Ireland’s age-old determination to avoid any military alliance with Britain meant it stayed out of World War II and even offered official condolences to Nazi Germany following news of Adolf Hitler’s death. Such studious neutrality has been newly tested since February, when Russia staged naval military exercises off Ireland’s Atlantic coast.
The episode highlighted the inability of Ireland’s ill-equipped Defence Forces to monitor those Russian maneuvers. The Irish have no military-grade radar or sonar capabilities, no jets capable of long-range surveillance or interception missions, and too few sailors to operate its nine-vessel fleet.
Instead, under a two-decade-old confidential agreement, Ireland permits the Royal Air Force to intercept any Russian aircraft sorties off Ireland’s Atlantic coast.
Ireland’s annual defense spending is currently €1.1 billion, lowest in the EU at just 0.2 percent of economic output. A government-commissioned report last month recommended that this spending should be increased by at least 50 percent or, in the most aggressive scenario, tripled.
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