Quanto è preparata l’Irlanda per gli effetti a catena di una guerra futura?
https://www.thetimes.com/world/ireland-world/article/how-prepared-is-ireland-for-the-knock-on-effects-of-a-future-war-jdnfk7w0n?utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=ireland&utm_medium=story&utm_content=branded
di TimesandSundayTimes
41 commenti
Ireland’s decision to sign up to the European Union’s €150 billion weapons fund was greeted with typical fanfare last Friday when it was announced by Simon Harris. The move, the tanaiste said, would allow Ireland and other countries to streamline the procurement of arms and defence systems.
“I am determined to provide for the development of a full spectrum of Defence Force capabilities that will bring Ireland in line with other similar-sized European countries,” Harris added.
Europe is embarking on a mass rearmament because of the worsening security situation on its eastern borders and across the globe. The bloc announced the creation of a €150 billion fund called Security Action for Europe (Safe) in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the fact that America is no longer a reliable guarantor of European security as it turns its focus instead towards China, where the communist regime is building one of the largest militaries in the world.
Defence spending across the EU is surging, with Nato members last week pledging to allocate 5 per cent of their GDP to defence amid rising fears of a potential war on the continent. This marks a sharp increase from last year, when only 23 of the alliance’s 32 members were meeting the existing 2 per cent target. For its part, Ireland will spend €1.35 billion on defence this year, up €100 million on 2024, but amounting to only about 0.2 per cent of GDP.
Is this enough given Ireland’s vulnerability and stated position of neutrality? And is the country prepared for a coming war? The answer to both, in short, is no.
Truth is that we are the soft underbelly of Europe both in terms of armed conflict and cyber security. The days of “ara sure who would bother invading us” are over. We are a weakness in Europe. Some of the war gamed scenarios put forward and reasons for them are shocking.
This is nothing to do with neutrality.
I have colleagues in the security sector (I’m adjacent to this) on the continent and they are aghast at our lack of preparation and readiness. It’s beyond a meme at this stage. It’s high time something was done.
“We are spending €60 million on new technology we should have bought decades ago. The new maritime patrol aircraft we bought for €250 million have no anti-submarine kits because the department didn’t like the sound of anti- submarine warfare equipment,” one retired military officer said. ”
We are not a serious country.
We aren’t prepared.
One of the main reasons is that for decades there has been no votes in defence spending.
People have this feeling that we dont need to spend on defence and any penny spent on it should be spent on something else instead.
Should we improve food and energy security? Try to improve the sustainability of our indigenous industries? Prepare for the inevitable and predictable effects of climate change?
No! Let’s buy big guns that go pew pew pew! Planes with guns on! Big boats, big guns!
Judging by how long I have been waiting at this bus stop…
I can tell you, the answer is No.
Completely unprepared, we don’t even maintain a military stance sufficient enough to patrol the island properly.
I don’t think any country is truly prepared for war no matter how much they spend. Well equipped armies have failed on the battlefield countless of times.
I think the question could more so be how much can Ireland endure in the event of a global conflict.
I agree with the criticisms made by previous posters, but we have started, at long last, to move in the right direction. I think joining the European joint purchasing initiative will help, but we really have to up our game. A single squadron of fighter jets would set down a marker, but we have to get serious about retention. It should be prohibitively costly for the private sector to buy out trained personnel, as shown by the current ATC fiasco. And naval services have to be expanded further. Drone support is also vital. Like the UK, we should have less emphasis on ground troops compared to air and naval resources.
The question I want answered is, who would try take us over and what would it be like if they did?
We aren’t even recruiting enough service members. 3 of our 8 ships (half the total displacement) are tied up at dock because the navy doesn’t have enough people to crew them.
Lets start patrolling our waters with the ships we already have because The Emergencies 2.0 are gonna suck.
Look at world war 2. Denmark surrendered 8hrs into the German invasion.
If a world war broke out there are countries that surrender immediately. We are one. We will survive a war by bowing to whoever takes a look at us.
Most likely it would be the Brits or the US. We would have our politicians run the show but the foreign forces would be allowed to militaryly do what they want.
We would have a modern “emergency” with restrictions on fuel consumption. Farmers and industry 1st. Everyone else would be rationed fuel.
Food basics would be grand. Prices would be frozen on essentials.
Our defence strategy is the same as other small nations. Instant surrender to prevent bloodshed.
It is not a bad plan for a small nation.
Alternative is consistent significant spending on defense and some form of mandatory service so we would have a small standing army and huge reserves of people who can shoot a gun.
The shift would be monumental for a country with a population so against arming as we have
Ireland hasn’t had a stand-alone Minister for Defence since 2011. After Fine Gael got elected in 2011, the role was combined with the Minister for Justice. When Alan Shatter resigned (in much disgrace), the Minister for Defence role was simply merged into either the Taoiseach or Tanaiste’s office.
The Irish electorate has endorsed this approach 3 times now at General Election, in 2016, 2020 and 2024. Granted, FF/FG are receiving lower total % of votes each time, but if people actually cared about this, then addressing the issue would start with a stand-alone Minister for Defence role.
What utter horse shite.
“Be grand” is seriously the only approach – we can’t anticipate circumstances changing and how it’ll knock-on, we can only adapt when they do. There may be some rudimentary things we could do just in case, but honestly, any contingencies we put in place now probably won’t be suitable when the shape of what we’re facing becomes clear.
Great. We’ve converted one of our power stations to oil. We haven’t used our all our offshore gas supplies and we export most of our food. We’ll be grand.
https://preview.redd.it/y8gbzvddb9af1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=641b2eba77437da98ce8351d43b733424147f602
Aye we’ll be grand
It’ll be grand.
If Russia drops a nuke on GB whether we are neutral or not, we have had it! This won’t be WWII. We’ll all be suffering from radiation sickness.
Stop this war talk. We don’t get involved in that sorta thing. Anyway, there’s a bike shed we can all hide in.
Well, I’ve got a big stick and I’ve been practicing my battering grimace. I’d say pretty well prepared on a personal level.
Diversify and don’t join in on the arms race.
From what I can tell, our only plan if a Trumpian character comes to power in the UK is to simply hope that would never happens.
When’s the war starting?
Why is a disreputable/warmongering Murdoch outlet allowed to post freely on the sub?
If the sub is to have a list of disallowed outlets, all Murdoch ones aught to be on it.
We can’t even build the Children’s Hospital, all the money is drained. We are speaking of war.
The RA will have to reform.
Was this same level of shite going on during the Cold War?
What’s the constant need to imagine absolute worst case scenarios? Is it all arms lobbyists or something?
Are we prepared to back Nato and the EU with their support of the genocidal regime in Israel.
Our budget has €2.2bn for overseas aid this year, and our spend will be well over €1bn on housing for asylum seekers (nevermind the additional costs of supporting them), vs just €1.35bn on defense.
That shows you how much our current government cares about defense.
Ha!
The idiots leading this country aren’t even prepared for snow.
Very unprepared. But don’t worry, the likes of PBP will collaborate with the likes of Russia
It’ll just be another ‘emergency’
I ain’t dying for any of them fuck off 😂
They’re going switch the lights out and it’s going be like the purge 😂😂😂
Every bit as well prepared as we are for every other event that hits us, draw your own conclusions.
The effects of the last war and the present war in Gaza and Israel for the company I work for is that we have profited every time. All someone has to do is fire a rocket over there and we profit.
Grand I would say, as long as big companies keep coming to us for tech jobs and tax breaks.
Judging by the amount of food we are importing i would say we could be in some serious bother if one really kicks off ……
We will be grand, meaning we are f-cked.
Fully prepared. We’ll just pretend again that it’s not happening and call it The Emergency: Part 2.