UK and Ireland hold defence talks as cooperation continues

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/uk-and-ireland-hold-defence-talks-as-cooperation-continues/

by MGC91

21 comments

  1. “Can we have N.I back please”

    “No”

    “Been a pleasure, have a good day.”

  2. If they could throw some of that Apple tax windfall towards funding our defence of their airspace and territorial waters, that would be helpful.

  3. The talks being, Ireland continues to let the UK do their defence for them.

  4. Ireland can’t defend itself. What talks are there to be had?

  5. The Irish love to hate all things English but they love to freeload off our air defence

  6. It was very nice of Ireland to cooperate with us paying for everything for them. Fucking  Moochers 

  8. Love how basically everyone in this thread is using the same arguments Trump uses towards Europe without a hint of self-awareness.

  9. Hopefully we can see an Ireland and UK that is progressive and not continually based on hatred from generations past. But I just cant see an Ireland that can move on, they’ll like our support but offer none in return.

    Hopefully they can prove me very wrong as we could all work very well together.

  10. As mentioned on r/UKpolitics:

    >Happy to provide cover for Ireland, and it _is_ for mutual benefit. The UK gets to keep an eye on its western flank without uproar.

    >And everyone harping on about cost and freeloading. We’re sending jets over periodically, that’s it. The only cost is fuel that would have been burnt elsewhere.

  11. how about we jointly fund a new squadron of typhoons, crewed by both brits and irish?

  12. Going to try this again:

    This is the /r/ireland sub. There are pages and pages of Irish posts talking about Unification.

    Unification is the removal of UK sovereign soil (Northern Island) and incorporating it into the Republic of Ireland. Exactly how different is that to Trump spouting off about Canada or Greenland? We just ignore it because the Irish have no physical means of doing it, but the will and the desire is there. The media pushes, the campaigning etc are all to effectively take a portion of the UK.

    The Republic of Ireland needs to wake up to the fact if the current world order collapses and country lines are redefined based on might not right. The reunification of Ireland back into the UK would be an easy job.

    So what is Ireland going to do about that? They have no armed forces. No protection. Nothing. The UK could dismantle their military in days.

    Do you think in this day and age, that’s a sensible position to be in for Ireland?

  13. Expand QRA to joint squadrons in Ireland, as well as Lossiemouth and down south. Replace Nimrod and have 247 air patrols. Shocking how much we have ripped the piss out of the post Cold War peace dividend.

  14. Ireland having some form of defence would be useful for both Ireland AND the UK. IIRC, they are spending 0.29% of GDP on defence..

    The UK is providing literally all of the air defence and most naval defence.

  15. Honestly what do Ireland every contribute towards defence? Apart from slagging us off at every chance they get..

  16. With Ireland’s history of being neutral we are probably better off keeping them in a position where the UK could strategically occupy it in days.

  17. Think Ireland and the Uk are aware of all the shortfalls , Ireland are effectively the soft underbelly of western Europe and potentially a platform for an invasion from its western coast if push came to shove with little in the way of defense there would be a “friendly” invasion from Europe ( wether it be a european coalition or uk forces) to protect European interests Sad to say but with a developing hostile world all European countries not just Ireland will need to spend more money on defence .

  18. Ireland seems to be so anti UK these days, I’d let them sort it out for themselves!!

  19. 0.22% of GDP on defense. What a joke. They hate us but expect us to guard their sea and sky. The IRA spend more on arms.

  20. I enjoy these threads in UK forums for what they reveal about knowledge and attitudes.

    The truth of geopolitics is the same the world over: large power with a small neighbour. The larger power dictates the capacity of the smaller. The defence logic of the UK towards Ireland is Russia/ Ukraine, US / Cuba. The smaller neighbour will never be allowed to become an independent military power.

    The UK does not defend ROI from anyone. It defends itself against the possible gap in air defences from Russian bombers and possible launches from Russian submarines in waters to the west and south of the island of Ireland. These bombers and missiles will target UK bases and cities. That includes Belfast, a UK city. The UK does not defend the Western Approaches (the sea routes to the UK to the north and south of the island of Ireland) on behalf of ROI, it does so to protect its own trade with the world.

    These are fundamental truths of the military relationship between the two states. Add to that the fact that ROI has no enemy with any interest in launching military attacks on it at this moment in time. Add to that the specific limitations on Irish defence forces imposed in the Treaty of 1921 by the UK which clearly show the UK need to keep Ireland disarmed. Add to that the economic poverty of the country until the late 1990’s, lost in 2008-11 crash and partially regained in the post crash boom and the post Covid boom. Now you see why ROI has had no need to spend on defence.

    And here’s the problem: many posters here believe that ROI should contribute to the defence of the UK because that is also defending itself. The belief still is that the UK and ROI have identical enemies who bear the same conventional military ill will toward both. We don’t.

    It hasn’t mattered one whit to the UK since about 1943 on (victory in the Battle of the Atlantic) that ROI made no significant military contribution to this geopolitical sector. It suits the UK in 1921, in the post war world and up to today that Ireland has no military worth talking about so that it could never be even an imaginary threat and require the distraction of a UK occupying force against a population that would very naturally become hostile very quickly. A disarmed Ireland with UK overflight capacity with no fear of or delay for clearance for Irish air defences suits the UK. Please read this fundamental truth again and again and again. The ROI is disarmed because the UK prefers it that way.

    So what is happening in 2025 to change that dynamic? The UK is broke and ROI has a temporary windfall from US companies. Russia is again a threat to the UK and Europe but in naval and air terms not as much as the Cold War. Russian submarine capacity is increasing. The political, business and media establishment in ROI has largely been captured by the UK view of how ROI should conduct itself. It’s called the “shared island” ideology which appears to aim for “unity” but is actually a type of re- integration into the UK. The establishment in ROI understands that it can never have “unity” without formally committing to the shared defence of the UK. It wants the pieces of the referendum jigsaw in place before a “unity” referendum 2030-35. Hence, the Memorandum of Understanding on Irish UK Defence from 2015. Hence the current talks.

    Now add these to the mix: Russia wants to restore its borders to 1997 NATO. Russia needs to break the EU to do it. Trump needs Russia unallied to China if he’s going to contain China. Trump needs Greenland and the high North, the arctic. Trump needs to break the EU. Tech oligarchs need to break the EU. Brexit Britain needs to break the EU to create opportunities for bilateral trade deals. In short, in this flux there exists an opportunity for those who actually guide UK strategic thinking to ensure that ROI never establishes itself as a truly independent state and is reintegrated formally into UK defences while appearing to have achieved the goal of “unity” and satisfying Irish nationalism. (You may like to know that leading ROI commentators have proposed that in “unity” the King becomes head of the new state or that the new state has joint heads of state, the King and a President)

    I have left cyber attacks and the cables out of this for reasons of space: fundamentally they neither add to nor subtract from the essence of it.

    I hope this post will help UK readers understand that the issue of Irish defence spending is much more to do with the UK than the ROI. And see that the true long game played successively since 1921 by some brilliant strategic minds with nerves of steel in UK govt are on the point of delivering the end of ROI as even a hypothetical threat to the UK and bringing it back even more closely controlled while leaving its citizens with the illusion of nationalist goals fulfilled.

  21. In a way the scandi countries could be seen as a precursor to this

    Having stayed out of nato for decades. It’s only when the Russians started doing things like damaging cables and threatening infrastructure that they realised there is no trying to stand apart and avoid a conflict

    Eire has had the buffer of continental Europe and Britain to fight any aggression, so never felt the need to invest in more than a couple of skiffs

    Now that the Russians have started sailing around their western flank and possibly threatening their cables etc, they are waking up their vulnerability on that side

    For a supposed sovereign nation they have been cruising on everyone else looking out for them

    They could always cosy up to the Americans and use that Irish Diaspora over there to get some nice shiny yank bases to patrol for them

    Would only take a couple of them with little cost to the Irish

    Problem solved

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