Since Partnership for Peace is NATO-inspired it has provoked a predictable chorus of complaint from those in Irish politics who see every act of interdependence which we have undertaken in the security field in recent years as an act of betrayal, in particular of our traditional policy of neutrality.

In international law neutrality represents a state of impartiality as between belligerents during a time of war. In practice it does not exist in peacetime. The desire to remain neutral in the event of conflict is no guarantor of itself of maintaining or promoting conditions of peace, stability and justice. Hence the need for effective mechanisms of international co-operation.

The policy of military neutrality, in the sense of not belonging to any military alliance, has served the State well in the past. It serves the interests of those against the PFP to misrepresent our joining that organisation as the equivalent of abandoning our non-aligned military status. There is nothing to fear about this project but fear itself. Its opponents are determined to play up and to prey on such fear.

The first fear is that joining the PFP represents the thin edge of the wedge and a half-way house to full NATO membership. For a minority of central European countries this is so because they are set to become full members of NATO by mutual consent in its next enlargement. Nothing in the PFP obliges progression towards full NATO membership. Much about current membership indeed reveals the opposite.

No one with the slightest claim to understanding the realities underlying pan-European geopolitics could argue with even a shred of credibility that Russia and every state of the former Soviet Union except Tajikistan is imminently set to join NATO simply because they are already in the PFP. Such logic is based either on wilful ignorance or wilful misrepresentation.

Joining the PFP is not the same thing as joining NATO. Ireland currently has no intention of joining any military alliance with a mutual defence requirement. To do so in any event would require a referendum as consented to by all the political parties.

A second fear, one I am sure whose emptiness would be appreciated from the top down by the current Fianna Fail led government, is the charge of guilt by association. The line of argument runs as follows. NATO is a military alliance with a nuclear capacity. NATO inspired the PFP. Joining the PFP therefore associates one ipso facto with NATO's nuclear capacity.

The PFP as such disposes of no nuclear forces and in none of the hundreds of military and civil engagements which it has undertaken has there been the slightest prospect of a nuclear deployment. If the argument reduces to one of guilt merely by association, by parity of reasoning, should it not suggest that Ireland should be reticent to campaign for a seat on the UN Security Council since its five permanent members are all nuclear powers. Such an argument regarding Ireland's UN aspirations properly would be dismissed as fatuous nonsense. Equally I believe it should be dismissed in respect of the PFP.

The dissolution of the Warsaw Pact brought the Cold War to an end. This has greatly reduced the risk of massive military confrontation in Europe. The bi-polar logic of mutually assured destruction died with the Warsaw Pact. This has not prevented new risks and uncertainties from emerging. Ethnic conflicts, border disputes, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and international terrorism, crime and major transnational environmental risks all remain as policy challenges. Started in 1994, the PFP has been a flexible and sophisticated pan-European response to these new realities.

The passage of the Cold War has also seen dramatic growth in UN activities related to international peace and security. The number of UN Security Council resolutions, according to Ireland's White Paper on Foreign Policy 1996, increased fourfold in a period of just over five years, with the number of disputes and conflicts in which the UN is actively involved growing by a factor of more than three. This has placed enormous pressure on the UN's capacity to respond and has led to an increased willingness and desire on its part to encourage greater involvement of regional security arrangements such as the PFP. Arguably therefore, Ireland's participation in the PFP will add another dimension to our capacity to fulfil commitments under the United Nations Charter.

If there is confusion in the Irish debate, in part that arises from an absence of rigour and intellectual honesty in relation to the terms in which the debate has been conducted. Both with the Maastricht Treaty and the Treaty of Amsterdam we have moved to a position of growing interdependence.

In the domain of security and defence policy neither treaty represents an institutional, constitutional or policy finality. Yet in both cases a deepening security interdependence is indicated.

Ireland has voted for both treaties by referendum. On each occasion those opposed to further European security integration oversold their exaggerated fears through a kind of apocalypse now logic. While most proponents sought to play down the substantive, if still incomplete, extra steps being taken.

The result is an attempt at policymaking by stealth. I believe this new interdependence makes sense. We should grasp it. What it needs as a counterpart is full policy transparency. That has been the missing ingredient.

To join the Partnership for Peace with its voluntary and self-generated selection from a menu of military and civil possibilities is something which Ireland should do with openness and pride. I welcome the change in stance of Fianna Fail. It only remains for the Houses of the Oireachtas to assume their responsibilities and to re-interpret for our times the concept of Ireland taking her place among the nations of the Earth.

Pat Cox is an independent MEP for Munster