Have the Ministers for Foreign Affairs and Defence, Brian Cowen and Michael Smith, been redefining our 'neutrality' again this week? Ben Tonra looks at the slippery meaning of that sacred cow
Uunder formal diplomatic and legal definitions, the Republic has never pursued a policy of permanent neutrality. Our membership of the United Nations from 1956 also makes any claim to neutrality questionable since, under the UN Charter, the Security Council may declare a threat to international security and may then require UN member-states to assist militarily in dealing with that threat.
Moreover, consecutive Irish governments have made a distinction between our military neutrality (defined as non-membership of military alliances) and our political commitment to the values and interests that we share with our European partners and others within the wider global family.
In addition, neutrality has never been officially defined as a policy of standing-by, as a policy of disinterest or as a policy of non-involvement. In general terms, Irish governments have relied upon the United Nations as the arbiter of international disputes even when this has implied a policy which appeared to run counter to popular conceptions of what neutrality ought to mean in a specific dispute.
The current row at Shannon Airport is a case in point. Were Ireland a permanent neutral then it would clearly be a breach of that position to allow any military aircraft to over fly or refuel on its way to a potential military conflict. The Republic, however, is a committed UN member and UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1441 has declared Iraqi non-compliance on arms inspections to be a threat to international security under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. The resolution offers the Iraqi government a "final opportunity to comply" before UN member-states use "all necessary means" to enforce compliance. We now await the UN inspectors' report to ascertain whether or not Iraq has complied. So, the US military build-up in the Gulf might be viewed as necessary military preparations, under UNSCR 1441, for any potential UN-mandated military action against Iraq and thus wholly consistent with the fundamentals of Irish foreign policy.
The Shannon Airport controversy illustrates an inevitable tension between competing concepts of neutrality and both the Minister for Defence and the Minister for Foreign Affairs this week highlighted some of the key issues in that tension.
For the Minister for Defence, Michael Smith, military neutrality is not so much an absolute but a relative condition. His comment on Thursday that "there's no such thing as, if you like, complete military neutrality" underscores a reasoning that, in an interdependent world, claims to dispassionate detachment are simply unrealistic. He then further argued: "there can be no neutrality when it comes to the threat of ordinary innocent people".
On that point the Minister establishes common ground with the activists at the Shannon "peace camp". Neither side is "neutral" per se - they simply take different positions as to where the threat comes from and who is threatened. For the Minister, the threat is Iraqi, and for the activists the threat is American. It's not about neutrality at all - it's about taking sides.
In his speech this week to the Institute for European Affairs, Minister Cowen has advanced this debate. While he restates opposition to the EU turning itself into a military alliance, he goes further than perhaps any previous Minister in asserting that Irish foreign, security and defence policy interests are inextricably linked within the EU. We have, in the Minister's words "a fundamental identity of interests with our European partner". He also gives substance to this assertion by endorsing key proposals to strengthen the foreign and security policy of the EU and to further develop the Union's capacity to defend Europe's civilian population and democratic institutions from terrorist and non-state threats.
The core message of the Minister's speech was one that endorsed the concept of collective security. In the Minister's words: "if one of us is not secure, none of us is secure". While this might sound an uncontroversial mantra, it clearly rejects the notion that neutrality means non-involvement and its linkage to Ireland's position within the European Union is also important.
It lays the groundwork for a later claim that in European terms "we are team players . . . we get involved . . . \ build alliances necessary to protect both our fundamental interests and those of the Union". The Minister is careful immediately to characterise those alliances as being case-specific and flexible - citing our affinity with other neutral or non-aligned EU member-states on defence and security issues while noting our co-operation with the UK on taxation matters. Nonetheless, the Minister puts flesh on the bones of this "fundamental identity of interests" when he endorses the concept of a "solidarity clause" which is likely to emerge from negotiations on a new constitution for the EU.
The idea for a solidarity clause is, in part, a reaction to the terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11th, 2001. This kind of non-traditional security threat is one that is difficult for any state to anticipate, prevent or react to. It has sparked a concern that in the event of such an attack against one of the EU member-states, the Union has no ability to plan, co-ordinate, or implement a response which might call upon the whole range of EU capacities - including the use of military forces. The point is also raised about the extent to which the Union should act preventively. With the appropriate co-ordination of foreign, security and defence policies, the Union might indeed be well-placed to forestall such an attack.
While the solidarity clause falls short of being a traditional military alliance - in which a mutual security guarantee ensures that a military attack against one is viewed as an attack against all - it does so only because the assumed nature of the attack is different.
Instead of guaranteeing the territorial borders of the Union and its member-states and promising a military response to such an attack, the proposal would commit EU member-states to defend civilian populations and democratic institutions.
For the Minister, this is clearly an important issue and one that, in his view, is consistent with the practice of Irish foreign, security and defence policy. While his comparison with Dublin fire-tenders and ambulances racing across the Border to assist the bombed-out population of Belfast in 1941 might be seen as disingenuous, it is not entirely out of place. For others, however, this development will be viewed as a further "salami-slicing" of Irish neutrality to the point at which the margin between this and a full commitment to the defence of the Union and its member-states is so fine as to be illusory. And yet, in the tradition of official thinking on neutrality, the decencies will have been preserved.