What would it cost to achieve the military capability to defend our own airspace? At this point it seems like we’re getting something very expensive for free.
Decision was made so long ago it needs to be looked at again lots of new variables at play now.
We spend a tiny amount on defence. About 0.25% GNP/GNI whereas most European countries are spending 1.5%+ GDP.
Ireland has committed to increasing that spend due to the current environment but it’ll be a long time before we spend anything comparable to other European countries.
Naivete is the answer. Ireland’s closest ally in Europe for decades has been the UK, and we’re sandwiched between France, Britain, etc, with close ties to the USA. People assume somebody else will protect us.
Moreover, and perhaps more simply, most people only understand conventional warfare, and have no real interest in or understading of modern warfare. Russia has been attacking its neighbours for twenty odd years now, and nobody has intervened. The Baltic states are attacked all the time, but it’s not a straightforward attack, and so, people ignore it.
This again, the agreement is that the RAF can enter our air space if it needs to. There is also a guaranteed protection clause in the EU that if one country gets attacked, then they will be protected by the other members. We have a housing emergency, a shite health service, declining universities and a homelessness crisis, do people want to invest in those issues or give the money to the U.S industrial complex?
There is no amount of money in the world we could legitimately spend on defense that would stop a nation with the financial, logistical, and military equipment and manpower to invade an island like Ireland.
We could spend 5 billion euros on buying a handful of 4th generation fighter jets and then what? We scramble all 6 of them to defend against an invader who’s decided to commit billions upon billions in resources invading us?
The only sound reasoning is so we can shoo away Russian aircraft. Right now, they don’t do anything. The RAF scrambles and they fuck off. So the suggestion is we spend 5 billion up front plus maintenance and crew costs on a handful of jets so we can get them to fuck off instead? What an absolute waste
We would be far better served actually funding the existing defence force, and drastically increasing spending on cyber defence and intelligence
The government that can’t solve a housing problem, can’t get basic law enforcement done, and can’t even build a single hospital without costs spiraling out of control have some how nailed a defence policy.
Right….
A reminder to the usual suspects who claim there is an agreement with the British govt that no such agreement has ever been approved by the Dáil. The alleged agreement is currently the basis of a High Court action to establish if such an agreement exists. The constitutionality of an agreement made by a civil servant, minister or Govt without Dáil approval is very problematic. If posters claim knowledge of such an agreement please contact Senator Gerald Craughwell with a copy of it.
The answers to the question:
We have never accepted our own independence.
That articles muck, making out the cables linking the US to the EU are ours and an unsubstantiated claim the HSE hack was Russians. If Irelands invaded it’s by either the US/UK in which case we could do fuck all, if it’s by anyone else it’s an end of world scenario and we’re all fucked anyway
“It seems to me that for all the celebrations of your 100 years of independence, Irish people are happy to have your country defended by the British at no cost to yourselves,” why would anyone have an issue with this? Freeloading off the UK, happy days!
We need a really professional and we’ll equipped part time army. The full time army should mostly be the high level specialists, NCO’s, officers etc but we should be able to mobise a reasonably sized, well trained military force from the reserves at any time. We should also be able to patrol our seas and skies 24/7 and keep up with modern threats. Non of that is unreasonable or war mongering or particularly expensive. We have zero jet capability, I mean we don’t need 50 F16’s but we should have 5 so we retain the knowledge and ability and we can expand if needed, right now we have zero skills or ability for jets, that’s just nuts.
Collins is. Blue shirt hack with a naked shill for the government line in every word of his dire copy. He’s a terrible writer and unoriginal thinker.
12 comments
What would it cost to achieve the military capability to defend our own airspace? At this point it seems like we’re getting something very expensive for free.
Decision was made so long ago it needs to be looked at again lots of new variables at play now.
We spend a tiny amount on defence. About 0.25% GNP/GNI whereas most European countries are spending 1.5%+ GDP.
Ireland has committed to increasing that spend due to the current environment but it’ll be a long time before we spend anything comparable to other European countries.
Naivete is the answer. Ireland’s closest ally in Europe for decades has been the UK, and we’re sandwiched between France, Britain, etc, with close ties to the USA. People assume somebody else will protect us.
Moreover, and perhaps more simply, most people only understand conventional warfare, and have no real interest in or understading of modern warfare. Russia has been attacking its neighbours for twenty odd years now, and nobody has intervened. The Baltic states are attacked all the time, but it’s not a straightforward attack, and so, people ignore it.
This again, the agreement is that the RAF can enter our air space if it needs to. There is also a guaranteed protection clause in the EU that if one country gets attacked, then they will be protected by the other members. We have a housing emergency, a shite health service, declining universities and a homelessness crisis, do people want to invest in those issues or give the money to the U.S industrial complex?
There is no amount of money in the world we could legitimately spend on defense that would stop a nation with the financial, logistical, and military equipment and manpower to invade an island like Ireland.
We could spend 5 billion euros on buying a handful of 4th generation fighter jets and then what? We scramble all 6 of them to defend against an invader who’s decided to commit billions upon billions in resources invading us?
The only sound reasoning is so we can shoo away Russian aircraft. Right now, they don’t do anything. The RAF scrambles and they fuck off. So the suggestion is we spend 5 billion up front plus maintenance and crew costs on a handful of jets so we can get them to fuck off instead? What an absolute waste
We would be far better served actually funding the existing defence force, and drastically increasing spending on cyber defence and intelligence
The government that can’t solve a housing problem, can’t get basic law enforcement done, and can’t even build a single hospital without costs spiraling out of control have some how nailed a defence policy.
Right….
A reminder to the usual suspects who claim there is an agreement with the British govt that no such agreement has ever been approved by the Dáil. The alleged agreement is currently the basis of a High Court action to establish if such an agreement exists. The constitutionality of an agreement made by a civil servant, minister or Govt without Dáil approval is very problematic. If posters claim knowledge of such an agreement please contact Senator Gerald Craughwell with a copy of it.
The answers to the question:
We have never accepted our own independence.
That articles muck, making out the cables linking the US to the EU are ours and an unsubstantiated claim the HSE hack was Russians. If Irelands invaded it’s by either the US/UK in which case we could do fuck all, if it’s by anyone else it’s an end of world scenario and we’re all fucked anyway
“It seems to me that for all the celebrations of your 100 years of independence, Irish people are happy to have your country defended by the British at no cost to yourselves,” why would anyone have an issue with this? Freeloading off the UK, happy days!
We need a really professional and we’ll equipped part time army. The full time army should mostly be the high level specialists, NCO’s, officers etc but we should be able to mobise a reasonably sized, well trained military force from the reserves at any time. We should also be able to patrol our seas and skies 24/7 and keep up with modern threats. Non of that is unreasonable or war mongering or particularly expensive. We have zero jet capability, I mean we don’t need 50 F16’s but we should have 5 so we retain the knowledge and ability and we can expand if needed, right now we have zero skills or ability for jets, that’s just nuts.
Collins is. Blue shirt hack with a naked shill for the government line in every word of his dire copy. He’s a terrible writer and unoriginal thinker.