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THE SECRETARY GENERAL of NATO has said that Ireland would be “warmly welcomed” if it got involved in more of the military alliance’s projects in the future.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen was speaking at the Institute for International and European Affairs in Dublin last night when he said that although Ireland is not a member of the 28-nation alliance it is a “very important partner”.
In his speech, he said of Ireland: “It shares NATO’s values. And it shares NATO’s commitment to strengthening the role of the United Nations as the guarantor of international security, and the rule of law.”
NATO, which stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, is a mutual defence organisation – where effectively an attack on one is an attack on all – that was founded in the aftermath of World War II and is the largest military alliance in the world.
Rasmussen said that Ireland and NATO shared the “same faith in freedom. Dedication to democracy. And loyalty to the rule of law.”
“We share the same determination to build a better world – one where everyone is safer and more secure,” he said on what is the first visit to Ireland by the head of NATO.
Listen to the speech in full:
He said specifically that Ireland should increase cooperation on military education, training and exercises and pointed out that the Defence Forces Ordnance School in Kildare had provided “invaluable training for NATO forces”.
“This has undoubtedly saved many lives,” he said. “Also, the school’s instructors have helped with tuition and training as part of NATO’s own Programme of Work in Defence against Terrorism.”
He said that another “outstanding facility” was the the United Nations Training School Ireland.
“Many NATO nations have benefited from the comprehensive training provided there. And this has helped to prepare them for peace support operations,” he told the audience.
He later added: “I would like to encourage Ireland to consider getting involved in more of these projects, including NATO’s. Because that would allow you to enhance your own capabilities – and it would be warmly welcomed by the Alliance.”
Rasmussen said he hoped that closer cooperation for peace would continue in the years ahead and said that Ireland and NATO both understood that security was best delivered though cooperation and both understood the importance of strengthening the UN.
“This is why Ireland is such an important partner for NATO,” he explained.
“Why we have worked so closely together for peace in the past. And why I look forward to us working even more closely together for peace in the future.”
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Ireland should grasp this opportunity and for once and for all get off the fence.
Lol scramble the bi planes all 3 of them
Hey, they’re “fixed wing propellor aircraft” and there’s six of them.
Ireland’s air defence strategy was drawn up by Baldric. “We wait until someone hijacks a plane and crashes it into a town centre and then we… leap into action”. Ireland is a major weak point and NATO know it.
Who has the keys? “I think bulldog maguire has them in his house” FFS
Not to worry. If a terrorist decided to drop a dirty bomb here we could rapidly strike back with a bit of fist-shaking and some really foul language.
you people aint got a clue its our sons and daughters that they want get ready for the draft ireland ,and we have our politicians to thank for it bet their sons and daughters will not be in the front line.
I’m not suggesting joining NATO and I don’t think anyone wants some kind of military build-up. I’m merely saying that if a terrorist, madman or whatever decided to crash a plane into somewhere in Ireland or an international group thought we were an easy target, that it would be ideal have recourse to do something about it other than ring London and hope someone answers the phone.
It’s hardly Doctor Strangelove to suggest that six propellor planes (trainers actually) and a handful of anti-aircraft guns based on a 1930s design is sufficient air defense.
Here comes the ultra left-wingers rants and conspiracy theories.
What’s your stance on it first? Before you bucket people with a real opinion.
I think we’re fine with our peace keeping missions and should NOT get further involved with NATO unless necessary. My comment clearly shows I am not a fan of people who are fanatically one-sided/hateful of anything Western/Liberal/Prosperous. People who never take non-Western/Liberal countries accountable for their actions and blame everything on America/Europe.
Conspiracy theorist- a derogatory term used to describe someone who has the mind to question the sanity/rationality of the corporate/consumerist model of society such as is currently enjoyed by the west. These people might argue that the vested interests created by the corporate pyramid of wealth control undermines true democracy. Some ct’s are united by their horror at the disregard that wasteful western nations hold for nature and the very environment that makes life on this planet possible. They might suggest that someone who puts profit before nature is probably also going to put profit before you.
So basically KEVIN.N you just said you don’t like anyone with an opposing opinion or said opinions!
Can’t wait for the pinko liberals to comment on this. Quotes like ‘Ireland is Neutral’ or ‘We are a peaceful nation’ will be thrown randomly out there. Then someone will mention the bond holders. Go go NATO!!
Troll
Everyone should take note of how rude and aggressive those gung ho types are on this topic. Ireland has a proud history of peace keeping, one we should be proud of. No to NATO.
I think Ireland can still continue to be a peace keeper but the freedom we enjoy here comes at a price . We can only say were neutral because other countries kept the scourge of nazism reaching our shore. Our neutrality would mean nothing if a serious conflict erupted. Apart from that we have our own Irish interpretation of neutrality which is selective. In World War One we returned Allied soldiers across the border whilst incarcerating Germans in the Curragh. In the Iraq war we allowed US troops pass through Shannon as well as rendition flights. Time to face up to reality, if we want to maintain our way of life we need to contribute.
I’ve always been of this view. Either you are part of the solution or part of the problem.
So many other countries sacrificed so much for freedom.
In the interests of accuracy, it was world war 2. And if you have proof that rendition flights passed through Irish airspace, lets see it. I’m only aware of aircraft that were previously or subsequently involved in rendition passing through.
I’m sorry, but I don’t think the Iraq war was part of any “solution” that guaranteed us any more freedom than we currently have.
True, and the only violent action carried out involving Irish airspace/airports was by tree hugging pacifists smashing US planes noses in! Nice. I like the way some people involved in the debate have made the leap off the “fence” to passionately stand up for what they believe in.
That’s the first step in developing a proper foreign or sovereign policy of any significance.
Neutrality does not mean pacifism, shock horror!
I agree with his comments. We have some of the best trained military in the world. The rangers are so highly trained because they do a very important and risky job. They monitor terrorists in this country and carry out a LOT of surveillance, you wont hear about the jobs they do, they are also involved in a lot of overseas missions that never make headlines and you wont see many photos of them. besides all this they are always the first force Irish troops to get boots on the ground in any overseas mission we send our troops on. Protecting the engineers whilst they build our UN outposts and camps in the likes of Lebanon, Liberia, Chad, Kosovo etc. They test all new equipment first and develop the current and new tactics, methods and skills that the rest of the Defence Forces use. All this for a 100 soldier strong force? not bad returns monitarily speaking. If you dont understand something and you know f**k all about it, then maybe go and educate yourself before you make a muppetic comment about it.
Ireland is NOT constitutionally neutral and it never has been so why do people here think we are? We have a foreign policy of non involvement on a case by case basis under the so called “triple lock”. You who shudder at the thoughts of spending on defence should really hope we never become constitutionally neutral as we would have to stop expecting the UK to protect our airspace should someone decided to fly through it, above the maximum range of our air defence weapons and radar and then cannot be intercepted by our air corps – PC9 decent lead in turbo prop training aircraft but low top speed compared with most jet airliners never mind fighters. We own more (valuable as well as geographically) sea territory than almost all other EU countries yet have one of the smallest naval forces. 8 ships, equivelant of having 1 patrol car for gardai to police the entire country.
We spend far far less than the EU average on defence. the entire budget for 1 year for the DF is well below 1Bn, probably around 600m. Look how much is thrown into the black hole of health etc. its the only public service that CANNOT strike or “blue flu” and on top of all of that its the only service that DECREASED during the celtic tiger. its a model of how a government department should be run and probably how most would be run if it wasnt for cronyism and unions. but thats another days work. Dont talk to me about better spending the money in other departments, when Price Waterhouse Cooper are brought in and audit all other govt departments and make recommendations about how to both improve yet save within each and those recommendations are railroaded through as they were in defence back in 2000, without so much as a peep from our soldiers, THEN you can tell me we can better spend money elsewhere.
The IRA, INLA, UDR, et al havent gone away you know. its not that long ago that our forces were spread across the border protecting this country from incursions by terrorists, both our own and those from the loyalists. We irish have sadly very short memories but should be glad that the well trained men and women of our defence forces are protecting us.
Finally, our forces although incredibly small compared to many across the globe are immensely well regarded as peace keeping and peace enforcement troops and held as models in this role thus you will find many other UN and NATO forces sending their troops here to train with ours and to participate in courses here as much as you will find Irish troops training on foreign militaries courses.
Maybe we seem to the average joe in the street to train a lot for nothing, well thats the point of armies, you spend 99% of your time training and hope that the 1% of time you are called on to endanger both your own life and those of others in defence of your own countries and civilians interests or those of an impoverished people who have been taken under UN protection – never happens.
Irish people amaze me, they know f**k all about our own forces yet get on their soap box every time someone drops a bomb or drone attacks some place in some other country about how we dont need soldiers blah blah blah. Ill ask that person about our military, one or two questions about the Defence estimates here, the state of our neutrality, the number and type of APC’s we have, how many soldiers do they know, how many do they think we have – and ALL of the answers will be wrong. For a patriotic bunch we certainly need to educate ourselves and learn more about and respect our countries forces, you can be proud of the job they do, it doesnt mean that you do or dont support every time the US puts a JDAM through someones front door in the ar$e end of nowhere.
Anyway I at least hope Ive enlightened some folks here, God knows theyve needed it.
Is mise le measa
Who’s going to invade the airspace, from what airbase would they bomb the cows from?
I’m sorry, but I get an awful impression you’re more interested in “cool” kit than peace.
Yes, War is good because “we” have good forces
solid argument
My jasus, what a silly rant
When I hear people like AFR I’m reminded of the famous quote. Fighting for peace is like f#@king for virginity! We need less money spent on arms and more on humanitarian things.
And what happened there? We gave money away meant for poorer people and it was just by the political elite of African nations to keep themselves in power.
I really hope the trend in the votes here is due to a skewed readership and not a reflection of the Irish attitude to war.
Don’t look at the comments on the other thread then!!
Everyone and their granny throwing themselves in battle, can’t wait to form an army and fight evil for the good name of Ireland.
lol at all the hung ho muppets, charge!!!!! Where will we attack, Pakistan? Ireland is better t peace keeping not enforcing.
Hi John
Is that your expert opinion, or something you read in the Dandy !!!
Hi John
Is that your expert opinion or did you read it in the Dandy !!!!
You should join the British army or become a marine, must cost a fortune paint gunning your mates. Go way yi child……
Ah, sure he’s typical of the type: all too willing to fight to the last drop of others’ blood, but hand him a rifle and point him in the direction of gunfire . . . . . You’ll quickly see those big right wing testicles shrivel to the size of raisins.
It’s kinda sad.
That’s just factually incorrect, Ireland regularly gets involved in peace enforcement missions
Matt do you want to associate yourself with this later atrocity http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/13/nato-air-strike-civilians-afghanistan
Chuck I don’t think peace and enforcement should be used in the same sentence when referring to foreign policy.
Join up. Also military service in Ireland, lack of discipline in country currently. Maybe great peace keepers but not peace loving, let our aggressive nature bloom.
Only things we can scramble are eggs.
Can’t afford it.
Send them some of our army band… lord knows we have enough in it!
Would that be the tallaght band?
Talk about a load of opinionated ‘uld farts… he talked about how Ireland is a great partner in that our training center has passed on knowledge that has saved many lifes this is the same training center that has trained our EOD teams, the UNTSI lectures personal who travel overseas on cultural awareness as well as military discipline. Can the nay sayers recognise the valuable work that Ireland can provide to NATO, think how many more lives could be saved by applying Irish peace keeping/enforcement tactics within NATO.
“Neutrality” is an excuse NOT to have a foreign policy…which is exactly what Ireland is at…time to grow up – stop sitting on the fence…the freedoms we enjoy come at a price and we have an interest in protecting them and making a contribution commensurate with our resources -(not much at the moment I admit!) even if it just engagement with NATO – it yields political and diplomatic capital. Peace-keeping is a laudible activity – and the Irish army have a good record but so do MANY other countries..it is hardly an excuse to not even consider taking a role.
When has Ireland sat on the fence, the minister for foreign affairs often condemns despot regimes. Sitting on some imaginary fence is factually wrong.
NATO is an imperialist tool,used by USA and England to impose their economic domination. We should oppose them, not help them.
No thanks
Ireland lost its neutrality the day it allowed US rendition flights to use Shannon airport. Strangely for a ‘neutral’ we also have one of the most highly trained special forces in the world in the army’s Ranger wing.
You are correct re the rangers but to be honest the main reason they are so highly trained is that, exercises in places like Chad not withstanding, they spend so much time on exercise for the lack of a real fight. All they can do is train.
Is it better to have persons who are trained to the highest standard and not have the need to use all their skill sets. Rather than have poorly trained persons who are required to use skills that they have not mastered on a daily bases.
Hi John, regarding the rangers, unfortunately they are a necessity in todays world. At the time of inception of the unit in the early 80′s, the Defence Forces recognised that they lacked the capability to effectively deal with the high profile incidents such as airline hi-jacking (that was popular at the time). They are the Defences Forces premier counter terrorism unit, but their function and capabilities go far beyond just this role, they have been sent as part of UN missions, help train members of the Gards ERU, and are also very important in terms of training within the regular Defence Force’s as the knowledge and experience filters throughout so as to improve standards.
Not in my opinion no, training will only take you so far, and I don’t think anyone could accuse the special forces of any NATO country to be poorly trained.
There is a parallel with the sporting world, if two rugby teams played a match, one of whom had trained every day for a year but not played any matches, while the other had been in training for three months but played six or seven matches in that time, who would your money be on?
moot point but please stop mentioning our non existent neutrality if you can…
we arent and never have been neutral. to do so would require a referendum and constitutional change. we have a foreign policy of non involvement on a case by case basis under the triple lock agreement.
I’d stick a tenner on the well rested and trained team. That other team with poor training and only three games has no advantage. In fact they probably suffered some casualties resulting in new blood coming into the team which reduces team cohesion, coupled with some “players” exhaustion and shell shock I’d say there is no more significant advantage to having played three games!
Keep training them there Rangers, to not have them ready to visit violence on those that would do us harm is foolhardy.
1.1 million dead Iraqi civilians. Do we want to be part of that?
What an absurd comment. Typical Richard Boyd Barrett lunacy. The Head Shia Leader of Ireland whose family was murdered by Al Qaeda disagrees. But no let’s ignore the fact that most Afghans and Iraqis support the US Army. Every week we hear about a number of Iraqis being killed and this is AFTER the US Army left Iraq. Is the ghosts of murdered US soldiers by Al Qaeda behind these attacks/murder campaigns?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/19_03_07_iraqpollnew.pdf
To save you reading that, 78-87% of Iraqis are opposed to the presence of Coalition forces and 51% of the population considered attacks on coalition forces acceptable.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/how-do-iraqis-view-the-effects-of-the-iraq-war/
Take not of the URL there, “The American Conservative”. Not exactly an Al Qaeda propaganda wing. Some choice statistics;
” As for personal security and safety, there is an overwhelming consensus among both groups (81% of Shias, 88% of Sunni Arabs) that it is worse than before… on economic development/employment are almost as lopsided and negative: 74% of Shias and 80% of Sunni Arabs say that things are worse. In every category except religious freedom, Shia and Sunni Arabs are in agreement that things have become worse since the U.S. invaded.”
You say it’s getting better though, right? “Incredibly, 51% of Republicans say that personal safety and security in Iraq have improved since 2003.” Maybe question your sources a little harder?
As for the continues death in Iraq, that’s what happens when you invade a country and destroy the police, military, government and infrastructure while inflaming sectarian hatred. The US are as responsible for these deaths as they are the massacres that preceeded it.
Kevin, tell me, do you think there would be similar numbers of Iraqis being killed if the US hadn’t invaded Iraq in the first place?
Mixed on this to be honest, the hawks and the hippies both have valid points, are we likely to get sucked into a conflict? No.
Would this have meant Irishmen and women would have died in Afghanistan under the Irish flag? Probably.
Can those proposing we join NATO say 5 years down the line this wouldn’t drag us into declaring war on one of Turkey’s neighbours, China or North Korea and have to send troops to a conflict we really don’t think is worth having our troops die over? No.
Defense integration is going to happen via EU anyway, we’re already in the Nordic Battle group and we’ll no doubt join others, no need to join an organisation the Russians, Chinese and a lot of the Arabic world hates.
Agree our EU defence involvement will progress as time goes on and the super state gains more power. Bye bye neutrality, hello conscription.
Maybe jobs bridge will get a few takers for sniper and insurgent interns.
Let’s join. We’re not neural and are for the most part on the side of NATO anyway. Plus Ireland has done well in the past on the international scale with peace keeping and peace enforcement roles. This might give us a chance to play a bigger role.
Ireland doesn’t need a big military. We already have an organisation that trains Irish men for battle. It’s called the GAA
Did nobody tell this fool Ireland is 100% broke?
Fine the way we are thanks!
Wait & you see this Government get rid of our last piece of sovereignty.
Let all the right minded Irish Citizens cry out as one
“You have taken our money, you will never take our neutrality”!
P.S. I am aware this is a mute point as we are already neutral on the NATO side anyway.
moot point but please stop mentioning our non existent neutrality if you can…
we arent and never have been neutral. to do so would require a referendum and constitutional change. we have a foreign policy of non involvement on a case by case basis under the triple lock agreement.
Ross
If you would be kind enough ro re-read my P.S. would would see I did state we are neutral to one side only. Being neutral to one side only is not neutrality is it!
Time Ireland joined the adults in NATO
If Ireland got more involved with NATO I’d run in the next election and start up a Voluntaryist party.
NATO CAN GO AND %^$£ ITSELF!
Ireland was chucked into the PFP which is an umbrella association of NATO by Bertie led FF government who broke the neutrality & constitution by ram raiding membership into the organization as “observer status”. Bertie in opposition had stated a referendum was required to join such an organization under the present constitution.
Ireland has one of the lowest spends in European counties on defense and to pay to the same national spend as other EU countries we have to increase very frantically by a couple of billions per year to get our defense forces to the same percentage level with major cuts in other areas like school, hospitals would take an even greater cut back in funding. Can’t afford to be in such an organization when other majority members have the arms industry like Sweden,France,Germany, UK are all military manufacturers.
have your say