I wonder if there’s an equally overwhelming level of support for keeping the Irish defence forces in the truly diabolical state it finds itself in, particularly after the likes of the HSE Conti attack and 2017 electricity grid hack.
Cyber security is absolutely critical to the Irish economy, whether that come from state level actors or not. Could easily target water, internet, financial systems…
Overwhelming concensus of ‘war? fuck that’.
should do a poll on reddit to see how /r/ireland compares to Ireland
War eh? Good God, what is it good for?
Unsurprisingly so.
FG have used this whole conflict as an excuse to try and manufacture a debate based on their perception, real or imagined, that Irish people want to abandon neutrality. This simply isn’t the case.
We need to remain neutral because if we aren’t we are literally like a paralysed duck trying to stand up to a hunter.
Am I being an idiot or does retention not mean continued, as in overwhelming support to continue neutrality? The comments are leading me to believe otherwise, but I’m pretty sure that’s what it means.
This was an attempt to distract from their own failure and poor approval, using Ukrainian tragedy to their benefit.
Keeping the narrative off them for a week. Nothing more.
Glad to see that Clare Daly and Mick Wallace spoke for the silent majority all along.
So what’s the plan if someone attacks? ‘Please Madam Queen, Please Mr President, you love us so don’t you?”
Just shows how out of whack this sub is with general Irish opinion on this issue. It’s almost like there are political shills here hiding their true allegiances.
How surprising,yet most people on here seem to behave like government shills.
Ireland would make a great launchpad for Russian ICBMs and other things .
You cant just chose to remain neutral “militarily”, while still actively supporting one side of a conflict and undermining another through different means. War doesn’t only include military applications and some nations could interpret “non-military” actions (such as sanctions, embargoes, shipping relief supplies and weapons) as hostile and respond with actual military intervention. It is a recipe for disaster. You’re either neutral or you’re not, and even the definition of neutral up for debate at this stage. In any case, its not something the nation can pick and choose depending on the level of moral outrage, as difficult as it may be from a humanitarian perspective. Actual neutrality has a price and the Irish people (or rather government) will have to decide if they actually want to pay it, because they cant have the best of both worlds – and the decision may be made for them if they’re not careful.
Brilliant, does this mean now that we might actually fund the Defence Forces a bit better like the Commission report recommends? Ensuring we have a primary radar system, adequate staffing for the naval service, increased cybersecurity capabilities, improved pay and conditions across the board, improved APCs so our peacekeepers abroad are protected as best they can, more helicopters for SAR/medevacs/transport. If we’re to be like Switzerland and Austria (or like Finland or Sweden were) then it needs to be properly funded. The fact we can’t even monitor flights with their transponders turned off is ridiculous.
It’s more likely the vast majority of the country have no idea what neutrality actually means.
If we put the cultural and “we’ve always been neutral” arguments to the side, it becomes a discussion about if we actually think Ireland could/would be attacked. Most people think the idea of Ireland being attacked is nonsense, so they dismiss the need for the conversation completely.
At the moment it’s really easy to be “neutral”** while being surrounded by members of NATO and an explicit plan that if we ever really needed it we’ll sponge off the protection of our neighbors. But the war in Ukraine changed the thinking behind this, and I think it’s spooked Irish government politicians, even Michael D. Russia has wielded the threat of it’s nuclear weapons so well that it neutered the US/NATO/EU, they pretty much sat back and watched for 8 years as they systematically took over a country the west had a massive interest in keeping in their fold. Only for Zelensky it would have worked.
Who knows what could happen in Ireland in 20, 30 or 40 years, especially with the migration of people,scarcity of resources and wars when global warming bites. If Ireland is actually taking the security of it’s citizens seriously it needs to either invest in our own military to a point where we can protect ourselves and remain neutral (this goes well beyond the cost of LOA3), or join a military alliance.
At the very least we should have a conversation. Who knows it might actually strengthen our neutrality.
** Irish neutrality^tm may contain trance amounts of Britain, NATO or EU defense systems.
We can afford to be neutral cause of our geography. But really we would rely on the UK and USA should anything ever happen. We’re expecting them to protect us, but offering nothing in return to help them. It’s a good deal for us but doesn’t seem fair to them.
Honestly we need far better investment in our countries military before we even talk about neutrality. We’ve no fighter jets, no primary radar, our navy doesn’t have enough personnel even. We spend very little on defence and to be honest until Russia went full retard in Ukraine I doubt the political parties thought the military is a major priority. We REALLY need to look at addressing the serious lack of investment in our armed forces. It’s hardly worth saying we’re neutral if we don’t even have the capability to defend that neutrality.
We don’t have any major enemies but Russia is the only real country that could possibly a threat to us in this day and age. Thankfully their own military has been shown to be woefully inept in Ukraine but they’re still they’re causing massive amounts of damage. In the low chance that a major war we’re to break out it’s possible that Russia could potentially target Ireland as we’re a soft spot defence wise. Being an island give’s us a natural advantage in defence but having the UK next door also make’s us a potential target too.
In term’s of NATO while I can see the merit of it, we should honestly focus on fixing our own military first before considering that. If anything we should take the approach Sweden and Finland have taken towards NATO. Keep it as an option then if thing’s do get to the point we might find ourselves under threat that we can join them if the need arises. Focus on trying to stay an honest broker and only should we find ourselves being directly targeted by a hostile power that we reconsider our position.
19 comments
Paywall.
I wonder if there’s an equally overwhelming level of support for keeping the Irish defence forces in the truly diabolical state it finds itself in, particularly after the likes of the HSE Conti attack and 2017 electricity grid hack.
Cyber security is absolutely critical to the Irish economy, whether that come from state level actors or not. Could easily target water, internet, financial systems…
Overwhelming concensus of ‘war? fuck that’.
should do a poll on reddit to see how /r/ireland compares to Ireland
War eh? Good God, what is it good for?
Unsurprisingly so.
FG have used this whole conflict as an excuse to try and manufacture a debate based on their perception, real or imagined, that Irish people want to abandon neutrality. This simply isn’t the case.
We need to remain neutral because if we aren’t we are literally like a paralysed duck trying to stand up to a hunter.
Am I being an idiot or does retention not mean continued, as in overwhelming support to continue neutrality? The comments are leading me to believe otherwise, but I’m pretty sure that’s what it means.
This was an attempt to distract from their own failure and poor approval, using Ukrainian tragedy to their benefit.
Keeping the narrative off them for a week. Nothing more.
Glad to see that Clare Daly and Mick Wallace spoke for the silent majority all along.
So what’s the plan if someone attacks? ‘Please Madam Queen, Please Mr President, you love us so don’t you?”
Just shows how out of whack this sub is with general Irish opinion on this issue. It’s almost like there are political shills here hiding their true allegiances.
How surprising,yet most people on here seem to behave like government shills.
Ireland would make a great launchpad for Russian ICBMs and other things .
You cant just chose to remain neutral “militarily”, while still actively supporting one side of a conflict and undermining another through different means. War doesn’t only include military applications and some nations could interpret “non-military” actions (such as sanctions, embargoes, shipping relief supplies and weapons) as hostile and respond with actual military intervention. It is a recipe for disaster. You’re either neutral or you’re not, and even the definition of neutral up for debate at this stage. In any case, its not something the nation can pick and choose depending on the level of moral outrage, as difficult as it may be from a humanitarian perspective. Actual neutrality has a price and the Irish people (or rather government) will have to decide if they actually want to pay it, because they cant have the best of both worlds – and the decision may be made for them if they’re not careful.
Brilliant, does this mean now that we might actually fund the Defence Forces a bit better like the Commission report recommends? Ensuring we have a primary radar system, adequate staffing for the naval service, increased cybersecurity capabilities, improved pay and conditions across the board, improved APCs so our peacekeepers abroad are protected as best they can, more helicopters for SAR/medevacs/transport. If we’re to be like Switzerland and Austria (or like Finland or Sweden were) then it needs to be properly funded. The fact we can’t even monitor flights with their transponders turned off is ridiculous.
It’s more likely the vast majority of the country have no idea what neutrality actually means.
If we put the cultural and “we’ve always been neutral” arguments to the side, it becomes a discussion about if we actually think Ireland could/would be attacked. Most people think the idea of Ireland being attacked is nonsense, so they dismiss the need for the conversation completely.
At the moment it’s really easy to be “neutral”** while being surrounded by members of NATO and an explicit plan that if we ever really needed it we’ll sponge off the protection of our neighbors. But the war in Ukraine changed the thinking behind this, and I think it’s spooked Irish government politicians, even Michael D. Russia has wielded the threat of it’s nuclear weapons so well that it neutered the US/NATO/EU, they pretty much sat back and watched for 8 years as they systematically took over a country the west had a massive interest in keeping in their fold. Only for Zelensky it would have worked.
Who knows what could happen in Ireland in 20, 30 or 40 years, especially with the migration of people,scarcity of resources and wars when global warming bites. If Ireland is actually taking the security of it’s citizens seriously it needs to either invest in our own military to a point where we can protect ourselves and remain neutral (this goes well beyond the cost of LOA3), or join a military alliance.
At the very least we should have a conversation. Who knows it might actually strengthen our neutrality.
** Irish neutrality^tm may contain trance amounts of Britain, NATO or EU defense systems.
We can afford to be neutral cause of our geography. But really we would rely on the UK and USA should anything ever happen. We’re expecting them to protect us, but offering nothing in return to help them. It’s a good deal for us but doesn’t seem fair to them.
Honestly we need far better investment in our countries military before we even talk about neutrality. We’ve no fighter jets, no primary radar, our navy doesn’t have enough personnel even. We spend very little on defence and to be honest until Russia went full retard in Ukraine I doubt the political parties thought the military is a major priority. We REALLY need to look at addressing the serious lack of investment in our armed forces. It’s hardly worth saying we’re neutral if we don’t even have the capability to defend that neutrality.
We don’t have any major enemies but Russia is the only real country that could possibly a threat to us in this day and age. Thankfully their own military has been shown to be woefully inept in Ukraine but they’re still they’re causing massive amounts of damage. In the low chance that a major war we’re to break out it’s possible that Russia could potentially target Ireland as we’re a soft spot defence wise. Being an island give’s us a natural advantage in defence but having the UK next door also make’s us a potential target too.
In term’s of NATO while I can see the merit of it, we should honestly focus on fixing our own military first before considering that. If anything we should take the approach Sweden and Finland have taken towards NATO. Keep it as an option then if thing’s do get to the point we might find ourselves under threat that we can join them if the need arises. Focus on trying to stay an honest broker and only should we find ourselves being directly targeted by a hostile power that we reconsider our position.