THE TAOISEACH MICHÉAL Martin along with Tánaiste and Minister for Defence, Simon Harris will attend the European Union’s Munich Security Summit this weekend. They do so at a time of near-unprecedented geopolitical upheaval and armed conflict within Europe and the Middle East.

As a consequence of ever-increasing global political turbulence and the associated threat accelerators of climate change, asymmetrical warfare, terrorism and organised crime, Ireland has been pondering its place within EU and international security and defence structures. The Irish people have long considered our Republic to be a ‘neutral’ state and we have enormous pride in and emotional attachment to this perceived ‘neutrality’.

However, we have never been ‘neutral’ in the legally accepted sense. It has never characterised our foreign policy positions as we have been firmly aligned with the Western powers for the lifetime of this republic – especially the United States – throughout World War Two and the ensuing Cold War.

The meaning of neutrality

In wartime, where ‘neutrality’ does have a clearly defined legal meaning, our declared ‘neutral’ status during WW2 did not protect us from the threat of invasion. Hitler’s Nazi high command drew up detailed plans in ‘Unternehmen Grun’ or ‘Operation Green’ to invade Ireland. Indeed, when made aware of these plans, ‘neutral’ De Valera and Churchill secretly agreed to combine forces, north and south in ‘Plan W’ to fight together to repel the Wehrmacht from Ireland.

The Nazi invasion never materialised. However, Ireland cooperated extensively with the Allied Powers throughout the war. Notwithstanding this deep mutual assistance, we never joined a formal military alliance. This is perhaps the crux of Ireland’s perceived ‘neutrality’. Simply stated, we are militarily non-aligned. We are not, nor have we ever been, full members of a formal military alliance. However, we have always been largely politically and philosophically aligned with our European and Transatlantic allies.

In times of conflict, therefore, Ireland has taken a pragmatic approach to neutrality, aligning politically with our Western partners and choosing the level of cooperation – military or otherwise – that we engage in. This is done to suit our strategic interest. By not becoming full members of a military alliance, the Irish people choose – on a case-by-case basis – what conflicts we get involved in militarily. This is the sovereign right of the Irish people and is a highly valued component of our foreign policy. We are not so naïve to believe that this policy of neutrality ‘protects’ us from hostile scrutiny. But the Irish people do understand that it gives us some – often invaluable – discretion at the level of our involvement in international conflicts. We now find ourselves at a major inflexion point with regard to our defence, security and intelligence policies.

Europe’s primary military alliance, NATO, has come under particular scrutiny this week in a dramatic set of developments that have amplified the debate on Ireland’s ‘neutrality’ – or military non-alignment. President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Defence, Pete Hegseth has stated, ‘I’m … here today to directly and unambiguously express that stark strategic realities prevent the United States from being the primary guarantor of security in Europe’.

This declaration has upended almost eight decades of the received military and political status quo in Europe – and Ireland – that of a US-backed NATO as a backstop and guarantee of European security. This is a paradigm shift. All has changed, changed utterly and a potentially terrible vista is born. For our European partners. And for Ireland.

The NATO question

US Secretary for Defence Hegseth has further clarified the United States’s pivot on NATO, by stating that President Trump intends to ‘Make NATO Great Again’ – by demanding that European countries dramatically increase their defence spending in order to create a real deterrence to external – Russian – aggression.

For the last 75 years, Article 5 of the NATO Charter, the mutual defence clause, has been the de facto cornerstone of Europe’s collective defence. Hegseth’s announcement focuses on defence spending – a demand that Europe pay much more for its own defence. In Trump’s view, the US has been doing most of the financial ‘heavy lifting’ in terms of Europe’s defence and in Hegseth’s words – paraphrasing Eisenhower – ‘Uncle Sam is not going to be Uncle Sucker’.

NATO member states are adjusting to this new ‘realpolitik’. Ireland will also have to engage with this new reality. Whilst not full, formal members of NATO, we have always been within its security ‘umbrella’ for decades – whether we liked it or not. Many Irish leaders ‘liked’ it well enough and were happy to say so publicly. In the 1960s, Taoiseach Sean Lemass recognised the objective reality of NATO’s pan-European defensive role stating ‘NATO is necessary for the defence of the countries of Europe, including this country. Although we are not members of NATO, we are in full agreement with its aims’.

So, why did Ireland never become full members of NATO – despite explicitly endorsing its role as a legitimate military alliance and collective defence for Europe? As NATO was being established, Ireland’s Minister for External Affairs, Seán McBride welcomed the emerging military pact stating, ‘Ireland, as an essentially democratic and freedom loving country is anxious to play her full part in protecting and preserving … the democratic way of life. With the general aim of the Atlantic Pact in this regard, therefore we are in agreement. In the matter of military measures however, we are faced with an insuperable difficulty from the strategic and political points of view, by reason of the fact that six of our north-eastern counties are occupied by British forces against the will of the overwhelming majority of the Irish people’.

With Ireland still partitioned – and six counties firmly within NATO – this obstacle to full membership of NATO still remains. It is a matter which will inevitably have to be addressed in any all-island future for Ireland. More anon.

So, whilst philosophically and politically aligned with the collective defence aims of NATO, Ireland never became full formal members of the military alliance. Therefore our stated ‘neutrality’ has been a policy of ‘military non-alignment’ in the context – largely speaking – of political alignment with our European and US neighbours and friends.

With the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the unravelling of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, most of Europe – with the tragic exception of the former Yugoslavia – experienced a considerable ‘peace dividend’. Many European Union and NATO member states dramatically scaled back military spending and conscription – believing the ‘Cold War’ to be over.

Our Defence Forces

In Ireland, this ‘peace dividend’ coincided with the Good Friday Agreement and the emerging peace process. With cease-fires in place and the Troubles apparently ‘over’, successive Irish governments have dramatically cut spending on our defence, intelligence and security infrastructure. This serious and reckless underinvestment has led us to the point where Ireland can not meaningfully monitor, patrol or defend our cyber, air, maritime or ground domains. Our Defence Forces – Óglaigh na h’Éireann – are literally on their knees with an unprecedented recruitment and retention crisis.

In the recent landmark book on Irish defence, ‘The EU, Irish Defence Forces and Contemporary Security’ edited by leading international military scholars, Johnathan Carroll, Matthew G O’Neill and Mark Williams (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023) I wrote an extensive and detailed chapter on the manifold hybrid threats that confront Ireland at present – from Putin’s criminal invasion of Ukraine to the multiple ‘gray-zone’ or asymmetrical threats posed by cyber attacks, terrorism and organised crime. I also set out in forensic detail, the inability of Ireland to meet the minimum security demands of our digital economy, making us Europe’s ‘weakest link’ in terms of security, defence, intelligence and emergency response capacity.

Compounded by further cuts imposed during the financial crash, our defence, intelligence and security capabilities are now in complete – almost terminal – failure. Our defence spend is the lowest in Europe at approximately 0.2% of our GDP – roughly one-eighth of the average EU spend in this area. It has left us in a situation of crisis proportions, where for example we can only put one naval vessel to sea, with no operational main armament. We cannot patrol our massive maritime domain – containing many of the strategic oceanic subsea data cables linking the EU to the US. Nor can we monitor or patrol our controlled airspace, one of the busiest transatlantic air corridors in the world – to the extent that the Irish government formed the recent ‘Commission on the Future of the Defence Forces to remedy our provocative weakness.

The commission report and the ‘High Level Action Plan’ were published in 2022. Using the term ‘Level of Ambition’ (LOA) the report’s authors set out three defence investment plans in order of magnitude and significance. Level of Ambition 3, (LOA3) would have brought Ireland roughly in line with our neighbours – including our neutral neighbour Austria – in terms of military capability. LOA1 would have seen no significant change in our parlous defence status. The previous government chose to pursue LOA2, a modest – but welcome – investment in our defence and security architecture.

Despite this commitment as reiterated in the recent programme for government, Ireland remains effectively defenceless. We are defenceless and unable to mount a meaningful emergency response to any manmade or natural disaster that might confront us. This is not the fault of our hard-pressed Defence Forces personnel – it is the predictable and unavoidable consequence of decades of underinvestment in one of our greatest civic and military resources.

Is ‘neutrality’ really up for debate?

The current renewed national discussion and focus on defence is taking place at a particularly febrile moment. As Putin’s invasion of Ukraine continues into its third year of catastrophic attritional warfare, and as Trump’s Secretary for Defence demands that NATO and the EU dramatically increase spending on its own defence – Ireland’s security, defence and intelligence status as ‘Europe’s weakest link’ is being addressed in our national public discourse.

However, in an age of misinformation and disinformation, there has been – in my view – a tendency within our public sphere to reify or give primary definition to voices that construct our ‘neutral’ or ‘militarily non-aligned’ status as problematic.

A recurring myth in recent weeks has been the false and repeated assertion that our European and international partners ‘resent’ or take issue with our militarily non-aligned status. This is definitively not the case.

Related Reads

Explainer: What is Ireland's Triple Lock mechanism and why is the Govt planning to scrap it?

Dr Edward Burke: 'We may cherish our neutrality but we cannot ignore the changing world'

Tom Clonan: Joining NATO doesn't benefit Ireland, but that doesn't excuse poor defence spending

In my experience as an Irish interparliamentary representative at the Organisation for Security Cooperation Europe (OSCE) – comprised of 57 nation-states – meeting many times in Vienna, Bucharest and Vancouver, I have never once encountered any criticism of our militarily non-aligned status. As an academic and security analyst participating in academic and military conferences internationally for the last 25 years, I have never once encountered any resentment or hostile scrutiny of our military non-alignment.

For our international partners, Ireland’s ‘neutral’ status – such as it is – is perfectly acceptable and a matter of national competency and choice. Ireland, as anyone who has any real experience of armed conflict, is regarded as independent and distinct from other nation-states who are full, formal members of military alliances. This has been my experience as an army officer and journalist in conflict zones from Lebanon, to Bosnia, Syria and Iraq. Many of the voices that have been given prominence on Irish media platforms in recent weeks and months have absolutely no military experience. Nor have any had direct experience of conflict. None have ever had command experience under direct fire – but are very vocal in their desire that our children and grandchildren be available for service in a formal military alliance.

To reiterate, I have never experienced criticism of our military non-alignment among international partners with direct experience of conflict. Most recently, in September last, I attended a week-long intelligence, defence and security briefing in Washington – from the Pentagon, CIA Headquarters and the US State Department. Our neutral–militarily non-aligned status was discussed, but not criticised.

We are recognised as constructive partners and our sovereign status as militarily non-aligned is respected.

However, what I have encountered among this extensive network of international contacts has been surprise and incredulity at our lack of a basic credible defence, security and intelligence capability. In some cases our lack of investment is met with dismay as there are legitimate concerns that we are unable to meet the most minimal of our own emergency response requirements to natural and man-made crises – both of which are set to increase exponentially in a time of accelerated climate change along with continued regional and global conflict.

Geopolitical changes

Whatever the outcome of the impending ‘negotiations’ between President Trump and Vladimir Putin on the matter of his criminal invasion of Ukraine – the EU and NATO are actively arming themselves. They are preparing for a renewed Cold War with some countries re-introducing conscription. In this deteriorating environment, some traditionally neutral states such as Finland and Sweden have become full, formal members of NATO. They have decided to do this in their own national interest within the unique set of circumstances they find themselves.

Ireland has its own unique challenges. One of our principal challenges will be the re-design and re-engineering of the administration of justice, policing, security, defence and intelligence in any all-island political and sovereign transformation in the near future. I believe that it is now time to proactively engage with all communities on this island in order to provide a fit-for-purpose defence, intelligence, policing and justice system here that will be acceptable to all. It is my view that neither Oglaigh na h’Éireann nor an Garda Síochána will exist in the coming decades – they will have been succeeded by new entities, perhaps by an all-island armed forces and police service by whatever name acceptable to all. With six of our counties currently in NATO – the security guarantees and security expectations of these new entities will be high.

I believe that this is the primary lens through which we should examine our requirement to invest in defence. Our ‘militarily non-aligned’ ‘neutral’ status has served Ireland well. It will continue to do so in the future and is not an impediment to our status as good European citizens. In my view, we ought to adopt the Commission on the Future of the Defence Forces Level of Ambition 3 as the minimum requirement for Ireland’s future.

We ought to accelerate this process and as a matter of priority – deal with the pension, pay and conditions of our sailors, soldiers and air crew in order to reverse the current recruitment and retention crisis. We also need to seriously expand and incentivise our Reserves. For they are an invaluable human and civil resource and precisely the multiskilled resource we will turn to – as all other nations do – in times of crisis, manmade or natural.

There should be no manufactured ‘moral panic’ about Ireland’s military non-alignment. Our neutral status – such as it is – is an invaluable component of our Irish identity. And despite the naysayers, our position in this regard is respected internationally. However, in light of the many challenges that confront us – Ireland does need to transform and restore our defence capability as a matter of priority. Crucially, we must invest in our soldiers, sailors and air-crew to a minimum of LOA3. It is only then we can vindicate our sovereign status as a neutral Irish republic.

Dr Tom Clonan is a retired Army Officer and former Lecturer at TU Dublin. He is an Independent Senator on the Trinity College Dublin Panel, Seanad Éireann.