Is it time to join Nato

Germany invaded Norway to forestall the British. They had no interest in Norway previous to British intentions to cut off Swedish iron ore shipments from Narvik.

The point being. They used ships (and Air) to get to Norway. They could have done that in Ireland. Beach landing isn't the only way to do it.

But true they wouldn't have for many reasons some of which you mention. But there's was nothing physically stopping them getting to Ireland. That is true of anyone today. Very little stopping anyone reaching our shores, or airspace. Same think it wouldn't make much sense today either. Then again people do stupid things all the time.

Any German attempt at landing in Ireland, no matter how they tried would have been a disaster for Germany. It would have prompted a British invasion which would have tied up German forces in a useless battleground that would have yielded paltry results for them. Also, after June 1941 any ideas of any kind of possible invasion of Ireland became null and void, not that there was any solidity to them in the previous years.

In addition, if you know anything about the German naval action in Norway, you'll know just how costly it ended up being for them.

Norway wasn't something that the Germans wanted to pursue. They did so only out of necessity and it cost them. As far as Ireland was concerned, that necessity wasn't there.

Kind hard to claim Germany hadn't the ships. Then describe a naval battle and landing which at the end of the day they won.

Just saying...

Of course they had a lot less ships after 😁

That's the point. They BARELY managed to win the day at sea and lost a sizeable amount of their naval power doing so.

"On land I am a hero. At sea I am a coward" - Adolf Hitler

That's the cost of successfully occupying Norway for the duration of the war. How many ships were lost to the air and U-boat attacks from Norway. How much raw materials did that occupation contribute to the German war effort.

Sweden joining recently got me wondering whether the part of Ireland not currently a member should join NATO?

I think I'd sleep more soundly as a member, but have no idea what benefits membership offers. Appreciate any pearls of wisdom from you wise Boards folk.

"If a NATO member is attacked all members respond to defend"

So membership would be beneficial if Ireland was to suffer an act of aggression...

For a start we're not really neutral, more like militarily non-aligned and even that's not really true.

We've a massively under resourced military, lacking any serious hardware and equipped primarily as light infantry. We have no lift capacity to move troops and can only deploy a max of 12 troops without dail approval.

This is shocking. Unbelievable I find. The Irish defence forces could be easily overwhelmed with no certain recourse to military assistance.

Yeah that’s what Ukraine and Israel both thought. Then they each eventually learn what partisanship is without article V to invoke.

We can do that without being in NATO as it is.

I'd love to see us having a properly equipped military, I spent 14 years in it so it's something I care about.

But the reality is the government can say what it wants but it's not matching it by spending the money needed.

Personally I'm on the fence about joining NATO but if it was a vote I'd probably go yes, purely because it guarantees us a level of protection rather than the current "sure the US/UK will defend us" view that seems to be the case.

There certainly is a debate to be had about should we or should we not join NATO. But what IMHO there should be no debate about is that we need to get serious about resourcing our military and intelligence capabilities to an effective level.