Letters to the Editor: Ireland needs new defence strategies
JD Vance warned European leaders their biggest security threat was not from China or Russia, but 'the enemy within'. Picture: Drew Angerer/Getty
US vice president Vance’s recent rebuke of Europe, combined with US president Trump’s provocative comments on Europe, Ukraine, and Nato, have heightened tensions and forced member states to confront the uneasy balance between collective European interests and their own national priorities, two forces that do not always align.
Mr Trump’s unorthodox and frequently controversial approach has become a catalyst for a long-overdue reckoning with Europe’s defence vulnerabilities.
His actions, far from mere political chaos, are forcing European nations, including Ireland, to confront uncomfortable truths about their preparedness, unity, and long-term security strategies.
For us, this moment is especially significant. Neutrality has long been a source of national pride and a symbol of independence.
Yet, whether by accident, design, or neglect, our policy remains poorly defined and increasingly out of step with modern security realities.
In a world marked by hybrid threats, cyberattacks, and assertive global powers, it is time for a serious and mature re-examination of our stance.
Our territorial waters and airspace must be patrolled, and it is our responsibility as a nation to provide the necessary ships and aircraft to do so.
It is no longer acceptable for 90% of our Naval Service patrols to be designated as fishery protection.
Our Defence Forces must be equipped and structured to provide a credible response to current and emerging threats.
Can we continue to rely on the goodwill of others to monitor our airspace and undersea cable networks, or must we take greater responsibility for our own air and maritime defence?
Should we, as a small island nation, pursue deeper cooperation with our European neighbours to meet these formidable challenges?
While disruptive and often unwelcome, Mr Trump’s actions present an opportunity to move beyond outdated assumptions and engage in a mature, forward-looking dialogue about our defence policy.
The world has changed, and so too must our approach to security.
Europe’s future stability, and Ireland’s role within it, depends not on clinging to the status quo and outdated military doctrines, but on our willingness to adapt, collaborate, and commit to safeguarding our shared future.
The editorial — ‘Russia’s Ally’ (February 14) — refers to just the tiny bit of my lengthy conversation with the newspaper’s political editor Elaine Loughlin about recent pronouncements by the Taoiseach on the so-called “Russian threat”.
The editorial board reduced this important subject to the thoughtless and stale cliché about “invasion” in Ukraine as a proof that Russia threatens Ireland and Europe.
By doing so, the trivialises the difficult and tragic issue of the conflict in Ukraine to the degree of a comic book in which Russia is assigned the role of cartoon villain.
The usual mantra about “Russia’s invasion” or “aggression” in Ukraine is at the core of this familiar propaganda exercise, designed to put blame for the conflict on Russia.
There is not an ounce of truth in that — war in Ukraine has never been in our interest.
The real instigators of war are the US and its Nato allies, who have made every effort to turn Ukraine into the “anti-Russia” project, designed to create an unacceptable threat to Russia in the form of another Nato playground on the Russian border.
It was the West that supplied political cover and military hardware to the Kiev regime to support its war against people of Donbass, who rejected an anti-constitutional neo-Nazi coup in Kiev in 2014.
Russia for years has been the only side pushing for political settlement in the Eastern Ukraine by way of implementing Minsk agreements, endorsed by the UN Security Council.
On the verge of the imminent full scale military onslaught by the Kiev authorities on Donbass, the government of Russia made serious proposals in December, 2021, to the US and Nato which would have provided security guarantees for Russia, Ukraine, and Europe, as well as safeguarded the rights of the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine.
That was not an ultimatum, but an invitation for a responsible and serious dialogue.
It was deliberately ignored, leaving Russia with the only choice to use military means to defend people of Donbass and ensure national security interests of Russia.
Even after the special military operation commenced we have negotiated in April 2022 an agreement to end the conflict, which again had been torpedoed by the Western pressure on Zelenskyy.
This is the stark reality which makes it abundantly clear that peace in Ukraine has never been a plan for the West.
As to the prospects for peace in Ukraine now and the role the US administration could play in it — it is still early to tell.
At least, we see willingness on the part of president Trump to work towards ending this conflict, which might give peace a chance.
Judging by what they say now in European capitals, including Dublin, not everybody welcomes that chance, sticking to the failed war effort in Ukraine.
When the terrible truth sinks in, and that should not take too long, Americans will rue the day they put their trust in a convicted felon, who is both unpredictable and unhinged.
Many of those who voted for US president Trump have already realised they have been betrayed.
The Oval Office is occupied by a man who, by accident or design, seems to be cuddling up to a dictator, Vladimir Putin, who now expects to hold on to stolen property.
Just last week Trump’s vice president was at the Munich Security Conference lecturing, criticising, and lashing out at European leaders, about democracy and immigration.
This is a bit rich coming from the VP of a country where an armed and violent mob tried to overturn a legitimate election by storming the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021.
While the mob called for the then VP, Mike Pence, to be hanged, people died and law officers were injured, and yet Vance’s boss, whose rabble-rousing words encouraged the attackers, has now pardoned all those criminals involved.
So much for America’s moral compass, and yet they now choose to lecture the rest of the world on what’s right and wrong.
A democracy must be able to defend itself against extremists who try to destroy it.
Ireland has always depended on the old enemy to keep an eye out for us when it comes to security, and we are fortunate to punch above our weight in Europe, so down the road a new European army seems likely.
We may be a small country but we know what democracy looks like.
Also there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor popular, but one’s conscience tells one it’s the right thing to do.
The Taoiseach’s voice needs to be heard in the White House.
Mr Martin has been very clear on his foreign policies, particularly regarding Israel and Gaza, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The world is changing with Trump’s election and not in a good way. As Martin Luther King said: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
JD Vance outlined the US’s digital policy at the AI Action Summit in Paris on February 11 and confirmed it at the Munich Security Conference on February 14.
Aided and abetted by the big tech companies, it can be summarised as a policy for economic growth based on AI-powered digital platforms with minimal regulation and no content control.
The implications are alarming, suffice to say it marks a new era of technological geopolitics dominated by digital empires whose thirst for data will be insatiable.
Data colonisation will be the new reality. Big Tech companies and governments will extract, ‘appropriate’, and monetise vast amounts of data about a country’s citizens, unfettered by regulations.
Many countries and their citizens will become data-dependent on foreign entities who will maximise their power and profits through data-driven AI applications with minimal benefits for the original data owners.
It’s a wake-up call for Europe and Ireland in particular.
After 800 years as a colony we should be to the forefront in leading coordinated actions to prevent a repeat of the exploitation and dehumanisation we experienced over the centuries.
The call on the European Union by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy last weekend to form its own “armed forces of Europe” is disturbing, but not really much of a surprise.
It is not the first time that those directly involved in the war in Ukraine have argued for a militarisation of the EU.
Indeed, cooperation between the EU and the Nato military alliance has also become more blatant since the beginning of that conflict.
The position of Ukrainians is easy to understand as their country is under attack by Russian imperialism.
However, militarism rooted in despair cannot be allowed to shape the future of Europe.
The last thing the world needs is another military superpower and the citizens of the EU have never endorsed such a radical development.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin immediately rejected president Zelenskyy’s call for a European army, but he may need to be more definitive in his response.
“A European army isn’t on the agenda in that sense,” Mr Martin said in Munich.
But what exactly does he mean by “in that sense”?
Or was this simply a poor choice of words?
One hopes so because the EU has no democratic mandate from anywhere to develop an army in any sense.
