Sir, – Michael McDowell is right about one thing: “We need to radically alter our attitude to national security” (“If the worst happens, who would come to Ireland’s defence? We are acutely vulnerable to threat”, Opinion, April 24th). But he is quite wrong in his prescriptions.
Security needs to be understood in the wider context of human security – the greatest threat to Ireland in recent years was not the rather unfeasible possibility of Russian invasion but Covid-19. And a small country such as Ireland, right on the edge of Europe, could and should be innovative in how it thinks about all aspects of security and defence.
The Irish Government seems to want to get closer and closer to Nato and there is no evidence that an EU army will, in years to come, act any more morally or prudently than that of the US, with the clear risk of Ireland being dragged into fighting wars.
If we are thinking in military terms there is such a thing as “non-offensive defence”, and the best defence is a dynamic and peacebuilding neutrality.
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It should also be pointed out that there are significant nonviolent defence mechanisms through nonviolent civilian defence.
“Let the welfare of the people be the supreme law”, quoted by Michael McDowell in Latin, could mean something entirely different to what is implied. – Yours, etc,
ROB FAIRMICHAEL,
Belfast.