THE NATO public relations person who coined the phrase Partnership for Peace must have done time with the PR department at Sellafield. If ever a term conjured up friendly, do-gooding togetherness, Partnership for Peace is it.
No wonder a recent MRBI/Irish Times poll showed great majorities for joining it: the Irish are justifiably proud of Ireland's worldwide peacekeeping role, and the partnership is seen as primarily a peacekeeping organisation.
There is no denying that the MRBI findings highlighted massive confusion on the issue of neutrality. But a question like this - should Ireland ever be involved militarily with any alliance based on nuclear weapons? - would confirm how the Irish public cherishes our traditional neutrality and, perhaps, scupper Irish involvement in the Partnership for Peace and EU defence.
More public debate is obviously needed on this issue, but the pro-partnership lobby has been allowed to dominate the debate.
A number of Irish Times correspondents and leader-writers - most recently Dr Garret FitzGeraId last Saturday - have argued that it makes "good sense" to join, but they have ignored the downside and failed to address some major issues which the partnership raises. The main arguments tabled by the pro lobby can be summarised as follows:
1) The Partnership for Peace is a `good thing' which will enhance international security;
2) Irish peacekeeping skills and effectiveness will lose out by not being involved in it;
3) Everyone else is doing it.
Last first. Every parent knows this isn't an argument and is more often a prelude for getting into some sort of mischief. Ireland once again is being forced to appear as the odd one out, with just Ireland and countries such as Tajikistan - refusing to join. Well, raise a glass to Tajikistan!
As for Irish peacekeeping skills going rusty, Ireland's expertise is internationally acknowledged and respected. A number of Irish military officers are on record as stating that Ireland's neutrality and perceived independence from military alliances and great power machinations have been of great assistance in guaranteeing the acceptability of Irish peacekeepers.
Other neutrals have joined the Partnership for Peace, but that does not mean they are right to do so. Who knows in which foreign adventures they may find themselves embroiled as partners with NATO? Their impartiality as peacekeepers would be seriously eroded.
And that brings us to NATO itself and the partnership. Why, if the partnership is a "good thing", does the Government White Paper on Foreign Policy state that Ireland will not join NATO?
The Government recognises how the Irish people support our neutrality, indeed the Government itself would oppose some of the essential features of NATO, which remains, for all its user-friendly support of peacekeeping, a nuclear military alliance, a creation of the Cold War.
NATO continues to maintain a Cold War militaristic approach to "security" based on the threat of nuclear weapons. Its "defence" strategy is founded on the willingness to use indiscriminate and inhumane weapons of mass destruction. And it is willing to use them first.
Why has NATO been allowed to continue? Why wasn't it phased out when the Berlin Wall came down and why were efforts not made to build up the United Nations and to strengthen its regional organisation, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe? Instead, NATO has been allowed to usurp the security role in Europe.
The Partnership for Peace does allow each new member to negotiate the areas in which it wants to be involved, and we could confine our duties to peacekeeping and humanitarian missions. But how long could we confine them?
Would Ireland not just find itself sucked more and more into the full range of NATO missions, something most of the partnership wants anyway? And as members of the partnership wouldn't we be identified with all its actions, even if we didn't want to be?
There is also the question of what the partnership means for NATO as an organisation. NATO, at the launch of the partnership, said participation would play an important role in the evolutionary process of the enlargement of NATO.
Most of the nations joining the central and east European countries want to become full NATO members. President Clinton in a speech in Detroit earlier this month praised the partnership as "a path to full NATO membership for some and a strong lasting link to the alliance for all".
Does Ireland want strong lasting links with NATO? Do we really want to encourage its enlargement, an enlargement which is setting off alarm bells in a volatile Russia and creating fears of a new "fortress Europe"? The White Paper says the Government's preferred body for dealing with European security remains the OSCE. Why have we suddenly become champions of NATO?
There is a strong case for Ireland remaining apart from the partnership and keeping its peacekeeping duties solely in the service of the United Nations. There is no need for partnership peacekeeping to be UN-mandated. Even if there were, why filter UN peacekeeping through NATO? Something is bound to be lost in translation.
There will undoubtedly be instances when peacekeepers from a European country unconnected with NATO would be particularly useful to the UN in developing countries which have suffered at the hands of colonialism. Ireland should preserve its unique role.
Hopefully, Fianna Fail and Democratic Left will maintain their opposition to the Partnership for Peace and not allow the Government to push this through as merely "a sort of state-of-the-art playschool for peacekeepers".
The partnership is not Bosco with bullets. It is an association with and a support for NATO nuclear strategies. Ireland would be wise to stay out of it.