Policy Exchange and ‘freeloading off Nato’

A chara, – Policy Exchange, the British think tank, has berated Ireland for “freeloading off Nato” (“Russia, China and Iran could target UK via Irish ‘backdoor’, think tank warns”, News, February 4th).

The Policy Exchange paper on Ireland’s defence arrangements is hard to stomach for those committed to maintaining Ireland’s neutrality, but its unrestrained analysis of Ireland’s security policy is not unwelcome in that it confirms much of what the defenders of neutrality have long claimed – namely, that the Government is inching its way toward Nato membership. For instance, the report states that Ireland “joined Nato’s Operational Capability Concept (OCC) in 2016, whose goal is to assist non-members in reaching Nato standards, and to foster interoperability. Part of the alliance’s Partnership for Peace Programme programme, the OCC offers training and evaluations of force capabilities across the domain spectrum, helping them – at least in theory – to meet the standards necessary for future membership.” The report blurts out a number of other things normally kept hush-hush in Irish establishment circles and not widely reported by Government-friendly media here. Most informative of all – in the section titled “Exert greater pressure on Ireland to do its part in collective security” – is the statement: “The last few years have shown that some political and social circles in Ireland now understand the important role they must play in their partners’ security. There is therefore no longer any excuse for Ireland not to do its upmost to expedite its military and security development.”

Ah, but there is: the majority of people in Ireland do not want what the hawks of Policy Exchange are demanding of us. I would venture to suggest, too, that the report’s hectoring tone may irk many who read it. Except, of course, those in the “political and social circles in Ireland” that Policy Exchange senses are open to its influence. – Is mise,

DOMINIC CARROLL,