Ireland’s projected budget surpluses for 2025 and 2026—€10.2 billion and €5.1 billion—have
sparked renewed calls from the political and media establishment for deeper military
integration with Europe. The Financial Times, in a recent piece labelling Ireland “the weak
link in EU defence,” claims that because Ireland hosts Big Tech, Big Pharma and Big Data, it
has a duty to “pay its share” for Western security. Economic success, they argue, brings
military obligations: higher defence spending, participation in EU military structures, and
ultimately an end to neutrality.
Like all good ideological manoeuvres, the argument contains a grain of truth, then distorts it
beyond recognition.
Ireland’s surpluses are real. They come primarily from corporation tax paid by a small
number of highly profitable multinationals. It is also true that a significant minority benefit
from this model: high-paid workers in the multinational sector, professional and managerial
layers who service these firms, and property owners whose assets rise in value around FDI
clusters. There is money being made in Ireland, unquestionably.
But it is not shared evenly. The public finances remain hostage to the decisions of global
corporations whose profits are booked here rather than generated here. These receipts have
not produced secure improvements in wages, affordability, public infrastructure, or social
services for the majority. Because the model is built on dependency rather than domestic
productive strength, its gains are volatile—here one year, uncertain the next. In other words,
the FDI model produces benefits that are both uneven and precarious.
Crucially, it is those who benefit most from this structure—the comprador bourgeoisie
aligned with foreign capital—who now insist that the Irish working class must shoulder the
geopolitical costs. Their message is simple: Ireland hosts assets essential to the Western
imperialist economic order; therefore Ireland must tie itself to the Western military order that
protects them. In classic fashion, public expense is demanded in the service of private and
foreign gain.
This is where the FT’s narrative becomes most dangerous. It claims that Ireland is
increasingly vulnerable because it hosts multinational infrastructure. But Ireland is not a
military target today precisely because it is not part of NATO’s war architecture. Neutrality
keeps Ireland off the strategic map. Surrendering that neutrality would make Ireland a
legitimate node in a broader conflict—whether through physical installations, cyber
infrastructure, or symbolic vulnerability. Joining NATO to “gain protection” would immediately
make Ireland a target. The militarisation proposed to “enhance” security actively creates new
dangers that do not exist today.
The argument collapses into a circular absurdity: Ireland must militarise for protection; once
militarised, Ireland becomes a target; once a target, Ireland must spend even more on
defence. This is not a doctrine of national safety but a formula for permanent escalation and
dependency.
Nor is it honest to suggest that Ireland could ever build a military capable of defending itself
against a major imperialist power. No amount of investment can overcome the reality of
Ireland’s size, geography, and limited strategic depth. The Defence Forces can and should
be resourced for genuine security needs, but they cannot be transformed into a deterrent force for great-power conflict. That fantasy exists only to justify open-ended spending
commitments.
What Ireland can do—and has done effectively—is exercise diplomatic credibility and moral
authority far beyond the scale of its armed forces. A neutral Ireland can mediate, de-
escalate, and serve as an honest broker at the United Nations. A NATO-aligned Ireland
cannot. A neutral Ireland can maintain diplomatic channels with multiple blocs. A NATO-
aligned Ireland cannot. Neutrality is not a romantic relic; it is a concrete strategic asset for a
small state.
To suggest otherwise is to forget that small NATO states do not shape global security; they
obey it. Small NATO members have far less autonomy than neutral ones. Neutrality gives
Ireland space, credibility, and manoeuvrability. NATO membership replaces all of that with
subordination and obligation.
In truth, the push for militarisation cannot be separated from the political economy of FDI
dependency. Hosting multinational giants reshapes more than the tax base: it reshapes the
political culture, the planning system, the housing market, the energy grid, and the strategic
imagination of the state. Dependency produces a worldview in which neutrality is “immature,”
sovereignty is “parochial,” and alignment with NATO becomes “common sense.” It produces
a class whose economic interest lies in deeper integration with the imperialist bloc and
whose ideological instinct is to present that integration as a national responsibility.
The FT’s argument, stripped of its rhetoric, is straightforward: because Ireland’s economy is
built around the assets of foreign capital, the Irish people must now help defend the
geopolitical system that guarantees those assets. Militarisation is not about protecting
workers’ homes, hospitals, or livelihoods. It is about protecting data centres, intellectual
property holdings, and supply chains owned by some of the world’s largest corporations. The
working class is being asked to pay for the defence of wealth that it does not own, does not
control, and from which it does not proportionately benefit.
The correct response is not to militarise in order to secure the FDI model, but to question a
model that makes militarisation appear necessary in the first place. If hosting global capital
creates geopolitical exposure, the answer is not to sacrifice neutrality—it is to build a more
sovereign and democratic economy.
Neutrality remains one of the few aspects of Irish sovereignty not yet fully eroded by
dependency. It keeps Ireland outside imperialist rivalries. It preserves our diplomatic role. It
prevents automatic entanglement in conflicts that serve the interests of other states, not our
own. If Ireland is a “weak link” in European defence, it is only because neutrality remains a
stubborn obstacle to a project of continental militarisation that has nothing to do with the
needs of the Irish people. That is not a weakness to be corrected; it is a democratic
achievement to be defended.
The real responsibility of a sovereign state is not to join war blocs. It is to build a society
capable of meeting the needs of its people. The true path to security lies not in NATO, but in
social investment, democratic control of the economy, and an independent foreign policy
grounded in peace. Neutrality is not a luxury—it is Ireland’s most valuable remaining asset.
And it is worth defending.
