Three events during the final week of February shifted Irish foreign policy further away from neutrality and peace-keeping towards militarism and war-making.
Here’s what happened:
Maritime Security Strategy
On 25th February, Minister for Foreign Affairs Helen McEntee launched the state’s first Maritime Security Strategy. It makes for grim reading.
The strategy claims to be ‘in line with Ireland’s policy of military neutrality … [which] is characterised by non-membership of military alliances or mutual defence arrangements’, but it then sets out how Ireland will embrace military alliances and mutual defence arrangements with the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF), NATO, the EU, Britain and France.
The JEF is composed of NATO’s northern European members. Ireland now seeks to access a JEF+ arrangement; meanwhile, it will also enhance its NATO partnership, in existence since 1999, maximising ‘opportunities … through the Individually Tailored Partnership Programme’.
Opportunities abound too for collaboration with EU Defence Capability Development Initiatives, including positioning Ireland as a host or partner ‘in an EU regional monitoring hub for Critical Undersea Infrastructure’.
The strategy will see agreements with Britain and France, both nuclear powers, permitting them to patrol Irish waters.
It also seeks to develop ‘forward operating bases’, a move that may see civilian ports transformed into military bases in the same way that Shannon Airport has become a de facto base for the US military.
These steps appear to violate even the narrow definition of ‘military neutrality’ set out in the strategy – one that is completely at odds with what the Irish public understand neutrality (not military neutrality) to be: an active policy, rooted in international law, with the aim of building peace.
The strategy doesn’t reference any maritime security attacks, with the exception of Nord Stream, which occurred in the heart of ‘NATO territory’. It also fails to mention that undersea infrastructure faults are commonplace, with about 200 documented per year, none of which are from sabotage but due mostly to ‘fishing and anchoring incidents’. This concurs with a Washington Post article which also concluded that it was ‘accidents, not Russian sabotage, behind undersea cable damage’.
Nevertheless, Ireland will now invest vast sums to tackle hypothetical threats, while failing to address urgent matters including housing, health care and the climate crisis.
A €2 Billion Arms Deal
Details emerged of an unprecedented arms deal that could see the state ‘purchase up to €2 billion of military equipment from France’.
Though figures vary across reportage, French arms company KNDS looks set to earn between €600 and €800 million for up to 400 combat vehicles.
KNDS is a member of the Irish Defence and Security Association, a self-described ‘industry group’ that lobbies the government for increased militarisation. Perhaps this deal is the fruit of those efforts.
Given that UNIFIL is set to wind down, it is unclear whether the government is amassing these vehicles for the unlikely event of a land invasion at home, or for use by Irish soldiers in conflicts overseas.
It may be, however, that the deal is a combination of arms trade opportunism and a response to pressure that has seen Ireland berated as a freeloader, though it is one of few European states that has never participated in illegal wars and is the only state with an unbroken record of peace-keeping.
Other equipment includes €500 million in military radar systems, €300 million in aircraft, €100 million in communication equipment and a €60 million sonar system.
A further €1 million will be spent on a ‘NATO-proof’ room ‘because surveillance is everywhere’.
This investment comes amid the European Committee of Social Rights concluding that Ireland is in breach of ‘defence forces members’ rights in respect of … just conditions of work and … fair remuneration’.
Neutral Ireland Stands Militarily with a State at War
On the fourth anniversary of the Ukraine war, the Taoiseach declared that Ireland stands ‘militarily’ with the war-torn country.
When questioned by Sinn Féin TD Mairéad Farrell about this, the Taoiseach claimed there was no incompatibility between ‘standing militarily’ with a country at war while being ‘militarily neutral’, saying that military neutrality is defined as ‘non-membership of NATO’. It would follow, then, that apart from NATO’s 32 members, the world’s other 161 states are ‘militarily neutral’.
He went on to say ‘if the UN Charter is violated … we should do everything we possibly can to support the people’, referencing military training and the lethal and non-lethal equipment provided to Ukraine.
Applying this logic to another scenario, for example Iran, could see Ireland standing militarily with that war-torn country, since the UN Charter was violated there too.
Micheál Martin’s ill-informed statements and bogus definitions have no basis in international law, revealing how woefully poor his leadership is.
It’s easy to be neutral in times of peace. It is in times of war that it matters most. So far, the government is failing miserably.
