Fergus Finlay: Ireland’s neutrality served us well — but now it’s time to move on
Donald Trump, right, meets with Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office at the White House, Friday, Feb. 28, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/ Mystyslav Chernov)
Our military neutrality effectively ended last week. It happened in the course of an hour, when Volodymyr Zelenskyy was forced to stand up for himself and his country against two schoolyard bullies and was then thrown out of the White House.
From that moment on, we have had no choice but to take sides. Something will be cobbled together, no doubt, to pretend that all is good in the trans-Atlantic world. But everyone knows the world has changed irrevocably now.
And whatever steps Europe has to take to strengthen its own security and defence, we have to be a whole-hearted partner. It means, in all probability, more taxes and higher spending. And greater risk. And there’s no choice.
Over the weekend our government announced a firm plan to end the so-called “triple lock”. The triple lock prevents Ireland taking part in any military activity outside our shores unless it’s occasioned by a United Nations mandate. We’re now removing the requirement for UN sanction from the triple lock. That’s obvious, since no UN sanction can ever be agreed without Russia having the final say.
At the same time the government has flagged its intention to buy a number of combat aircraft for the Defence Forces and base them at Shannon.
None of this, government spokespeople insist, has anything at all to do with Ireland’s long tradition of military neutrality. They say that because they reckon they have to. All hell will break out if Taoiseach or Tánaiste says anything capable of being interpreted as an end to neutrality.
We need to get beyond that. We need to recognise that in the world we face now, our precious neutrality serves nothing but vanity.
I don’t find it easy to say that. I have believed all my adult life that Ireland can be at its best in the world when it steers clear of military alliances, when it seeks to “devote” itself, in the words of our Constitution, to the ideal of “peace and friendly co-operation amongst nations founded on international justice and morality”.
By and large over the years we’ve been first to arrive at the table when peacekeepers were needed, while always refusing to join any fighting forces. That has served us well, and it’s arguable that it has served the world well, because we have sought to exercise decent moral authority to act as peacemakers.
That hasn’t always been easy. I worked in our Department of Foreign Affairs when butchers like Karadžić and Mladić were carrying out their ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, and especially in Srebrenica. There were peacekeepers there then, trying with an inadequate mandate to protect the men, women and children of the area.
In less than two weeks, while the world watched, the butchers of Bosnia ordered the peacekeepers out, piled thousands of women and children on to buses and out of Bosnia to God knows where, and then systematically murdered nearly 9,000 men and boys. Some were beheaded, to save on bullets. All were thrown into mass graves.
Ireland was actively involved in arguing for safe corridors in Yugoslavia, in the fond belief that if Srebrenica and its people were placed under the direct protection of the UN all would be well. Karadžić and Mladić laughed at us and saw it as a licence to attack an essentially unarmed population.
Despite our involvement, despite our support for the UN, despite our horror at what was happening, we stayed neutral then. I probably drafted some of the speeches that justified that position in those days. I couldn’t do it now.
So our Taoiseach is off to the States for Paddy’s Day. Of course he is, and of course he has to go. And while he’s there, especially if he’s invited to the Oval Office, he has to be courteous and civilised.
He’s not going to tick off Donald Trump, or JD Vance or Elon Musk (or his children) or anyone else who is in the room. And he’s not going to volunteer to tell the President that he is totally wrong, that Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a hero and Vladimir Putin is a liar and a war criminal.
Of course he isn’t. But if, perchance (and who knows?), he’s put under pressure to agree with the monstrous betrayal of Ukraine being perpetrated by Trump, he must make Ireland’s position clear. We are for Ukraine. We will do whatever a small nation can do to stand with Ukraine. And with Europe.
That die is cast now. The President of the Free World has just resigned. He has just announced that he is handing over whatever leadership role he had and has decided instead to align himself and his great country with today’s leading global butcher.
I have no idea what’s behind that. I may be a fool, but I see no ideology at work here. In fact, I think it would be impossible to put the words ideology and Donald Trump in a coherent sentence. There’s no thought process behind it, at least in his head, there are just the malignant effects of an overwhelmingly narcissistic set of impulses. And possibly financial corruption.
He loves strong men because he was reared believing that only strong men could generate fear. Last November the American reporter Bob Woodward, interviewed on CNN, quoted Trump as saying “Real power is … I even don’t like to use the word … but real power is fear.”
Trump believes you have to scare people, and that’s when you’re powerful, Woodward added.
Whatever the reason, the wannabe autocrat has become the autocrat’s apprentice. And isn’t it extraordinary that the opposition to that in his own country has become essentially supine. In any other democracy his actions and behaviours over the last month or so would have united the opposition in a demand for resignation. In the United States, where there is already only one opposition party, he is getting a free ride.
The thing we can never forget is that the most powerful impulse in the world is the desire to be free. That desire can only be beaten down, and maybe not forever, by terror and suppression.
That’s why Vladimir Putin imprisons, tortures and kills anyone who stands up to him. That’s why Volodymyr Zelenskyy deserves the admiration and thanks of the rest of the world. He is fighting for all of us, in one way or another.
It was probably too soon, I suppose, but I would have loved to have seen Micheál Martin in London on Sunday at that security conference of the real leaders of democracy now. It would have been shocking to us, perhaps, but he would have been welcome there and it would have made a real statement.
The statement we need to make is simple. We have to stand up now. Anything we can contribute to the security and defence of Europe is a contribution to freedom everywhere now. Fine words and humanitarian contributions, as important as they are, are no longer enough. We have to join the fight.
