That defence profile…

Curious that there should be complaints about the Chief of Staff meeting the Russian Ambassador.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney has spoken of his surprise that the Defence Forces Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Seán Clancy, met the Russian Ambassador to Ireland, Yury Filatov, last Friday.

The minister said he felt the meeting was ill-judged given the crisis in Ukraine, even though the Lieutenant General explained it was just one of a series of meetings he was holding with ambassadors having just taken on the new role of Chief of Staff.

Mr Coveney made the comments at tonight’s meeting of the Fine Gael parliamentary party.

I’m far from an apologist for Russia, but it’s difficult to determine precisely what was ill-judged about the meeting. It appears to be entirely routine and although the situation in Ukraine is serous, as of yet that has yet to step up a significant rung (though some of those arguing that Russian movements there are – ahem ‘defensive’ seem to protest too much).

But this piece on Sky is useful because it raises questions about responses. The piece notes that:

With Simon Coveney’s strong rebuke, Ireland has fired a verbal broadside at Russia – but Dublin knows it lacks the military muscle or legal grounds to do much else. The Russian plans to undertake a major naval exercise in Irish-patrolled waters are seen as provocative, in the context of the Ukraine crisis. But under international law, they’re not doing anything wrong.

And:

It’s understood the Russian exercise will take place approximately 150 miles (240km) off the County Cork coast.

This is outside Irish territorial waters, although inside the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone, which extends for 200 nautical miles. Ireland has responsibility for this maritime area and patrols it with naval ships and airplanes.

And:

Ireland’s foreign minister also conceded that “we don’t have the power to prevent this happening”, and that is true in several aspects.

Which are:

Just look at some of the numbers:

• The Irish Naval Service only has nine ships, and is in the middle of a staffing crisis. Crew numbers have dropped by 25% since 1998, and at times up to half the ships have been tied up due to staffing, COVID and mechanical issues. In November, it was reported that Ireland only had one ship ready to put to sea.

• The service does not possess any submarines or advanced underwater surveillance equipment.

• Ireland does not have any fighter jets. The Air Corps operates a total of eight Pilatus PC-9M aircraft. These are lightly-armed propeller-driven airplanes that are completely incapable of intercepting Russian military aircraft.

• Ireland effectively relies on Britain’s RAF to carry out those missions. In March 2020, RAF Typhoon jets were scrambled twice to monitor Russian Tupolev “Bear” bombers that had entered Irish-controlled airspace off the western coast.

• Ireland is the only country in the EU that doesn’t have a primary radar system. If planes switch off their transponders, which Russian jets routinely do, the Irish authorities simply cannot see them.

 Assume we had double or triple the number of ships, that we had a submarine or three, that we had a wing of fast-jets. The cost-benefit ratio for all these is problematic, even on the terms articles like this present.

For a start were Russia to make any hostile moves it is worth considering that the peace loving Russian Navy has 352 active ships and 160,000 personnel on active duty. Their entirely pacific Air Force has just shy of 200,000 personnel and 4,509 aircraft (divided between 8 Bomber squadrons, 37 Fighter squadrons, 27 Attack Squadrons, 10 Attack and Reconnaissance Squadrons). Their Army has 280,000 personnel. Between them their armed forces are reaching up towards a million people – about a fifth of the population of this state. Let’s not forget their Airborne (72,000 paratroopers) and Strategic Rocket Forces. For yes, Russia is a nuclear armed state.

What multiples of our present forces would we need to deal with incursions into our airspace? And keep in mind that the United Kingdom despite having many more aircraft than ourselves still has to deal with precisely these issues. By the by the RAF has 832 operational aircraft. Yet that is not enough to prevent rather performative flights by Russian Air Force aircraft. As matters stand it seems implausible that the Russian aircraft would enter UK airspace, or Irish airspace either. Nor is this sort of performative activity restricted to the Russians.

But what of this state? As this post from way back when on the site notes even relatively wealthy states in the heart of Europe have found it difficult to provide around the clock air responses with fast jets.

What would fast jets do in response to the exercises off the west coast? They would fly towards them, circle some number of times, and then fly away. Perhaps they would remain on point surveilling the activities. But to what particular purpose What would our own flotilla do either? Steam out, stay there for a while and then steam back – actually that raises a question, are any of our vessels going to do that? Would having five or twenty make any great impact?

It seems to me there are better things we could be doing. A proper coast guard – we are an island nation. Perhaps some limited interception capability but no more than that. The one aspect of the report that strikes me as genuinely robust is the inability of the state to know through primary radar what the situation is in our airspace. That would be useful, and in the context of neutrality essential. But all that is a world away from what is playing out in the Irish media.