Ireland and the Neutrality Problem
The combination of recent Russian naval exercises in Ireland’s exclusive economic zone and a damning report on the Commission of the Defence Forces has led to rumblings in government in recent days of a potential of a policy change to Ireland’s stance on neutrality. Ireland currently holds a policy of military neutrality only. This means that it is free to take political sides on issues on the international stage without the military obligations that other nations do. This line is becoming more blurred as time goes on between these two spheres especially as the world is beginning to enter a new age of great power competition with both Russia and China on the rise.
The history of Irish neutrality is a complex topic that is very contextual to the history of the nation. To briefly summarize, Ireland gained its independence in 1922 from Britain while still remaining part of the commonwealth. In 1937 a new constitution was written by Eamon De Valera which undid the Anglo-Irish treaty and turned Ireland into a Republic. Two years later following an aggressively expansionist foreign policy Nazi Germany invaded Poland which sent the world into a second World War. The “Emergency” as it was termed in Ireland was the first big test for the fledgling nation. De Valera decided to remain neutral throughout the war as he did not want to embolden factions of the IRA that would see intervening in the war as siding with Britain as the civil war was still in very recent memory. Despite the on paper neutrality Ireland still chose a side. Many actions were taken such as allowing British pilots who were shot down or crashed in Irish airspace to escape over the border to Northern Ireland whereas German pilots were imprisoned or providing meteorological data to the allied planners of D-day. As the war ended and a new era began with a threat coming from the Communist block Ireland continued this policy of neutrality. The beginning of the Troubles in the 60s ensured that the focus of defence policy remained on domestic terrorist threats rather than global security matters that the rest of the West had the luxury of being concerned with. However somewhere along the line this went from being a Realpolitik concern to being wrapped up in anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist language such as “Ireland being a nation that has never invaded another”.
Two watershed moments happened for Ireland however in the 90s that would alter Ireland’s course to what it had been since the formation of the state. The first of these was the beginning of the Celtic Tiger in 1995. Large amounts of foreign direct investment began to arrive in the country in the finance, tech and medical sectors from American multinationals who wanted a highly educated, English speaking workforce with access to the EU single market. Despite setbacks in 2008 it has left Ireland in a much better place with Irish GDP sitting around 49 billion in 1990 and has increased to 418 billion in 2020. The second moment that came in 1998 with the signing of the Good Friday Agreement which brought the Troubles to an end and significantly improved Anglo-Irish relations. These two things coupled with the general state of the world in the 90s as the Soviet Union collapsed and it was seen that the West won the cold war. Ireland was the only nation in the West that managed to continue to grasp onto the 90s optimism that is personified by Francis Fukuyama’s “The End of History and the Last Man” that the rest of the west had ripped away from them on September the 11th 2001 and the beginning of the Global War on Terror. Ireland continued a path of economic development that has allowed it to change from a mostly agricultural nation to the global economic powerhouse that it is today.
This leads us to the current situation that Ireland faces. The defeat of ISIS in Iraq and Syria in 2019 and the catastrophe that was Afghanistan have signalled the end of the era of the Global War on Terror and the power that Russia and China are wielding on the world stage is signifying a move toward another era of great power competition similar to the Cold War. The significant improvements to Irish society have not gone unnoticed on the world stage. Our economic power, geography and neutrality have left us as a prime target for Russian power projection. Ireland being sandwiched between the world’s largest superpower and one of the world’s strongest second-rate powers has left Ireland to not worry as much as other nations about international security. Despite this we do still have vulnerabilities. Ireland has traditionally been seen by outside actors as a backdoor to the UK, Ireland’s economy is heavily reliant on the US finance and tech sectors, and Ireland’s rank as second highest GDP per capita in the EU means that projection of power toward Ireland can simultaneously attack US, UK, and European interests for a low cost. Severe weaknesses have been shown in Ireland’s defence capabilities in recent years. Probing has been occurring from both the Russian military and intelligence apparatus such as Russian nuclear bombers probing Irish airspace, Russian intelligence agents doing reconnaissance on fiberoptic cables that connect Europe and the US off the Irish coast and the recent naval war-games that have been taking place just outside of Irish waters. Ireland’s place as a finance and tech hub make it a prime target to conduct Cyber operations and as such the hack of the HSE despite coming from cyber criminals highlights structural weaknesses with the Irish system.
The Defence Forces commission outlines these challenges that the nation is facing from a security perspective with one of the main concerns being the increase in great power competition. The rest of the west has been pivoting to deal with these issues and as such the lines between certain organizations are becoming more blurred by the day. NATO being a traditionally military organization is starting to expand into the economic realm to deal with the issues presented by China and the EU which was traditionally an economic block is moving toward a policy of closer defence integration in recent years with the spate of Islamist extremist terrorism in the 2010s from ISIS and the continued Russian aggression since the annexation of Crimea in 2014. This leaves Ireland in a strange place as one of the few neutral nations that is also part of the EU. The recent activities off Ireland’s shores have proven that Ireland is a weak link that is being exploited to challenge not only Irish interests but other western nations. As such the commission recommends bringing Irish defence capabilities in line with NATO standards such as bolstering the Irish Navy to being able to operate 12 ships and creating a fleet of 12-24 jet fighters to police Irish airspace. These outlines are vitally important and need to be put in place however it is apparent that Ireland has been singled out as the weak point of the North Atlantic coast line. Military spending will not solve this in and of itself. Despite having NATO standards it still misses the most important advantage of NATO which is interoperability with other military forces. Even if NATO membership is not wanted there are ways that Ireland’s place in the NATO partnership for peace program or the EU can be leveraged to create this interoperability. In order to tackle this issue we need to stop looking at the situation as one nation protecting its waters and borders but put ourselves in Russia’s shoes and see it as a sphere of influence that spans from Norway to the Mediterranean. The advantage that the West has is with its shared cultural and political ties give shared interests. It is important to provide a unified front against aggression as is being learned on the continent at the moment with the situation that Germany is in when dealing with sanctioning Russia and the Nordstream 2 pipeline. It is important that there is a political shift that works to create a Grand Strategy for Ireland that begins to answer some of these problems.
Ireland has often used its neutral status to bury its head in the sand and avoid questions around global security however it is becoming harder to avoid as time goes on as Realpolitik continues to grind against tradition. The Russian intervention in Ukraine in 2014 proved one thing definitively and that is that the Kremlin does not distinguish between political and military neutrality. As Ukraine moved to join the EU Russia treated it in the same way it would have if it moved toward NATO membership. The distinction between these two different institutions may be seen as a massive difference for Dublin policy makers but Moscow sees it as two sides of the same coin. This is also compounded by the previously stated fact that NATO and the EU are beginning to enter each others spheres of influence. Ireland as such has a choice to make which is either political and military neutrality or political and military engagement. Although on paper the first option may seem like the better option, however, it may actually come at a higher cost. As is seen with other neutral nations such as Switzerland the potential of not having enemies comes with the certainty of not having allies. The cost of this is ensuring that the nation is always prepared for hostilities such as instituting the draft, large amounts of civilian gun ownership and even as recent as 2014 every strategically important Swiss bridge being rigged with explosives so they could deny them to an attacker. A neutrality that does not take these steps ends up in the situation that Belgium faced in 1940 when the worst case scenario happens. We can not simultaneously rely on the Royal Air force to patrol our skies, talk about our responsibilities to Europe or have massive investment in the tech sector that has massive security concerns with the modern state of cyber-warfare while claiming neutrality. It is a binary decision and the longer we remain with one foot in one world and one in the other we will remain unprepared.
It remains to be seen if the political will exists in the country to actually admit the situation that the country faces. A combination of Irish nationalist rhetoric and a government that has left security matters on the back burner for years could be a large obstacle to overcome. The need for public buy in also compounds this problem. The Irish public can often turn their nose up at the rest of the West for the actions it carries out around the world. There is often an air of superiority that is held looking at the US and Britain. The latter case often being tinged with a disdain that arises from Irish nationalism. The reality is that because in ways the nations around us have gotten their hands dirty it has allowed us to keep ours clean. From the conquests of Nazi Germany to the threat of Global Communism and Radical Jihadism our friends and geography have allowed us to maintain that distance. The youth vote will be tinged with an element of trendy left wing internet activism that comes with a veneer of anti-imperialist rhetoric but often is an excuse for isolationism. On the other hand the older vote is steeped in tradition, civil war politics and political localism. Both of these could prove to be a challenge. The reality is that if Ireland wants to be a global nation it is going to have to start to take an active interest in global matters and seriously engage with these issues. It is true that the Defence Forces and Department of Foreign Affairs do carry out good work on the world stage but a political attitude shift needs to change both in the voting populous and government. It is impossible to have a 21st century global progressive population and economy but with a foreign policy that is hampered by being constitutionally bound to the 1950s. As this era of great power competition continues Ireland will become more of a target if it can not get security concerns in order. This makes this issue vital to the nations future and as such needs to be engaged with seriously rather than thrown on the back burner to deal with short term problems.