Is Ireland the weak link in Western Europe’s defenses?

These days we live in a world that is deeply inter-connected. Much of the physical infrastructure that underpins the connections between Europe and North America is in the form of undersea cables, and many of those cables run through Irish territorial waters. This has created a bit of a problem however.

On the one hand, the Irish public is very much in favour of its neutrality and increased expenditure on defense with so many other priorities seems politically difficult. On the other hand, that neutrality being respected by bigger powers is always an open question and is dependant on the whims of those bigger powers who may decide that violating the sovereignty of a small country is a price well worth paying in pursuit of its own geo-political goals.

This then is the problem. A number of vital cables run through Irish territorial waters, Ireland’s current defensive capabilities are inadequate to protect them, the Irish public is keen to maintain neutrality, yet few doubt that if the obvious threat in the Russian Federation wanted to inflict a considerable amount of pain on the west with comparative ease, they would have little trouble in cutting or otherwise damaging that critical undersea infrastructure. Some believe the panic is unwarranted and Russia would respect Irish neutrality, others think that Ireland’s protestations of neutrality would be as likely to faze Vladimir Putin as Belgium’s claim to neutrality bothered Kaiser Wilhelm at the outbreak of the First World War.

The potential threat has been accentuated this weekend by the presence of the Russian spy vessel the Yantar in the Irish Sea. And it most definitely is a Russian spy vessel. This RTE report describes how a…

“…2017 the weekly publication of the Russian parliament, an official State media outlet, described the Yantar as carrying “devices that are designed for deep-sea tracking, as well as equipment for connecting to top-secret communication cables.”

The Guardian reports here that the vessel has now been escorted out of Irish territorial waters, but while it may be gone the questions it has raised remain. The Guardian quotes one expert…

“Edward Burke, an assistant professor in the history of war at University College Dublin, told the Examiner the situation was alarming.

“Once again we see the Russian navy probing the defences of western Europe. It’s yet another wake-up call – one that we shouldn’t need – that Ireland needs to bolster its naval capabilities and deepen its maritime security partnerships in Europe,” he said.”

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