Neutrality does not require relinquishing our capacity for self-defence

The mass build-up of troops by Russia on Ukraine's borders and implied threat of invasion in recent weeks brought clarity to Europe's security situation.

It has also made clear some understandings and misconceptions in Ireland about defence.

Ireland has a different geographical situation to the countries along the European Union’s eastern fringe, brave and embattled nations caught on a landmass between greater powers that have warred for centuries.

Our island status affords us a certain distance and a certain insulation.

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But the principle at stake is very much of direct concern to Ireland and its present interests and reality, not least in relation to our larger neighbour.

With the annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014, Moscow reintroduced to Europe a practice that Ireland has very good reason to hope was past: that larger states can redraw the boundaries and determine the future of smaller states irrespective of the preferences of the local population, by exerting their greater strength.

Ukraine’s national policy should be for its people to determine. But what Russia has been asserting is that the Ukrainian people are not free to decide this themselves. Moscow’s preferences must be taken into account – or else.

The British RAF defends Irish air space because we do not have the capacity to do so, meaning that our air space is de facto Nato-patrolled

It’s colonial, imperialist thinking, but not so often recognised as such when it comes from a non-western source.

This is partly due to the impact of the disastrous United States-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq on public thinking in Ireland, which has been profound.

These misadventures discredited the western security alliance, and the dishonesty employed to make the case to invade Iraq in particular has ingrained public suspicion towards whatever such powers say about security threats.

Inappropriate lens

To this day, conflicts of all kinds are interpreted in Ireland as though they echo these events, a lens that is usually inappropriate and can actually prevent good understanding, particularly with a global security situation now shaped by the retreat of the US, rather than its advance.

This history has helped to form the idea in Irish public discourse that defence spending necessarily means purchasing offensive capabilities. Relatedly, investment in defence is portrayed as inherently contrary to the principle of neutrality, in and of itself.

Both ideas are false.

Europe has many examples of neutral countries with substantial abilities to defend themselves, whether Austria, Finland or Switzerland. Neutrality does not require the relinquishment of the national capacity for self-defence.

Indeed the opposite may be true. An inability to defend our national interests endangers neutrality by making us reliant on, and de facto co-opted within, the security positions of our neighbours and allies.

The starkest example of this is that the British RAF defends Irish air space because we do not have the capacity to do so, meaning that our air space is de facto Nato-patrolled, despite the substantial public support for neutrality and therefore non-alignment with such alliances.

In a way this is not the most helpful example, as the idea of fighter jets patrolling the skies fits with the caricature of defence spending drawn by those most opposed to it.

False equation

The false equation of defence capabilities with offensive assets is a narrow idea of defence that overlooks the most important areas of defence for Ireland, namely the ability to patrol its fishing zone, and cyber defence.

It's hard enough to make the political case to increase spending on facilities that the Irish public supposedly does want, never mind controversial areas such as defence

Ireland has developed a digital society without the required security to prevent the population’s data being stolen and passed to scammers, as happened with the Health Service Executive hack last year. Key infrastructure of all kinds is increasingly digitalised and vulnerable to remote attack, and we can’t do much to protect our tech industry either, which accounts for about 13 per cent of GDP.

There are many motivations for bad actors to attack such assets: to gain information, to extract ransoms, for economic rivalry, to destabilise and distract.

Neutral countries are in no way exempt from being targeted, and have been throughout Europe, including by state actors. But Ireland does not need to be vulnerable here. Strong cyber security is something that small states can do well.

Relying on international goodwill to protect our interests is a policy choice. It comes with risks and benefits, and we should be clear-sighted about it.

Of course there is no shortage of areas in need of public spending in Ireland. It’s hard enough to make the political case to increase spending on facilities that the Irish public supposedly does want, never mind controversial areas such as defence.

To make a household analogy, it would of course be nice if we could keep all our money for food, clothes and the Netflix subscription, and skip the cost of insurance and a house alarm.

But that’s not the world we live in.