Military matters redux

Not sure I like Stephen Collins piece here in the IT from recently. Not for the broad thrust which – to my mind – argues that the right decision has been taken in relation to remaining within the EU, which is fine. And as he notes is strongly supported by polling. Remarkably strongly… something that bears further analysis…

A RedC poll commissioned by the Irish European Movement, which was published this week, contained some very interesting findings.
A whopping 88 per cent of people agreed that Ireland should remain a part of the EU despite the departure of the UK.
Support runs at 99 per cent among full-time students and 90 per cent among young and middle-aged people aged 18-44 years.

Nope, that’s all fair enough as Britain shuffles away in its ever increasingly right wing direction as Brexit looms. What isn’t though is this…

Even more interestingly, 57 per cent supported increased EU defence and security co-operation, even though the case for it has hardly been made.

For yes, Collins is exercised by the following:

For more than 40 years, Irish governments have been content to take all the benefits the European Union has to offer while remaining semi-detached from some of the big concerns that confront the rest of the bloc.
EU security and defence is just one issue on which Irish politicians have run a mile from for fear of having to confront redefining what neutrality means in the modern world.

Here’s the thing though. The instant that the EU puts overt pressure on us to abandon military neutrality is the instant we should reconsider our membership. It is as simple as that. This state has every right, rights written into treaties, to maintain that stance and rhetoric about the ‘modern world’ is entirely irrelevant. And it would be no harm for Collins to reflect upon the fact that in this ‘modern world’ Ireland isn’t the only ‘neutral’ within the EU. And in states like Austria as is reasonably well known there’s no popular support to change that situation.

He drags out the line:

When the State first applied to join the then EEC in the 1960s, then taoiseach Seán Lemass remarked that if Europe was worth joining it was worth defending.
By the time we actually joined, the issue was pushed to one side for fear of stoking up domestic political opposition to the accession process. Since then, almost everybody has hidden behind the empty formula of military neutrality.

But he well knows that for those inclined in the direction of such adventures there are supra-national entities such as NATO extant. Moreover what security cooperation (as distinct from military cooperation) is necessary can be engaged with in a manner that doesn’t infringe our neutrality.

What’s depressing is the sense that Collins has a view of the world where military engagement is central to national and international identity – where it becomes a fetishistic expression of modernity. The absurdity of this in material terms, in relation to this island, underscores the near irrelevance it has. Of course Ireland is fortunate due to location but that’s no small thing in itself. It’s not something to be dismissed or ignored but rather celebrated. We’re surely not been quite so fortunate in other respects given our location.

And another person follows on from Stephen Collins in arguing that Ireland should – in the aftermath of Brexit, change its policy on neutrality. Again, it’s not that Laffan is wrong throughout the piece she writes on certain issues, not least tax, but in the following she makes the same error Collins does, arguing as if the r27 are of one mind and one stance.

Moreover, a second sacred cow needs attention and that is the Republic’s policy of military neutrality.

And:

Irish policy in this regard was always conditioned by the safety of its geographical location.
However, the return of hard geopolitics in a world of Putin and Trump challenges European security and means that the State’s neutrality deserves sustained scrutiny.
The so-called triple lock which binds the State into a UN resolution before committing to the deployment of Irish troops does not do justice to the Irish Republic.
The consent of the Oireachtas should be sufficient for such a move, and the Republic should take full part in the further development of the EU’s security capacity.

Why? Again, what pressing urgency is there to do so? And furthermore what precisely does she think Ireland should or can do, or indeed the EU likewise?

For there’s another aspect to this. For all the rhetoric the idea of ‘hard geopolitics’ is actually underpinned by ‘soft power’, not military might. Assuming that it is indeed correct that the Russians are utilising cyberwarfare etc this is a sign not of a deterioration or their coming dominance but rather the constraints on the use of military means. I wouldn’t go so far as to suggest it is a sign of weakness, but it is a sign of limits.

And while it is entirely right that this state should engage in security, in the broad sense of the term, matters, the idea of engagement in military aspects is for the birds – and she ignores the reality that NATO is the vehicle of choice for most in regard to that. I see no reason to engage with joining them. So, we’ve nothing material to contribute. It is tokenism of the worst sort and it is not fit for purpose in relation to the actual challenges ahead. It is a diversion of the most useless sort and entirely unnecessary.