Sir, – We are never too far from unleashing heartfelt, polarised views on the issue of our neutrality, the proposal to remove the ‘triple lock’, with regard to the deployment of our Defence Forces, being the most recent provocateur.
Very often these debates descend into nostalgic, emotional and idealistic rhetoric without due consideration of viability.
The keystone that has sustained our neutrality, above all else, is our favourable geopolitical position, an Atlantic island on the western edge of Europe, distant from major continental armed conflicts and protected, indirectly, by the surrounding military architecture of Nato states.
Yes, of course, public support, political consensus, military policy, United Nations peacekeeping custom and diplomatic tradition have been important, but geography has gifted us a strategic enduring pillar.
RM Block
This advantage still exists, but is now less pivotal than it has ever been, due to today’s security threats being far less constrained by geography, eg cyber attacks, disinformation campaigns, undersea digital cables and energy infrastructure sabotage.
Future neutrality policy debates must rise above romanticism and idealism and be ever more mindful of the practical matter of shrinking geographical advantage. Otherwise, like the Netherlands’ and Belgium’s neutrality stance at the beginning of the second World War, we could become another of history’s more brutal lessons about the limits of declared neutrality. – Yours etc,
MICHAEL GANNON,
St Thomas’s Square,
Kilkenny
