The threads of the international system are being rapidly unravelled by its original architect. US president Donald Trump’s foreign policy doctrine shows that the United States, as the world’s greatest superpower, no longer feels constrained by international law.
Aggressive dominance of the western hemisphere is only a starting point. The problem for Ireland is that the European Union is also on the menu.
The recently published US National Security Strategy explicitly attacks the institutions of the European Union, especially when it comes to regulating US companies. Washington recently sanctioned former EU commissioner Thierry Breton for his role in implementing the EU’s Digital Security Act, which sought to add more protections for EU citizens’ personal data and against illegal or harmful online content. The US is committed to working with its “political allies”, often those on the far right such as Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), which are similarly determined to destroy the role and rules of the EU.
How can Ireland respond? Like many European states, the Government has been especially careful not to outrightly condemn the US for its operation to remove Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro from power. But both Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Tánaiste Simon Harris have offered steadfast words of support to Copenhagen over Trump’s stated desire to acquire Greenland, insisting that sovereignty and control was a matter for the people of Greenland, to be settled within the legal framework of the constituent parts of the Kingdom of Denmark.
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Harris also noted that Denmark was a member of Nato, and that this offered an avenue for Washington to engage with the Danish government and other allies to address security concerns in the Arctic. Keeping the US engaged in Nato is the overwhelming priority of its current secretary general, Mark Rutte. It is likely that Nato will work with the Danish government to offer Trump significant concessions to temper any thoughts of rough annexation, such as a defence treaty that enables a large expansion of the current small-scale US military presence in Greenland, combined with an agreement that will incentivise further US investment and business opportunities in the country.
[ Why does Donald Trump want to take over Greenland?Opens in new window ]
Harris’s underlining of Nato membership as a means of assuaging legitimate US security concerns was perceptive. But it was also surprising given that the Government has consistently ruled out joining the alliance to counter growing threats from hostile actors, not least from the Russian Federation, in Ireland’s marine territory. A day after his comments, US Navy SEALs boarded an oil tanker, the Russian-flagged Marinera, in an area of the North Atlantic that lies between Ireland and Iceland. Although the Irish Air Corps and the UK’s Royal Air Force had apparently monitored the ship in the preceding days and hours, this was a singularly assertive US operation in Europe. The message was clear: the US will do in the northeast Atlantic what it believes to be in its interests, with little consultation or consideration of the views of European states or Nato.
In April last year, Trump signed an executive order entitled Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance, which emphasises the need for control of critical subsea infrastructure such as communications cables. Project 2025, seen by many analysts as a pre-election policy framework for the second Trump term, also highlighted the vulnerabilities of transatlantic subsea infrastructure. These are the networks that carry so much of US communications, including financial transactions, around the world. Trump may eventually be assuaged that Nato, with Washington firmly in the lead, can protect US interests in Greenland and the Arctic. But if Trump’s attention turns to Ireland – with a tiny naval service and outsize marine territory of 880,000sq km – what assurances could be offered when it comes to maritime security?
The Government can say, of course, that it is building up the State’s naval capabilities, including procuring towed array sonar, to enable the detection of hostile subsea activity such as threats to transatlantic cables and effectively police vital sea lanes. But this investment and the overall capabilities available to monitor such critical infrastructure are unlikely to impress Washington; the scale of what is required is beyond the capacity of a single small state.
Ireland consequently needs to build much closer defence and security partnerships with other European countries. One way to do this is to deepen engagement with the Joint Expeditionary Force (Maritime), a non-Nato European initiative which has done much to improve co-operation in the maritime protection of infrastructure. Recent training exercises between the Naval Service and Nato’s Standing Maritime Group 1, with significant Dutch and German naval components, are also welcome and could be expanded, as is the commitment to deepen bilateral defence co-operation with the UK.
European defence and security vulnerabilities explain why many countries are unwilling to take a stronger line against the Trump administration. In the near term, should Washington cease its military assistance to Ukraine, European states cannot adequately replace US missile defence, communications, targeting and intelligence capabilities required by the Ukrainian military. The EU’s ReArm Europe Plan and Security Action For Europe (Safe) is a means to address this.
[ Ireland backs €150bn defence plan as EU moves to rearmOpens in new window ]
Since Ireland is now among the biggest net contributors to the EU budget on a per person basis, Irish taxpayers will play a disproportionate role in funding EU defence expenditure in the coming years. Rather than accepting vulnerability to aggression from Moscow or dependency on a capricious Washington, this is something to be welcomed. In the coming months, and if necessary during Ireland’s EU presidency, the Government should also try to unlock the last-minute dispute over funding which blocked UK participation in SAFE at the end of last year. European ambitions for greater strategic autonomy cannot be realised without the integrated leadership of the continent’s big three defence and security actors – France, Germany and the UK.
The Government will also need to demonstrate (to the EU and to Washington) how Ireland is responding to evidence, including that gathered by the European Commission, of widespread Chinese industrial espionage across Europe – often through the guise of greater bilateral research co-operation and economic ties.
Threats against Greenland or the sanctioning of a former EU commissioner must be resisted and countermeasures prepared in the event that such behaviour worsens. Digital sovereignty and communications security – including protecting EU democracies from extremist threats – cannot be compromised, regardless of threats from Washington. The cost to future generations of Europeans will be far worse than the mutual economic pain that may be imposed in the short-term by the Trump administration.
Edward Burke is an assistant professor in the History of War at UCD
