PERHAPS the most remarkable development of the post-Cold War period has been the way in which virtually all the countries of northern Eurasia - neutrals and Warsaw Pact and NATO members - have come together to consolidate peace throughout this vast area.
The only countries that have not yet joined in this massive peace effort, the Partnership For Peace, are the three Yugoslav successor states which are not entitled to membership until their commitment to peace is more firmly established; civil-war-torn Tajikistan, situated in the most inaccessible mountainous corner of central Asia; and Ireland.
True, the newly-elected Libyan-orientated government of Malta has recently announced its withdrawal from this Partnership For Peace, but that has been more than offset by the Swiss announcement that this most neutral of all the world's states, which regards even UN membership as non-neutral, is to join the partnership in a couple of weeks.
How have we come to be isolated in such small and strange company? The fact is that this is a completely self-inflicted wound, a product of a crazy brand of Irish neutralism which has no parallel anywhere else.
The policy position of the three parties in Government on the Partnership For Peace is, however, contained in the Government White Paper on Foreign Policy which states flatly: "Membership of the Partnership For Peace does not involve membership of NATO, the assumption of any mutual defence commitments, or any commitment or obligation in relation to future membership of NATO.
"Objectively speaking, participation on appropriate terms would not therefore affect, in any way, Ireland's policy of neutrality, nor would it prejudice or pre-empt Ireland's approach to discussions in the European Union on a common defence policy".
There are several reasons why the Partnership For Peace has won near-universal support.
First, its main, but by no means exclusive, thrust is to build confidence between countries which have been Cold War enemies, or in some cases neighbours who have traditionally been hostile towards each other.
Second, the partnership operates on what has been described as a "self-differentiation" basis: each partner selects for itself what activities it wishes to engage in, drawing from a "menu" of no fewer than 900 activities, and says what skills it wants to bring to this co-operative effort for peace.
THIRD, the activities in question include not only confidence-building military co-operation between former enemies but also a remarkably wide range of civil activities.
These include airspace management and control; civil emergency planning, disaster assistance and emergency preparedness; humanitarian operations; search-and-rescue activities; medical services; petroleum pipeline operation and maintenance; meteorological services, geodesy and geophysics; and language training.
The partnership's role in respect of many of these activities is directed principally, although by no means exclusively, towards assisting Russia and other states in the former Soviet Union and central and eastern European countries to improve their skills in such areas, which may have been under-developed or perhaps overmilitarised under the Communist system. Some of these countries are particularly anxious to have assistance with democratic control of military forces and defence structures, including parliamentary oversight of defence planning.
An area of special interest to us in Ireland is, of course, peacekeeping, where we have both skills to impart and, presumably, something to learn. Among the peacekeeping skills covered in programmes to be undertaken by the Partnership For Peace during the next couple of years are conceptual, planning and operational aspects of peacekeeping; training in relation to civil aspects of peacekeeping; logistics planning and exercises for peacekeeping; and co-operation in developing inter-operability for medical services and fuels in peacekeeping operations.
Individual countries have had different reasons for joining the partnership. Some from central and eastern Europe have, of course, seen involvement in it as a first step towards joining NATO. But, on the other hand, neutrals like Austria, Sweden and Finland, which don't wish to abandon their traditions of neutrality, see membership of the partnership as a means of playing a constructive role in building peace.
Others again have seen it as a way of damping down old quarrels with neighbours: Poland and Ukraine by having their forces serve together in a peacekeeping battalion in Ifor; Hungary and Romania by participating this year in six joint military training exercises and planning 14 other joint activities.
The progress made by the PFP within three years of its establishment, and the variety of co-operative activities it has fostered, have been quite remarkable. For example, last year the United States sponsored peacekeeping exercises in Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Albania and the Czech Republic, as well as search-and-rescue exercises in Hungary and Albania the latter exercise also involving Italy, Germany and Britain.
Another US initiative involved a combined search-and-rescue exercise with Russia, Poland, Bulgaria, Sweden, Finland and the three Baltic countries.
Through the partnership different non-NATO states are monitoring peace in Moldova for the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and are participating in a UN peacekeeping mission in Croatia. Swedes are sharing winter training, techniques with central Europeans. And, in central Asia, Poles are helping to train Uzbeks for peacekeeping.
The Netherlands and Italy have provided equipment to be flown by the US Air Force to Ukraine to help contain floods at Kharkov. The Czech Republic and Bulgaria have helped Turkey to provide shelter for earthquake victims. Bulgaria has also organised for both NATO and partner forces a maritime exercise to practise embargo techniques.
HUNGARY, which before the last war showed particular expertise in training non-commissioned officers, is tapping NATO experience to restore this capacity. And, through the partnership, neutral Sweden has run seminars for the Baltic states on behalf of NATO.
Finally 11 non-NATO partner countries are serving as part of Ifor in Yugoslavia, where some of Russia's crack troops, under what is effectively US command, are patrolling jointly with US troops. Among them are soldiers from the three Baltic states serving in Baltic Battalion, which through the PFP were trained and supported by neutral Finland as well as NATO countries Denmark, Norway and the UK.
This adds up to a quite extraordinary level of co-operation, much of it between former enemies and all of it designed to extend to the rest of northern Eurasia the zone of peace already created by our Community in western Europe, and thus to make future war impossible.
What on earth are we in this peace-committed State doing, spurning this chance to play our part in what is self-evidently the greatest peace-creating initiative the world has known?
It is surely time to end this nonsense. Putting ourselves in the same category as Tajikistan and the war-torn Yugoslav republics certainly does not help our international reputation.