It’s hilarious that this NATO conversation is getting so much traction.
If we applied tomorrow they’d piss on us. We’re a decade of actual investment away from being accepted. Wake me up when we invest properly in our armed forces – until then this is just distraction from actual issues.
Ireland has no place in NATO, they don’t need us and we have no need to be a member.
We are a very small country in a very safe corner of the world. We do need to sure up our detection capability. Our army and navy don’t necessarily need to grow but it does require modernising, and the professionals working in those fields need to be paid appropriately.
It doesn’t matter if you agree with him, he took the job of president..it’s unprofessional of him to comment on politics. His wife spoke out against helping ukraine fight off Russia. They are overstepping their mark.
If we want to be neutral we need our own military and not be relying on a handshake with the Brits to scare Russians away.
Outside of that, we probably should just accept with are replying on NATO for our security and just call a spade a spade and be honest about our cooperation. We would be decades away from having a military ready for even think about joining NATO anyway
We’re in a perfect position with NATO. We are obviously aligned with them, and many of our allies in the EU (and uk) are in NATO. We gain nothing by joining, we’ve provided airspace and places to refuel for decades, and are granted protection through the EU defensive alliance which would bring in NATO anyways. We have no reason to either join or move away from NATO
He’s fierce opinionated when he’s been paid to be quiet and shake some hands.
Even if I agree with him most of the time he’s setting an annoying precedent.
Typical smoked salmon socialist bollocks.
If we want to become neutral, (yes I said become, from the day we handed control of our airspace to the RAF we gave up our neutrality) we need to start spending some serious coin on our defence capabilities. But you won’t like that either, will you miggledy?
People literally want investment in defence like we don’t want to just live under a NATO umbrella but the government isn’t investing and getting us to slowly drift to NATO instead
The issue here isn’t whether Ireland should or shouldn’t join NATO. It’s whether the President should be getting involved in this public debate.
You think people like Putin gives two shits about your neutrality? You do?.. In that case you might be interested in a fabulous bridge I’m selling.
We would need to spend a LOT more money on defence spending to qualify for membership of NATO. And it would take a long time w to get to that level of spending. And there are a bunch of other stuff to be done as well. Only the UK and France were the only European countries meeting the spending target a few years back. And that was because the UK classified pension contribution for personnel as military spending.
Ireland still hasn’t joined CERN yet and that is only about a million a year. And they have talking about that for well over a decade. I think is meant to be movement on that this year.
Also we are closely aligned with NATO members, enough that anyone who wanted to attack wouldn’t see difference or care about neutrality. Also there is parts of the eu treaties that say we have give aid if another EU countries is attacked.
NATO can get fucked but in my opinion Ireland has 26 allied nations in the EU and we should be willing to help defend them if any one of them should be attacked.
Even taking the morality/kinship element out of it, Ireland’s entire economy and to some degree it’s institutions are dependent on a strong EU and so defending our fellow member states is in our own best interests.
We aren’t neutral. We are protected by Europe and the Brits, just like we were throughout the Cold War.
It’s just playing games to suggest that we are neutral and disinterested when it comes to things like the Ukraine War or the threat of Chinese or Russian aggression
Russia has threatened to Nuke us multiple times over the last year. Fuck them.
It’s a bit of a silly situation at the moment though, isn’t it. The auld enemy controlling our waters and skies, Russia threatening us and we as defenceless as a blind kitten.
If shit really kicks off, the likes of NATO and Russia aren’t going to go “leave the Paddy’s alone, they’re harmless”.
Russia have already showed simulations of us being wiped out if they attack the UK. Our infrastructure (e.g. the cables and Shannon airport) are obvious targets for enemies of NATO. Hell, they’ve already launched cyberattacks against us and tried to expand their embassy to Bond-villain style proportions. The UK, for their part, had soldiers killing Irish people a few decades ago and were very close to seizing our airfields and ports in WW2 – and the USA were fully behind them to do it. Surprisingly enough, they aren’t going against one of their strongest defence partners during a major conflict.
No defence + neutrality = helpless.
Can any Hawks out there name a single threat we face which would suggest we need to join NATO, and not use the rainy day fund for housing, health and education?
[deleted]
We can improve our army and military infrastructure without committing to join Nato. No big deal unless you are big into enjoying human suffering of course.
Well the Army is restructured self so It can work with Nato better we are getting new requirement on new gear So it looks like the army is getting ready to join nato
Real neutrality would require us to be able to defend our territory by ourselves, independently – which we can’t. To continue to pretend that we are an unaligned country, while being wholly dependant on friendly neighbouring states for key aspects of our own protection is disingenuous.
No permanent Radar, no intercepting aircraft, a non-existent cyber defense strategy and a navy that is only now seeing a pittance of investment.
Like everything in Ireland movement only ever seems to happen when our leaders in-action starts to make a show of the place internationally.
Think of the prying by international media into our defensive planning if vital undersea cables were cut in our waters, Or if some of the big tech data centres were comprismised by a cyber attack – then we’d see all of the scrambling in the Dáil.
We can no longer bury our heads here, the reality of the world as it is now requires us to invest in our defensive capabilities, and to stop being cheapskates and claiming neutrality.
In reality, the fact that we are a small island off Europe, has both given us freedom from certain concerns and a resulting false sense of agency. Time to grow up.
Why exactly should the UK defence forces agree to help out Ireland?
I’m afraid that in this world neutrality doesn’t exist anymore, you have stand up for yourself it’s like. School yard
Weak countries don’t get to be neutral, how hard is this concept to understand?
Edit: After some thinking, I came to conclusion that Ireland is far enough on peripheries of Europe to not need NATO military alliance. From Irish perspective it will only bring them costs, while not bringing them any benefits. the current situation is that the only possible threat to Ireland could be UK, but Ireland is a US corp tax haven, and any attempt to touch it by UK would bring pressure from USA, which enjoys the current situation.
Its an interesting position, where you don’t have to do anything to be safe, and if someone attacks you, your neighbors will foot the defense bill, not for your security but for their own.
It’s not like Ireland has anything to offer to NATO anyway. no navy, and no capabilities. and being part of NATO would oblige Ireland to spend 2% GDP on military, a sum that Irish would moan about not being spend on welfare.
I think we should put more money into improving our cyber security.
Am I the only person in this thread who just doesn’t know enough about the ramifications of joining Nato to know if we should join or not? ^^
26 comments
It’s hilarious that this NATO conversation is getting so much traction.
If we applied tomorrow they’d piss on us. We’re a decade of actual investment away from being accepted. Wake me up when we invest properly in our armed forces – until then this is just distraction from actual issues.
Ireland has no place in NATO, they don’t need us and we have no need to be a member.
We are a very small country in a very safe corner of the world. We do need to sure up our detection capability. Our army and navy don’t necessarily need to grow but it does require modernising, and the professionals working in those fields need to be paid appropriately.
It doesn’t matter if you agree with him, he took the job of president..it’s unprofessional of him to comment on politics. His wife spoke out against helping ukraine fight off Russia. They are overstepping their mark.
If we want to be neutral we need our own military and not be relying on a handshake with the Brits to scare Russians away.
Outside of that, we probably should just accept with are replying on NATO for our security and just call a spade a spade and be honest about our cooperation. We would be decades away from having a military ready for even think about joining NATO anyway
We’re in a perfect position with NATO. We are obviously aligned with them, and many of our allies in the EU (and uk) are in NATO. We gain nothing by joining, we’ve provided airspace and places to refuel for decades, and are granted protection through the EU defensive alliance which would bring in NATO anyways. We have no reason to either join or move away from NATO
He’s fierce opinionated when he’s been paid to be quiet and shake some hands.
Even if I agree with him most of the time he’s setting an annoying precedent.
Typical smoked salmon socialist bollocks.
If we want to become neutral, (yes I said become, from the day we handed control of our airspace to the RAF we gave up our neutrality) we need to start spending some serious coin on our defence capabilities. But you won’t like that either, will you miggledy?
People literally want investment in defence like we don’t want to just live under a NATO umbrella but the government isn’t investing and getting us to slowly drift to NATO instead
The issue here isn’t whether Ireland should or shouldn’t join NATO. It’s whether the President should be getting involved in this public debate.
You think people like Putin gives two shits about your neutrality? You do?.. In that case you might be interested in a fabulous bridge I’m selling.
We would need to spend a LOT more money on defence spending to qualify for membership of NATO. And it would take a long time w to get to that level of spending. And there are a bunch of other stuff to be done as well. Only the UK and France were the only European countries meeting the spending target a few years back. And that was because the UK classified pension contribution for personnel as military spending.
Ireland still hasn’t joined CERN yet and that is only about a million a year. And they have talking about that for well over a decade. I think is meant to be movement on that this year.
Also we are closely aligned with NATO members, enough that anyone who wanted to attack wouldn’t see difference or care about neutrality. Also there is parts of the eu treaties that say we have give aid if another EU countries is attacked.
NATO can get fucked but in my opinion Ireland has 26 allied nations in the EU and we should be willing to help defend them if any one of them should be attacked.
Even taking the morality/kinship element out of it, Ireland’s entire economy and to some degree it’s institutions are dependent on a strong EU and so defending our fellow member states is in our own best interests.
We aren’t neutral. We are protected by Europe and the Brits, just like we were throughout the Cold War.
It’s just playing games to suggest that we are neutral and disinterested when it comes to things like the Ukraine War or the threat of Chinese or Russian aggression
Russia has threatened to Nuke us multiple times over the last year. Fuck them.
It’s a bit of a silly situation at the moment though, isn’t it. The auld enemy controlling our waters and skies, Russia threatening us and we as defenceless as a blind kitten.
If shit really kicks off, the likes of NATO and Russia aren’t going to go “leave the Paddy’s alone, they’re harmless”.
Russia have already showed simulations of us being wiped out if they attack the UK. Our infrastructure (e.g. the cables and Shannon airport) are obvious targets for enemies of NATO. Hell, they’ve already launched cyberattacks against us and tried to expand their embassy to Bond-villain style proportions. The UK, for their part, had soldiers killing Irish people a few decades ago and were very close to seizing our airfields and ports in WW2 – and the USA were fully behind them to do it. Surprisingly enough, they aren’t going against one of their strongest defence partners during a major conflict.
No defence + neutrality = helpless.
Can any Hawks out there name a single threat we face which would suggest we need to join NATO, and not use the rainy day fund for housing, health and education?
[deleted]
We can improve our army and military infrastructure without committing to join Nato. No big deal unless you are big into enjoying human suffering of course.
Well the Army is restructured self so It can work with Nato better we are getting new requirement on new gear So it looks like the army is getting ready to join nato
Real neutrality would require us to be able to defend our territory by ourselves, independently – which we can’t. To continue to pretend that we are an unaligned country, while being wholly dependant on friendly neighbouring states for key aspects of our own protection is disingenuous.
No permanent Radar, no intercepting aircraft, a non-existent cyber defense strategy and a navy that is only now seeing a pittance of investment.
Like everything in Ireland movement only ever seems to happen when our leaders in-action starts to make a show of the place internationally.
Think of the prying by international media into our defensive planning if vital undersea cables were cut in our waters, Or if some of the big tech data centres were comprismised by a cyber attack – then we’d see all of the scrambling in the Dáil.
We can no longer bury our heads here, the reality of the world as it is now requires us to invest in our defensive capabilities, and to stop being cheapskates and claiming neutrality.
In reality, the fact that we are a small island off Europe, has both given us freedom from certain concerns and a resulting false sense of agency. Time to grow up.
Why exactly should the UK defence forces agree to help out Ireland?
I’m afraid that in this world neutrality doesn’t exist anymore, you have stand up for yourself it’s like. School yard
Weak countries don’t get to be neutral, how hard is this concept to understand?
Edit: After some thinking, I came to conclusion that Ireland is far enough on peripheries of Europe to not need NATO military alliance. From Irish perspective it will only bring them costs, while not bringing them any benefits. the current situation is that the only possible threat to Ireland could be UK, but Ireland is a US corp tax haven, and any attempt to touch it by UK would bring pressure from USA, which enjoys the current situation.
Its an interesting position, where you don’t have to do anything to be safe, and if someone attacks you, your neighbors will foot the defense bill, not for your security but for their own.
It’s not like Ireland has anything to offer to NATO anyway. no navy, and no capabilities. and being part of NATO would oblige Ireland to spend 2% GDP on military, a sum that Irish would moan about not being spend on welfare.
I think we should put more money into improving our cyber security.
Am I the only person in this thread who just doesn’t know enough about the ramifications of joining Nato to know if we should join or not? ^^