OPINION: Masters of War or Defenders of Peace?

Unlike in many other countries, we seldom see uniformed military personnel walking our streets or on public transport. We have a kind of ‘hidden’ army that stays away from the public eye and surfaces only in emergencies. During the bus strikes of the 1970s army lorries were pressed into service to bring people to work. At the height of the Northern Ireland civil war, the army and An Garda Síochána patrolled the border. They protect cash deliveries for banks. But mostly, they stay out of sight.
We become aware of our defence forces when they are deployed abroad on highly visible international peacekeeping missions. In my teens I recall attending the state funeral of the soldiers who tragically lost their lives in the the Congo at the Niemba Ambush on November 8, 1960. While working in Kosovo in 2004, I met Irish members of the Kosovo Force (KFOR) peace-keeping force and was proud of their professionalism. What our defence forces lack in numbers, they more than make up in terms of training and expertise.
A key reason for the lack of visibility of our armed forces is that it is a small establishment that is run on the cheap. Very cheap. The average expenditure on defence in the EU is 1.3 percent of GDP. Expenditure is highest in the three Baltic States (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) at 2.2 percent of GDP, a reflection of how threatened these small states feel as they face across their borders with Russia. It is lowest in Ireland, at 0.2 percent of GDP. (Yes, the decimal point is in the correct place.)
But, I hear you say, why would we need a larger defence force? Although in the EU, we share no border with any potentially threatening state. The British are probably more anxious to get rid of responsibility for Northern Ireland than they are to invade us. And in the words of Bob Dylan’s Vietnam-era song, as a nation we do not aspire to be ‘Masters of War’. Rather, we aspire to be ‘Defenders of Peace’ and share the peaceful aims of the European Nordic States (Sweden and Finland), who have long remained neutral in the face of global military alliances.
Oops! Sweden and Finland have just abandoned their long-standing stance of neutrality and joined Nato, a decision strongly supported within these peace-loving states. Proximity to the Russian border and observation of the horrors being perpetrated by Russia in Ukraine, with prospects of that horror flooding over their borders, tends to concentrate minds wonderfully.

Different world
A key reason that Éamon de Valera gave in support of Irish neutrality during World War II was that ‘small states should stay out of the conflicts of big powers’. As an EU member and in an age of nuclear weapons, inter-continental ballistic missiles and cyber warfare, de Valera’s reasoning no longer makes sense. Nato, a combination of the military establishments of North American and European states, was founded in 1949 to protect a war-torn European mainland. It was needed to prevent what Churchill called the USSR-imposed Iron Curtain (‘from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic’) from being pushed further west. From 1949 until the collapse of the USSR in 1990, there was a stalemate between Nato and the Warsaw Pact.
We live in a radically different world today. The EU is the largest of four global economic blocs (USA, Russia, China and the EU) but the only one not a unified state. It may have almost achieved a common currency, but a common army has proved unattainable. However, the existential threat posed by Russia, combined with the extraordinarily hostile attack by the US on European democratic values, has brought the military defence issue back on the EU agenda.
Since the Treaty of Rome in 1956, Europe has been gradually evolving and co-operating, initially in economic and business issues, but more recently consolidating a more political union. Some people like this evolution more than others, but progress is always by consensus rather than by coercion. Irish membership of the EU is the cornerstone of our prosperity. What we decide to do with that prosperity is a local political issue and should never be confused with the manifest benefits of the EU. Anti-EU rhetoric in Ireland often takes on a distinctly Trumpian tone.
The attack by the Trump administration on the democratic values of Europe and the attempt to exclude Europe from negotiations to end the tragic war in Ukraine has posed an existential challenge to the EU. Should the EU continue to rely on US support for the defence of Europe and the sovereignty of Ukraine, or should it move to form a more integrated EU defence force? EU decisions on defence self-sufficiency must now be faced.

The big picture
Currently, only three of our EU partners remain outside Nato: Austria, Malta and Cyprus. Austria and Malta have formal relations with Nato through the Partnership for Peace programme. The contentious partition of the island of Cyprus between Greek and Turkish communities explains its absence from Nato. Ireland has a minor Nato link through a Partnering Programme aimed at enhancing its capabilities.
I do not have complete confidence that our political leaders will see the big picture and plot a path for Ireland to move us from abject, neglectful, isolated security vulnerability to standing collegially with our EU partners in the face of external threats. Even a stance of armed neutrality like pre-Nato Sweden would be more honourable. But freeloading on any EU common defence force while loudly proclaiming our neutrality would be inexcusable.

John Bradley is a former ESRI professor and has published on the island economy of Ireland, EU development policy, industrial strategy and economic modelling.