food supply threatened, Britain would have no option but to invade Ireland to secure trade routes and boost food supply. Who would come to our aid? France, Spain, maybe Germany? History says such "allies" only make token efforts.

For arguments sake, lets consider alternative history, say time travel is a thing, Think Cuba. It's 1966 and a Marxist revolution led by Paul Murphy, Richard Boyd Barrett with a guerilla army supplied by Sinn Fein (still National socialist Marxist party) manages to seize power with a significant portion of the population backing them and declare the country an international socialist Soviet state? What would happen then?

So 90 plus Billion is just window dressing?

You don't think the support the Ukrainains have from the rest of the world (outside of weapons systems) is making any difference whatsoever?

Of course it's a benefit - imagine the rest of the world actually telling Ukraine since March - sorry guys, you are on your own.

The rest of the world has, in as safe a way as possible, heavily support Ukraine. I don't see any difference were it us, should Russia decide to invade this country, and again, all evidence would suggest that the assistance we would get would be greater than that which Ukraine is getting.

Sanctions take time but to suggest they have no effect is daft.

You know Russian warships entered our waters recently?

Russoa now has launched a European war, the Soviet union didnt dare to do this.

Part of the reason was because we are not in NATO and do not have a proper navy or air force.

Ireland is a convenient target to mess aroind with because there is no NaTO defense agreement yet it would stir up a lot of concern in the EU and in the UK. Could be as simple as sailing into our ports or around our island.

How does Britain solve this problem for us exactly?

Before you even get to who would come to our aid. Imagine how hard it would be to perform a naval or airborne invasion on the far west coast of Ireland.

Unless they got look and landed in Kerry, they'd struggle in **** roads for miles. They'd have to deal with an extremely hostile population albeit not armed, extremely annoying. Your not landing in Dublin as you couldn't get the Russian navy in the Irish Sea without sparking interest from the Brits.

Function of the Irish defense forces is to protect the state from its internal enemies.

Putin can't make or buy what he needs to win the Ukraine war. Even before the war his armed forces were many decades behind the west in term of technology. He's burned through his most modern weapons (which weren't that modern). The only thing that has him still in the battle is sheer weight of numbers. Even there he's used his best troops as cannon fodder.

That's what it cost him to wage war on his border. Never mind Ireland.

If irc from past threads you are one of the many extremely Eurosceptic accounts posting here (?) so you personally don't rate our being a member of EU as worth much and don't believe it helps Ireland in your kind of silly unlikely scenario. That is a you problem. The EU is definitely not the UN. I don't think the other members will, or even can just sit back and do nothing effectively (while Russian military is conquering an EU member state) any more than they could hang Ireland out to dry + let the Brits work their will on us during Brexit (also the expectation of and very confident prediction made by the Eurosceptic posters here). It's the principle & example that will matter when it comes to the reaction by the others.

Leaving aside all that + pretending the rest of the EU do nothing collectively, where is Ireland located? Our 3 closest neighbours are US to the West (yes a long way a way but we are located "between" them and their Western European allies), the UK and France to East and S. East. They are 3 members of NATO all with fairly large armies, navies, airforces, enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world etc. and are currently...not on best of terms with Russia at all at all to put it very mildly since the dire events of Feb this year.

They are just not going to lie back and tolerate the Russians taking a lease by force on a shiny new unsinkable aircraft carrier between them all IMO, and what Irish people actually think about it (e.g. if for some mad reason we are delighted with our new Putin overlords!) probably won't matter much. They will try and remove them, probably will do it quite quickly & easily too given evidence of Russia's military capability in Ukraine.

People need to have reality check.

https://www.thejournal.ie/irish-defence-forces-nato-evaluation-artillery-5927841-Nov2022/

@[Deleted User] This thread is nothing whatsoever to do with the EU. I don't foresee or expect any direct military support because of our EU membership, as it implies we would have to provide direct military support were say Poland invaded, whether we wanted to or not.

But it someone invaded us or attacked we would get direct military support from Poland and other EU countries whether they like it or not ,

It's a two way street,you or we cannot be expected to be protected while crying about have to send military support to another EU country.

We need to get rid of the rediculous triple lock which allows other countries a say of any Irish defense forces deployments,we need to develop our own defense polices and infrastructure