06/07/2026
Below is an example of what purports to be "grown up" Irish security policy thinking. But what you get is more of a thinly veiled sales pitch than a serious geopolitical analysis. The writer speaks not as a neutral observer, but as a mouthpiece for the military-industrial complex—a network of defence contractors and think-tank hacks who stand to make billions if Ireland and Europe are frightened into a state of permanent militarisation. When they write about European security, they are not looking at a map, but rather looking at a profit margin.
The piece offers us a manufactured and cynical false choice designed to browbeat the Irish public into abandoning its support for sovereignty based options. He peddles the narrative that because "Pax Americana" is unravelling and U.S. commitments are wavering, Ireland must immediately ditch its neutrality and strap itself to the mast of EU militarisation.
He cynically labels Ireland’s traditional stance as "free-riding" and "too risky." But Irish neutrality is no such thing. It is a democratically enshrined policy, anchored by the Triple Lock system, which retains overwhelming public support. It is a deliberate refusal to participate in the endless, profit-driven cycle of arms races and interventionist wars that have ravaged the world for centuries. The writer’s real grievance with Irish neutrality is that it denies his paymasters a lucrative new market.
To force his agenda, the writer relies on absurd, evidence-free fear-mongering. His most egregious claim is the speculative fantasy that the U.S. might use Ireland as a "liberum veto"—comparing us to Hungary within the EU. This is just factually baseless; rightly or wrongly, Ireland is a staunch member of the European Union, to claim otherwise is intellectual dishonesty of the highest order.
The writer’s ultimate goal—and the goal of the arms industry he represents—is a massive militarisation of the EU to make it ready for war. This is a dangerous pipe dream that must be fiercely opposed. Such a policy would not make Europe safer; it would merely create a European mirror of the bloated, aggressive U.S. military machine. It would divert billions of euros away from public services, climate action, and actual human security, funnelling them directly into the pockets of the defence contractors that the writer champions. Furthermore, it would force Ireland into an aggressive military alliance by the back door, fundamentally betraying the will of the Irish people without a referendum.
The core flaw in the writer’s armaments-driven hysteria is his reduction of a complex world into a "pick a side" arena. Ireland’s economic success over the last few decades has been built precisely on not picking sides in the simplistic way the writer demands. We have thrived by being the European base for U.S. corporations while remaining a high profile EU member. Forcing a zero-sum choice between Washington and Brussels would not protect Ireland; it would actively destroy our economic model.
If the writer and his defence-contractor backers were truly concerned about Irish security, they would not be screeching about phantom military threats; they would be sounding the alarm about our actual, glaring vulnerability: economic dependency. With approximately 260,000 people employed by U.S. firms and a massive reliance on U.S. corporate tax revenue, Ireland is dangerously exposed to a transatlantic trade war.
The solution to this vulnerability is not to buy French fighter jets or German tanks. The solution is economic diversification and utilising the EU platform to resist unilateral U.S. economic pressure.
Ireland does not need to "redefine" or water down its neutrality, nor does it need to be bullied into the militarisation agenda of the global arms trade. Ireland’s future lies in sophisticated, pragmatic diplomacy—not in becoming a store front for the armaments industry.
