Stephen Collins: La neutralità dell’Irlanda è ampiamente considerata uno scherzo. È ora di diventare reali
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2025/10/31/stephen-collins-irelands-neutrality-is-widely-regarded-as-a-joke-its-time-to-get-real/
di nitro1234561
45 commenti
In fairness the world has changed
Wholly agree.
For years I’ve always rolled my eyes whenever someone mentions (and a lot of the time even believes) our neutrality. We are quite simply the world’s largest aircraft carrier servicing the US and UK. Plus we constantly poke bears with our international comments and stances. We could very well get a rude awakening someday.
Just for context, there are twice as many loyalist paramilitaries as there are Irish soldiers. How do you maintain order in a United Ireland like that?
Taking defence serious doesn’t mean being a warmonger, or being dragged into imperial ventures.
I think you have to be able to defend your neutrality too. You can’t really be neutral if a stiff breeze could take over the country without help from EU/UK.
It’s also embarrassing that we’re rolling in money but it’s the French/UK/Norway telling us what’s happening off our coast. It won’t happen overnight but we need to contribute more at least in terms of awareness and surveillance of our shores.
Also thinking down the line if there is a United Ireland, we’ll need a well equipped army as we’ll no longer be sharing the duty with the UK. With the way the UK is going too, it could end up like the US and they start cutting resources to defense outside their territories.
I’d say nobody is expecting us to turn into an elite force, but we should start pulling our own weight. We’re seen an some economic force (inflated or not) but then we’re asking other countries to chip in way more on keeping everyone safe.
Another waffling article about militarisation. There’s a distinction to be made between we need an orgainsed military equipped to defend ourselves, and we need to join NATO immediately, spend a significant part of the budget on military equipment from America and then go an die in China/Iran/Venezuela.
I struggle to care what outsiders think, I’m comfortable in the knowledge my loved ones won’t be going off to die in wars
> There is a complacent assumption that Ireland will never be attacked, and that if it is then others, particularly the UK, will come to our aid.
I agree that it’s complacent and self serving, but is it untrue?
It’s pretty clear FFFG view our neutrality as a excuse not to invest in defence and nothing more.
Even if we invested our entire tax take for the next 20 years, 99% of potentially threatening countries could overrun us in a day.
Throughout history, Irish resistance has only been successful through guerrilla warfare. Call it terrorism if you like, to me they’re freedom fighters. That’s our only successful method of resistance and we shouldn’t be ashamed of it.
We shouldn’t be peer-pressured into funding the military industrial complex. Of course they want us to buy their weapons, they can F off. 80% of the conflicts in the world are because they went around pillaging. They can fund it themselves.
Wow I wasn’t aware we’d actually been living in a simulacrum for the last century.
Thank god we have visionary thinkers like STEPHEN COLLINS to smash through the doors of perception.
Let them keep laughing, laughing and sending their children to die
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My mate Larry, his cousin, said he heard Micko say you’re a sap.
These war hawks really need to up their game. I don’t care what Stephen Collins’ mates think of us.
Chicken hawks on the march, Ireland is pro neutrality, why not put it to a referendum and silence the loud minority,
Can’t wait for the arm chair generals to arrive now banging on about protecting our country from Russia 😂
Ireland not giving 5% of its gdp to NATO and bring involved in whatever disaster the US wants to shit on the world is regarded a joke.
Ireland needs to increase defence spending.
We need a proper military to defend this country.
A joke only in the sense that we’ve been facilitating US and Israeli war crimes.
Collins is a blue shirt absolute. He is not balanced, erudite or honest as a journalist. His copy is awful and he has no imagination or track record.
The Australians are building some interesting air and submarine AI drones. I think we should look into buying those. We have a shortage of skilled manpower so more ships and planes won’t help.
This all just seems like the makers of weapons want us to spend all our money on them.
A lot of red herrings in the comments.
A better equiped 21st century defence force =/= NATO membership. Honestly it makes that less likely because right now if we did end up with sabotage or air space incursions it’s the UK that will respond.
We have no air defence. Defence.
We have no drone defences.
And as rightly mention we have fewer army service people than there are loyalist paramilitaries in the 6 counties.
No one likes tge fact that we’re heading into uncertain territory but the only way we protect our neutrality is by not being beholden to the US/UK/EU militarily.
We need to protect our own waters and our own skies or our independence is bs and functionally under threat in a major power conflict.
Lockheed Martin spon-con
Triple lock should go. It’s functionally neutering giving the veto aggressors have. We should aim to be truly neutral by having the capability to defend our economic and territorial interests, water and skies, while simultaneously growing & developing the ranger wing, and a general domestic force capable of extensive guerilla resistance. Modernise and properly fund the defence forces. Make it a good/better career for those interested. I think moving towards the nato guideline of 5% of spending over x few years is reasonable. The excuses of a poor nation don’t hold water anymore as does the attitude of ah sure be grand who’d want to invade us anyway we’re sound. In times of peace prepare for war, in our case defensive capability.
Our neutrality is a joke, because it’s a world war/cold war tradition, not a law or a constitutional requirement, and most of the country has no clue what it actually means anyways (Thinking the triple lock is relevant to it being the top item here).
Then we get to the RAF/French (NATO) jets patrolling our skies because buying our own is somehow unbecoming of a neutral country.
We need to figure out what we want; most of the few people who have an opinion on this matter are stuck half a century in the past on it.
It is if we can’t defend it. And it doesn’t help when the no-to-NATO Anti-war (aka pro Russia) tankies have a meltdown
If NATO does go to war with Russia, I don’t think it matters if we’re neutral or not to Russia, if they see a benefit in taking this island then they will try. Would it not be better to at least have NATO protection/membership?
Oh a new week, a new “let’s bin neutrality” article.
Absolute ludicrous how many of these there are.
“It’s time to get real”
“We need to have a grown up conversation”
“We need to be sensible about…”
The catchphrases of some fucking joker who’s about to throw out some ill thought out nonsense that they can’t make an actual cogent argument in favour of so resort to implied insults to the reader.
As long as the chief proponents of ending neutrality are prepared to face down the Russians on the front lines then I’m all for it.
Ireland just pretends to be Military neutral, we are not neutral politically.
Russia, China etc do not view Ireland as a little friendly neutral state on the edge of Europe.
They are not out friends either. European democratic nations and the West in general are our friends and allies.
It’s well beyond time we stepped up to the reality plate, join NATO and take an equal part in European defence, as well as invest in our our defensive capabilities.
If we cannot patrol our own skies and water we are not neutral.
If we rely on other countries for the surveillance and in turn defence of our borders we are not neutral.
The only way this country can be an honest broker and actually neutral is to have a sufficient defence system that we can stand on our own to feet.
That is just a fact, we cannot be neutral if we rely on other countries to keep our borders monitored.
It’s beyond a joke and I can’t understand how people who are in favour of neutrality could have voted for Connolly.
look i don’t honestly give 2 fucks about how the rest of the world sees us their opinion of us is irrelevant
the only thing that should matter is what do we think of ourself are we happy with our Neutrality policy or is it time to make some changes
my personal take is i want us to resume not getting our nose stuck in foreign conflicts and i also want our Navy Army and Airforce to be improved so we can stop relying on the UK to monitor our Airspace and Coastal waters we don’t need a huge fleet of Battleships but we do need the capability to monitor everything crossing into our Airspace and territorial waters
How much do these lobbyists pay the independent(rag mag that old people read) to write these articles to discredit neutrality
Stephen Collins is largely regarded as a joke. I’d say get real, Stephen, but he doesn’t know what that means.
Yes I’m speculating. But you’re free to believe Hitler would respect our sovereignty. My view is Hitler was a very evil man with no respect for the sovereignty of other countries.
There is a push to militarise across europe, with some talk of conscription. No one wants this, so don’t fall for it. No one is coming to invade Ireland, there are many better things to spend the money on.
Stevo comes from a position that it’s better to prepare for war than to invest in peace. As for people laughing at us well Ireland has a history of colonials and others laughing at us but we get over that no problem
Collins is taking Connolly’s victory well then
https://preview.redd.it/1l03iqdkdiyf1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8b49f9d0feaf3b9ad308c774bc2683989119b246
Don’t make me tap the sign again…
We aren’t neutral.
As Collins points out we contribute to the EU budget per capita second highest going to support Ukraine including military spending.
We’ve sent both civilian and military equipment to Ukraine, helped train soldiers for them.
Oddly our government defines neutrality as training Ukrainan soldiers but not Ukrainan snipers, as sending air defense radar but not air defense launchers.
Make of that whatever you will but, somehow I don’t think Moscow views that as a neutral point between its colonial war of genocide and Ukraine’s justified right of defense.
Why on earth we would want to be in a neutral point between Bucha in June 2021 and June 2022 is beyond me.
Estonia has as its lead NATO country the UK defending it. Estonia despite this fully backed Ireland on the Brexit border. Estonia population roughly that of county Dublin borders Belarus. Belarus was a staging ground for the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
And Estonia was subjected to Soviet attempts to subdue them with military force at the end of the Soviet Union, as well as having a sizeable Russian speaking minority which Russia is eager to exploit.
Why is it we seem to seek support from Estonia on protecting our own borders but will give them nothing in return on protecting their borders?
How must the haughty lectures about NATO imperialism sound to Estonian ears ?
Our “neutrality” is ill defined, self righteous, nobody understands it not even us. We expect to take security and solidarity with one hand and give nothing back with the other hand.
It really is time for Ireland to grow up. If Greece and Turkey who have come to military conflict over Cyprus can coexist in NATO, why is it Ireland and the UK cannot?
If a UI happens there’s simply no way the absence of Ireland from the big boys table can go on, and I rather think even before that we should have a sober look at whose interests are really served by our absence from NATO, Ireland’s or Russia’s ?
dude emaon de Balera i think said we would be destroyed, soo i think we should just stay neutral
Irish neutrality always has been and always will be elastic and selective.
To understand its complexity, one has to understand its originator De Valera’s — who was also elastic and selective when it came to his definition of what neutrality really meant for the Irish.
We are still occupied by a NATO country ffs
It’s not a joke to Irish people, not in our name.