Is it time to join Nato

Anyone from anywhere that might choose to attack us for any reason whether sane or insane.

To draw a comparison with a country that is actually neutral, Switzerland. No one seriously expects anyone to invade Switzerland anytime soon but historically they have had that happen from all of their neighbours, so their country is geared toward repelling an invasion as soon as it might happen.

That means they can mobilise approx 2 million - fully equipped and armed - soldiers within three hours of a conflict starting. They can and do keep M16 assault rifles plus ammo, uniforms etc etc in the closet at home ready to go. That’s what being neutral actually requires.

With us, we’d probably be completely overwhelmed before most people knew anything had started. Therefore there almost certainly wouldn’t be any form of Irish state - ie an unoccupied territory with a continuing domestic military defence and functioning government - that wasn’t overrun, for other countries to supply munitions or aid too (which is what posters on this thread have claimed would be the case).

You have heard about maritime invasions - only around for a couple of thousand years - plus the more recent parachuter led ones?

In both cases the objective is to land, seize an initial chunk of territory, bring additional troops and equipment into the seized territory and then using the additional troops and equipment to expand out of that initially seized territory. It’s a proven strategy and it does work. And there are a lot of countries that could pull that off.

And, as for your point about the U.K., were we actually neutral, as many incorrectly claim we are, that would require us to have the military defence capacity to defend against the U.K. too. And, in the absence of that level of capability, most countries join military defence alliances…

I agree.

Neutrality is a worthless concept without the resources to back it up.

I have long argued that remaining non-aligned is a far greater impetus for building up our military capabilities, than joining NATO would be.

We're in a new and very dangerous World now kids, with shadow wars and strategic cyber and infrastructural sabotage going to be a big part of it.

Its pretty clear the Russians consider us no different to a Sweden or a Lithuania or a Croatia and Lord knows our senior Government figures have been at pains to express that we are NOT politically neutral, over this past 15 months.

So, its either a massive military and security investment in Ireland, or its NATO. Neither is not an option. Not any more.

They also rigged all of their bridges and tunnels with explosives to take them out, swiss nationals train to shoot their service rifles out to 800m + with iron sites accurately, something most militaries don't actually do ,

They still maintain thousands of bunkers and fortresses throughout Switzerland a and they still keep in place the ability to remotely detonate bridges and tunnels, but they have cut military forces numbers and closed some of the redoubt fortresses and Defenses, but overall they will still operate certain doctrines if needs be

Commercial satellite imagery services are quite widely available and relatively cheap. So even our Govt has access to see what is where when they want, and thats if they only use the commercial ones, they also very likely have arrangements with other nations security agencies to receive information from their many ever vigilant military grade satellites.

Also a quick look at marine traffic tracking sites will reveal the huge number of commercial vessels out there, even in remote seas up by the Norwegian coast and Faroe islands. They're all communicating. A giant sprawling network, all keeping an eye out, reporting any noteworthy events over open radio frequencies. Anything noteworthy passing through commercial lanes will be widely reported.

So I think its safe to say if there was any major threat coming our way we'd very likely see it coming, or hear about it. Either directly through our own active intelligence services watching, or secondarily through the wide networks of communications which cover our globe for governmental or even just commercial reasons. It just takes one fisherman, or agent, or just 1 nerd (of which the planet has many), and our govt is alerted. To move a whole lot of ships over 6000 kms from Russia to Ireland, through a whole lot of traffic, while multiple satellites are looking on, and while multiple security services, and the public are routinely checking up on you, is going to have tiny odds of ever being a surprise to anyone.

So, its probably safe enough to say that we're not waking up to news of any invasion. Just too much tech out there.

Lads Don't worry I've an idea let's scrap the defense forces and the fishermen will protect us ,

Don't know wether to laugh or cry

You really hate that I'm right.

Feels good.

So tell me is it possible in these days to sneak a substantial naval force up to a distant island without being seen.

Yes or no.