In the realpolitik of Irish foreign policy, Ireland professes ‘military neutrality’. While we have never been politically neutral in any conflict, we have never become full members of a formal military alliance.

During the Second World War, Ireland was markedly biased in its ‘neutrality’, on the side of the Allies. Ireland allowed the repatriation of allied pilots and air-crew who had crashed-landed here. We also allowed the liberal use of our air-space for allied protection of Atlantic convoys — vital to the ultimate defeat of Nazi Germany.

Despite de Valera’s repeated assertions of Irish neutrality, Ireland went out of her way to assist the allies, including, famously providing the weather readings from Blacksod Bay that were crucial to the success of the D-Day landings. 

Less well known among the general public were detailed Nazi plans — Unternehmen Grun, or Operation Green — to invade Ireland during the Second World War. In response, de Valera and Churchill agreed a secret operation — Plan W — to counter-attack any German invasion here. This would have involved Oglaigh na h’Eireann and the British army fighting side by side on Irish soil against invading Wermacht forces.

Thankfully, the Battle of Britain saw an end to Hitler’s invasion plans for Britain and Ireland. It is, however, a useful illustration of the amorphous and shape-shifting nature of Irish neutrality — predicated entirely on the selfish, self-interest consistent with the foreign policy imperatives of a confident, ambitious state.

With Putin’s criminal invasion of Ukraine, Ireland’s neutral status has again come into sharp focus. In the last year, many high-profile academics and public commentators have begun to negatively frame Ireland’s neutral status in the context of the war in Ukraine. Some senior political figures have also expressed surprisingly hawkish views and have openly advocated Ireland’s full membership of Nato.

'Weakest link'

In a near-perfect storm, this focus on neutrality — including the Tánaiste’s Consultative Forums on Defence — has come at a time of unprecedented crisis in our Defence Forces.

Partially as a consequence of the ‘peace dividend’ accruing to the Good Friday Agreement, our armed forces have experienced a two-decade period of underinvestment, poor pay, and appalling working conditions.

This has led to a recruitment and retention crisis, which has seen numbers drop to a new low of just 7,764 personnel across army, naval service and air corps. Hundreds have resigned in the last year, including over 30 commissioned officers. 

In effect, Ireland is unable to monitor or meaningfully defend its ground, maritime air or cyber domains. In defence, security and intelligence terms, Ireland has become Europe’s ‘weakest link’ and has attracted the attention of international terrorist networks, organised crime gangs, and the Russian state.

In recent months and years, Russian naval and air assets have increasingly probed Irish controlled airspace and our maritime waters off the west and south coasts. This is particularly problematic since Irish-controlled airspace consists of one of the busiest air corridors for civil and military air traffic between the EU and the United States. 

We have learned — more anon — that Russian aircraft with their transponders turned off have been lurking in our airspace in order to test Nato reaction times on their vulnerable western approaches. Russian elements have also launched cyberattacks on our critical infrastructure in recent times, including a devastating attack on the HSE at the height of the pandemic.

Politically and diplomatically, Ireland has marketed itself as an open, digital economy that punches above its weight internationally — with many US tech and pharma multinationals headquartered in Ireland. Ireland holds almost one third of Europe’s data in over 50 data centres here. 

In addition, dozens of transatlantic fibre-optic subsea cables — which pass through Irish waters —– represent the digital link between the US and Europe, carrying almost one-half of the world’s digital traffic. Ireland lacks even the most minimal credible cyber defence for this extraordinary infrastructure and data.

Ireland's 'dependence'

It is clear that our naval service cannot adequately monitor or protect the oceanic physical infrastructure that underpins this global digital economy. Nor can our naval service — through no fault of its own — hope to patrol or protect our planned offshore wind energy platforms. This is especially embarrassing given that Ireland hopes to be the ‘Saudi Arabia’ of wind energy.

What is also acutely embarrassing to the Government is the frank admission that we have only learned of many of these threats due to the ‘generosity’ of the intelligence services of other nations. In the TG4 documentary this week, former defence minister Willie O’Dea admits that the RAF have been patrolling our airspace since the 1950s and that we rely on Britain for piecemeal bits of vital intelligence — entirely at their discretion.

This brings us to the stark conclusion that Ireland’s sovereign and neutral status are currently meaningless — in that we cannot adequately protect or defend ourselves against the most minimal of threats and rely on others to do so. That ‘dependence’ is fatally detrimental to our sovereign and neutral status in that we have zero credibility or foreign policy leverage with our recently acquired state of helplessness.

Defence Forces

This is an unprecedented crisis for Ireland. On a personal level, while I recognise the importance and legitimacy of Nato as a military alliance, I do not believe that there is any advantage for Ireland in joining that organisation in order to solve our defence problems — or as a response to Russian aggression. 

Rather, I believe we should adopt the highest level of ambition of investment in our basic defences as set out in the recent report of the Commission on the Future on the Defence Forces.

Ireland and her global diaspora have benefited hugely from Ireland’s neutral status — as a non-aligned Republic with no imperial ambitions or associations. As a professional soldier, election supervisor and journalist, I have personally experienced the dividend that our neutral status provides in many hostile environments. 

Neutrality is an invaluable component of our foreign policy that gives us a moral authority and a unique voice for peace in an increasingly unstable world. To protect and preserve it, however, we must invest in our Defence Forces and we must support its current transformation in order to vindicate our sovereign and militarily neutral status.