The Irish Times view on defence policy: the price of inertia

The ongoing crisis on Ukraine's border and the related sideshow of a Russian sabre-rattling naval exercise off the southwest coast have served this week to remind us of both the indivisibility of European security and the profound under-resourcing of the Irish Defence Forces.

While Ireland fully engages with fellow European Union members in the diplomatic response and preparing sanctions against Russia should it decide to invade, the country remains militarily deeply exposed in the event of outright hostilities.

A report from the Commission on Defence, to be published next week, will force the State directly to address that chronic underfunding – spending on Defence is currently 27th in the EU per capita. It is expected to recommend a qualitative increase in the budget of up to 300 per cent to allow for the purchase of more ships and aircraft, improvements in pay, and the establishment of a dedicated cyber force. That will raise difficult questions for a State that has become accustomed to spending the least amount possible on its defence.

This week Ireland and other signatories to a 1999 agreement of the 57-member Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) each received letters from Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov demanding that they recommit to honouring a clause which pledged that they "will not strengthen their security at the expense of the security of other states".

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It is a vague, pious formula – a bit like promising to renounce sin – that was intended to provide language to cover a western refusal specifically to limit the sovereign right of newly independent states to craft their own security policy.

Clearly Lavrov does not see the clause as inhibiting Russia's right to strengthen its security by massing troops on Ukraine's borders, nor, it would appear, in conducting naval exercises in the back yard of a neutral state. If Russia is asking countries such as Ukraine, Finland, or Ireland not to exercise their sovereign free choice to collaborate with others to enhance their collective security, the answer can only be no – as Russia well knows.

Security, like sovereignty, is not a zero-sum game. Strengthening co-operation between states does not diminish security or sovereignty, but enhances the real ability of each to be master of its own fate. Ireland may have no wish to join Nato, but it will and should continue to contribute to strengthening EU collaboration on security and the multilateral security architecture of the UN and OSCE.

And, starting with the debate that will follow publication of the Commission on Defence report next week, it must accept that military neutrality is not an excuse to fail to do what is necessary to defend the country against the real threats it faces.