Sir, – It is unclear from your editorial ("Neutrality under review", June 3rd) whether it is Finnish or Irish neutrality which is under review. There have always been tensions within international relations whatever the era, be they military, strategic, threats to energy supplies or from fundamentalist groups.
It may well be that the Finns will be presented with a report recommending Nato membership, which if followed through would leave Ireland with just two non-Nato allies within the EU. That is a problem.
If we add Nato’s Article 5 and its spirit of collective responsibility to our Lisbon Treaty obligation to aid and assist another member state which is the victim of armed aggression, we are definitely in trouble.
There is nothing wrong with having a policy of military neutrality – the problem is that it would take extremely strong representatives to withstand the onslaught from the majority of our fellow members to join in the collective defence and assistance which would then apply.
Your editorial mocks those of us who prefer an independent diplomacy by referring to the “imperialist warmonger” caricature view of Nato. This is unworthy of you and the fine people who have contributed much to your newspaper on these matters over the decades. – Yours, etc,
CAITRIONA LAWLOR,
Mount Merrion,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – Your editorial refers to growing tensions among Nato’s Baltic members following Russia’s “bullying in the Ukraine and numerous pinprick provocations in the Baltic”.
It would be sheer madness for Russia to attack any Nato member state given the Nato policy that regards an attack on any member state as an attack on Nato itself with clear consequences.
You go on to say that Nato’s Baltic members see Nato very differently from the “imperial warmonger” caricature prevailing in some circles in Ireland. Surely over the past 15 years, considering the manner in which Nato forces have been rampaging over the Middle East and north Africa with dreadful consequences, what you refer to as Russia’s bullying in the Ukraine fades into total insignificance.
Furthermore in a converse situation where a Nato-type hostile alliance were to, at some time, carry out military exercises near the US border, one can imagine that the American response would not be of the “pinprick” variety. – Yours, etc,
ALBERT COLLINS,
Cork.