Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 13 April 2023. © Richard Kemp
President Biden’s visit to Ireland this week gifts the country an opportunity to sell itself to the world. Pomp, pubs and progressive values are the order of the day; a nation portraying itself as historically oppressed yet forward-thinking and open for business. Through such spin, it is inviting us to just ignore its woeful contributions to Western defence, the elephant in the room given the current war in Europe.
While Biden spoke with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar about the conflict in Ukraine, there is no evidence the President asked for anything tangible to support the Ukrainian war effort. When was the last time an American president included Ireland in their vocal – and justified – criticism of Europe for slacking on its commitments? The fact is, with so many American voters claiming Irish heritage, Ireland gets a free pass, something it shamelessly exploits.
Even if Biden had asked for more military support from Dublin, he’d have been wasting his time. The Irish cupboard is bare. Yes, they have provided some humanitarian aid to Ukraine, including seed potatoes, but their military commitment is limited to an agreement to assign ‘up to 30’ soldiers to help train Ukrainian troops in de-mining. By percentage of GDP, Dublin has the lowest defence spend of all 27 EU members – just 0.3 per cent.Former Foreign Minister Simon Coveney admitted this is ‘roughly a quarter to a half of what other similar-sized countries in Europe spend’.
Ireland’s army is less than 8,000 strong. It has no combat planes and its navy has just mothballed two of six patrol vessels for lack of crew. It is neither capable of monitoring its own air space nor conducting subsurface maritime surveillance. A 2021 Irish government Commission on the Defence Forces damningly concluded that Ireland cannot ‘meaningfully defend’ its own territory.
Most of the country’s military capacity, such as it is, has been used not for self-defence but for international peacekeeping. Whilst valuable, and convenient for virtue-signalling, the dose of reality Continue reading