Dead right. I would listen to him before any Irish political stooge . Anyone who disagrees is a disingenuous war-monger.
He loves stirring it. The President enjoys overstepping the mark, also Ireland isn’t neutral.
The old tankie needs to keep his opinions to himself when it comes to geopolitics.
The government make the policy of neutrality not the president ,. That’s inshrined in our constitution
Not sure how constitutional he’s being but I think the people who voted for him knew what they were getting, he was never known for keeping his opinions to himself
Would he ever shut up
If you go against the grain they come out and try attack you. You must not go against their narrative. It would be a massive waaste of money. We over spent over €2 billion and growing on just one hospital.
Can you imagine the defence spending and not only that but it’ll make no difference to Irish peoples lives.
Another thing is most people who are all for this are wealthy enough and it’s not them or their kids that would be used as fodder just for other countries political games and people like Micheál Martin and Leo Varadkar are only looking out for themselves and any future jobs that may come down the line.
This is good, recent polls show majority agree with neutrality and more military investments.
I can’t access the Sunday Business Post article, but he’s stepping outside his constitutional remit here.
Very concerning that he’s criticising “militarisation”, i.e. common European military aid to Ukraine. For decades Higgins was a staunch critic of American foreign policy, but now he wants us to let the Americans make the decisions and coordinate everything? That’s the alternative to a common European defence policy when it comes to Ukraine.
Given his wife’s pro-Russian sentiments (i.e. declaring that Ukraine should surrender its territories to Russia) that somehow got published on the Áras website last year, I’m definitely concerned that he shares her views…
What “drift”?
We provide a base for American troops & refuelling
We provide aid to Ukraine, and public support for them
We rely on the RAF to patrol our skies
We support and praise Irish people who join the foreign legion to serve in Ukraine
We’re NATO in everything but the ability to defend ourselves. And in the (hopefully extremely unlikely) event that we were to ever find ourselves at the heels of aggression from any militarised nation, we’d be wholly reliant on NATO to bail us out.
Should we join NATO ? Nahhh. We should 100% be on par with NATO operating capabilites however.Their militaries are among the most well trained and best I’m the world. There is no contest between nato doctrine which relies heavily on a pro NCO corp and Eastern Russian/Chinese etc when their troops are told little to nothing of an operation and its playing out in Ukraine. Hopefully in the future the IDF gets the necessary funds it needs to actually protect this country should an attack occur because as of now its pathetic ( not the men and women who serve they are from my own experience professionals but they don’t have the modern equipment needed to operate on today’s battlefield).
Higgins is completely in the wrong here. We elect a government to make decisions, a President to be head of state. The government is responsible for our foreign policy, of which we simply cannot have two sets.
The government refuse to appoint an impartial panel on the question of neutrality, preferring to stack it with paid “experts” who are totally out of sync with public opinion and have no regard for the public good. Smart intervention by Higgins to counterbalance that.
I do not really give a shit about what he thinks quite honestly. His moral grandstanding has never really impressed me much.
I regard Ireland as a sort of non-NATO but NATO-friendly country, much like Sweden until recently. If Ireland ends up crossing the threshold and actually joining NATO, as Sweden is currently in the process of doing, I would not expect that to have any day-to-day impact on the lives of anyone in Ireland. Ireland’s geographic location means that Russia couldn’t ever be bothered to attack it unless Russia were engaged in some sort of all-out conflict with NATO, in which case Ireland might be a target because of its location between the USA and Europe. But in that scenario, whether Ireland was a member of NATO would be the least of anyone’s problems. Everyone in the USA with even one Irish ancestor they dug up on an ancestry website goes around calling himself “Irish-American,” so one can be confident that the USA will never attack Ireland except in some hypothetical future so radically different from the status quo that no one can predict what will be going on at that point. That leaves the UK as the only other country that could plausibly have a reason (or maybe pretext would be a better term) to attack Ireland. That seems highly unlikely today, and not a reason to avoid joining NATO because it still seems quite a bit less likely than NATO members Turkey and Greece attacking each other.
Brave of Martin to take on Higgins on this, I don’t think FF will come out on top of this.
I’d say quite allot agree with the president.
Tankies on social media panicking now that their beloved Russia has been shown to be a monster that must be stopped. They can feel the Irish people drifting away from them and towards a more informed future for our defence policy. Hopefully we can start by getting rid of this triple lock nonsense, and then put proper investment into the defence forces.
Someone needs to speak up, its fine. FF/FG and their lickspittle journalists can cry all about it, they dont give a fuck about fulfilling their proper roles in government on any day of the week
For months now there has be drip feed little nuggets about NATO and defense from both FG and FF. And our media are so inept at holding our politicians to account.
Im not surprised by these noises from FG, they would love to be in NATO, but from FF its almost alarming. Falling over themselves every couple of weeks dropping hints on defense, NATO and russia. Its clear as day both FG and FF are hell bent of joining NATO.
What exatly is the purpose of FF anymore?
I wouldnt be at all surprised if the bleeding of budgets and resources to the army and naval service is by design so they can create a narrative of much needed modernisation and its future purpose.
Im glad Michael D has spoken out. We need more dissenting logical voices in this country.
Switzerland is not in NATO. We can modernise our military but we dont need to join NATO.
What people like Higgins don’t understand, is that European and world politics have shifted in an extraordinary manner since February 2022. Sweden and Finland; both countries who were the gold standard in an armed and competent neutrality; have abandoned this course to join NATO (one successful). This alone should provoke a public debate on our security policy because it is an extraordinary shift in the European balance of power.
As a country, we just don’t take security policy seriously at all and the reality is that many people are deluded into thinking that having no security policy whatsoever; is somehow a reasonable strategy and course of action.
I’d have to disagree with him myself in some cases strongly, NATO was essentially in somewhat of a limbo after the fall of the Soviet Union and lacking a major purpose. The exposure of Putin’s Vatnik Mafia State, a literal fascist crime state as bad as Nazi Germany for what it is has shown exactly what NATO is really needed for now. Not only that but the seriously degraded state of our own defence forces is atrocious considering we lack serious assets like interceptors, primary radar, our fleet being tied up due to lack of manpower to enforce our own EEZ properly, leaving us reliant on the Brits to deal with these issues.
If he’s asking where are the neutral states its because 2 of them, Sweden and Finland are joining or joined NATO because of the threat of Putin’s Kleptostate, the Eastern European ones joined as soon as possible because they KNEW what Russia was and the rest are the older members. Switzerland and Austria are surrounded by NATO and only a few of the Balkans are not part of it like Serbia.
As for the state of the UN, it’s falling in statue in several area’s because many of the countries are either Autocratic or seriously corrupt at home, you also got the Vatnik State and of Course China with their own notions and kicking up, it was generally designed to be impotent but it’s become farcical at this state that one of the Permanent Members is invading it’s neighbour, committing war crime after war crime with reckless abandon while treating the Geneva Convention as the Geneva CHECKLIST, has it’s own shitty army castrating soldiers, raping and mutilating women, children and engaging in the basest levels of depravity in front of the world and fuck all can be done about it there beyond condemnation. They even blew up a dam and have and are killing people trying to rescue innocent civilians, though ironically washed their own men away too and are now even suffering from Cholera due to this stupid move, they may be stupid enough to blow up a Nuclear Power plant and if they’re that stupid we’re really in unknown territory here.
Our primary concern here is that Putin’s shithole state might start targeting undersea cables as a form of hybrid warfare, they could attempt to attack critical infrastructure which would cause significant issues for us, hell the HSE hack was FROM Russia which has caused knock-on effects on the whole system and they’ve targeted other Neutral countries like Moldova trying to engineer an overthrow of their government there, in these times Neutral means easy target for the Vatnik state considering their past behaviour and is not necessarily the safest option anymore. The only way they’ve backed off is if it’s NATO territory and even then they’ve been caught doing incompetently stupid shit like the Salisbury Poisonings and blowing up ammo storage in Czechia which has come back to bite them in the ass in the Ukraine war.
If we’re going to be Neutral we either have to spend a serious amount of money on bringing up our defence forces to a proper level of quality which will cost a significant amount of money as we need interceptors, our fleet expanded and up to scratch and fully manned and a proper military that is capable of defending that Neutrality which would cost a significant amount of money to fix at a time when our infrastructure is in serious need of an overhaul, our housing is a mess, refugees stressing capacity, and of course cost of living issues.
The only other option is to just accept that there’s only one more affordable option and join NATO and pool our defence with that of other countries in an official capacity so we can at least have a proper level of defence against hostile countries like the Vatnik State who have labelled us a “unfriendly country” and may target us. At least we’d have official support to see them get the shit slapped out of them if they ever did. It’s the 2020’s not the 1960’s and we can’t just continue thinking things are grand until something happens.
One thing that a lot of people here fail to understand. Ireland is not neutral. To be neutral you have to have the ability to act on the matter. Ireland is simply not a player, and that is truly dangerous.
There is nothing keeping the country safe other than your reliance on, ironically, the UK. If Uk has its hands full somewhere and some of this new dictators decide to land here, there is nothing that ireland can do.
This is not neutrality, this is weakness.
We’ve no requirement or need to join NATO, as the probability of any immediate attack from a foreign power is negligible. However, the threat of global warming will put pressure on other nations as they lose fertile land and clean water. That could push some democracies to certain policies that are to our detriment.
Building a strong military now will give us more leverage in the future if push came to shove. Our whole doctrines should be on making it as miserable as possible for someone to invade us and the ability to hold out on a prolonged siege. In addition, a first class patrol navy for the invertible climate migrants
Sounds cold, but it’s what’s coming.
He said nothing about his mates in Cuba, Venezuela, nothing about good about Ukrainians efforts to defend themself against his old mates in the Kremlin. This is the kind of guy that stand for nothing but his big fat pension funded by us.
If the Russians did invaded Ireland he would be looking for a Ride !.. Or new job as chairman of the Ireland Oblast.
24 comments
Dead right. I would listen to him before any Irish political stooge . Anyone who disagrees is a disingenuous war-monger.
He loves stirring it. The President enjoys overstepping the mark, also Ireland isn’t neutral.
The old tankie needs to keep his opinions to himself when it comes to geopolitics.
The government make the policy of neutrality not the president ,. That’s inshrined in our constitution
Not sure how constitutional he’s being but I think the people who voted for him knew what they were getting, he was never known for keeping his opinions to himself
Would he ever shut up
If you go against the grain they come out and try attack you. You must not go against their narrative. It would be a massive waaste of money. We over spent over €2 billion and growing on just one hospital.
Can you imagine the defence spending and not only that but it’ll make no difference to Irish peoples lives.
Another thing is most people who are all for this are wealthy enough and it’s not them or their kids that would be used as fodder just for other countries political games and people like Micheál Martin and Leo Varadkar are only looking out for themselves and any future jobs that may come down the line.
This is good, recent polls show majority agree with neutrality and more military investments.
I can’t access the Sunday Business Post article, but he’s stepping outside his constitutional remit here.
Very concerning that he’s criticising “militarisation”, i.e. common European military aid to Ukraine. For decades Higgins was a staunch critic of American foreign policy, but now he wants us to let the Americans make the decisions and coordinate everything? That’s the alternative to a common European defence policy when it comes to Ukraine.
Given his wife’s pro-Russian sentiments (i.e. declaring that Ukraine should surrender its territories to Russia) that somehow got published on the Áras website last year, I’m definitely concerned that he shares her views…
What “drift”?
We provide a base for American troops & refuelling
We provide aid to Ukraine, and public support for them
We rely on the RAF to patrol our skies
We support and praise Irish people who join the foreign legion to serve in Ukraine
We’re NATO in everything but the ability to defend ourselves. And in the (hopefully extremely unlikely) event that we were to ever find ourselves at the heels of aggression from any militarised nation, we’d be wholly reliant on NATO to bail us out.
Should we join NATO ? Nahhh. We should 100% be on par with NATO operating capabilites however.Their militaries are among the most well trained and best I’m the world. There is no contest between nato doctrine which relies heavily on a pro NCO corp and Eastern Russian/Chinese etc when their troops are told little to nothing of an operation and its playing out in Ukraine. Hopefully in the future the IDF gets the necessary funds it needs to actually protect this country should an attack occur because as of now its pathetic ( not the men and women who serve they are from my own experience professionals but they don’t have the modern equipment needed to operate on today’s battlefield).
Higgins is completely in the wrong here. We elect a government to make decisions, a President to be head of state. The government is responsible for our foreign policy, of which we simply cannot have two sets.
The government refuse to appoint an impartial panel on the question of neutrality, preferring to stack it with paid “experts” who are totally out of sync with public opinion and have no regard for the public good. Smart intervention by Higgins to counterbalance that.
I do not really give a shit about what he thinks quite honestly. His moral grandstanding has never really impressed me much.
I regard Ireland as a sort of non-NATO but NATO-friendly country, much like Sweden until recently. If Ireland ends up crossing the threshold and actually joining NATO, as Sweden is currently in the process of doing, I would not expect that to have any day-to-day impact on the lives of anyone in Ireland. Ireland’s geographic location means that Russia couldn’t ever be bothered to attack it unless Russia were engaged in some sort of all-out conflict with NATO, in which case Ireland might be a target because of its location between the USA and Europe. But in that scenario, whether Ireland was a member of NATO would be the least of anyone’s problems. Everyone in the USA with even one Irish ancestor they dug up on an ancestry website goes around calling himself “Irish-American,” so one can be confident that the USA will never attack Ireland except in some hypothetical future so radically different from the status quo that no one can predict what will be going on at that point. That leaves the UK as the only other country that could plausibly have a reason (or maybe pretext would be a better term) to attack Ireland. That seems highly unlikely today, and not a reason to avoid joining NATO because it still seems quite a bit less likely than NATO members Turkey and Greece attacking each other.
Brave of Martin to take on Higgins on this, I don’t think FF will come out on top of this.
I’d say quite allot agree with the president.
Tankies on social media panicking now that their beloved Russia has been shown to be a monster that must be stopped. They can feel the Irish people drifting away from them and towards a more informed future for our defence policy. Hopefully we can start by getting rid of this triple lock nonsense, and then put proper investment into the defence forces.
Someone needs to speak up, its fine. FF/FG and their lickspittle journalists can cry all about it, they dont give a fuck about fulfilling their proper roles in government on any day of the week
For months now there has be drip feed little nuggets about NATO and defense from both FG and FF. And our media are so inept at holding our politicians to account.
Im not surprised by these noises from FG, they would love to be in NATO, but from FF its almost alarming. Falling over themselves every couple of weeks dropping hints on defense, NATO and russia. Its clear as day both FG and FF are hell bent of joining NATO.
What exatly is the purpose of FF anymore?
I wouldnt be at all surprised if the bleeding of budgets and resources to the army and naval service is by design so they can create a narrative of much needed modernisation and its future purpose.
Im glad Michael D has spoken out. We need more dissenting logical voices in this country.
Switzerland is not in NATO. We can modernise our military but we dont need to join NATO.
What people like Higgins don’t understand, is that European and world politics have shifted in an extraordinary manner since February 2022. Sweden and Finland; both countries who were the gold standard in an armed and competent neutrality; have abandoned this course to join NATO (one successful). This alone should provoke a public debate on our security policy because it is an extraordinary shift in the European balance of power.
As a country, we just don’t take security policy seriously at all and the reality is that many people are deluded into thinking that having no security policy whatsoever; is somehow a reasonable strategy and course of action.
I’d have to disagree with him myself in some cases strongly, NATO was essentially in somewhat of a limbo after the fall of the Soviet Union and lacking a major purpose. The exposure of Putin’s Vatnik Mafia State, a literal fascist crime state as bad as Nazi Germany for what it is has shown exactly what NATO is really needed for now. Not only that but the seriously degraded state of our own defence forces is atrocious considering we lack serious assets like interceptors, primary radar, our fleet being tied up due to lack of manpower to enforce our own EEZ properly, leaving us reliant on the Brits to deal with these issues.
If he’s asking where are the neutral states its because 2 of them, Sweden and Finland are joining or joined NATO because of the threat of Putin’s Kleptostate, the Eastern European ones joined as soon as possible because they KNEW what Russia was and the rest are the older members. Switzerland and Austria are surrounded by NATO and only a few of the Balkans are not part of it like Serbia.
As for the state of the UN, it’s falling in statue in several area’s because many of the countries are either Autocratic or seriously corrupt at home, you also got the Vatnik State and of Course China with their own notions and kicking up, it was generally designed to be impotent but it’s become farcical at this state that one of the Permanent Members is invading it’s neighbour, committing war crime after war crime with reckless abandon while treating the Geneva Convention as the Geneva CHECKLIST, has it’s own shitty army castrating soldiers, raping and mutilating women, children and engaging in the basest levels of depravity in front of the world and fuck all can be done about it there beyond condemnation. They even blew up a dam and have and are killing people trying to rescue innocent civilians, though ironically washed their own men away too and are now even suffering from Cholera due to this stupid move, they may be stupid enough to blow up a Nuclear Power plant and if they’re that stupid we’re really in unknown territory here.
Our primary concern here is that Putin’s shithole state might start targeting undersea cables as a form of hybrid warfare, they could attempt to attack critical infrastructure which would cause significant issues for us, hell the HSE hack was FROM Russia which has caused knock-on effects on the whole system and they’ve targeted other Neutral countries like Moldova trying to engineer an overthrow of their government there, in these times Neutral means easy target for the Vatnik state considering their past behaviour and is not necessarily the safest option anymore. The only way they’ve backed off is if it’s NATO territory and even then they’ve been caught doing incompetently stupid shit like the Salisbury Poisonings and blowing up ammo storage in Czechia which has come back to bite them in the ass in the Ukraine war.
If we’re going to be Neutral we either have to spend a serious amount of money on bringing up our defence forces to a proper level of quality which will cost a significant amount of money as we need interceptors, our fleet expanded and up to scratch and fully manned and a proper military that is capable of defending that Neutrality which would cost a significant amount of money to fix at a time when our infrastructure is in serious need of an overhaul, our housing is a mess, refugees stressing capacity, and of course cost of living issues.
The only other option is to just accept that there’s only one more affordable option and join NATO and pool our defence with that of other countries in an official capacity so we can at least have a proper level of defence against hostile countries like the Vatnik State who have labelled us a “unfriendly country” and may target us. At least we’d have official support to see them get the shit slapped out of them if they ever did. It’s the 2020’s not the 1960’s and we can’t just continue thinking things are grand until something happens.
One thing that a lot of people here fail to understand. Ireland is not neutral. To be neutral you have to have the ability to act on the matter. Ireland is simply not a player, and that is truly dangerous.
There is nothing keeping the country safe other than your reliance on, ironically, the UK. If Uk has its hands full somewhere and some of this new dictators decide to land here, there is nothing that ireland can do.
This is not neutrality, this is weakness.
We’ve no requirement or need to join NATO, as the probability of any immediate attack from a foreign power is negligible. However, the threat of global warming will put pressure on other nations as they lose fertile land and clean water. That could push some democracies to certain policies that are to our detriment.
Building a strong military now will give us more leverage in the future if push came to shove. Our whole doctrines should be on making it as miserable as possible for someone to invade us and the ability to hold out on a prolonged siege. In addition, a first class patrol navy for the invertible climate migrants
Sounds cold, but it’s what’s coming.
He said nothing about his mates in Cuba, Venezuela, nothing about good about Ukrainians efforts to defend themself against his old mates in the Kremlin. This is the kind of guy that stand for nothing but his big fat pension funded by us.
If the Russians did invaded Ireland he would be looking for a Ride !.. Or new job as chairman of the Ireland Oblast.
A Disgrace of a Leader
