I Don't Like Europe

[gaelic cowboy]

Right it seems I have to give an example so here it goes.

Ireland is a small country it is completely incapable of defending itself from UK attack.

1-The Geo-Political imperative of Ireland is to have good or at least not hostile relations with the UK this has been standard policy since the foundation of the state.

2-Ireland is most at danger from internal strife therefore our army must be large enough prevent civil war but not overly large that it threatens the defence of the UK.

3-The UK knows it vastly outnumbers and outguns Ireland but it cannot hope to invade or hold the national territory of the Republic because it will just cause the same outcome as 1919-1921.

4-The first three points mean that Ireland can never enter a collective security arrangement with UK as it will endanger us through civil war. We also cant enter any other type of collective security arrangement in case we increase our threat to the UK. Luckily for UK this all means we are not a threat and so the UK is quite happy to help our security services discreetly in preventing attacks which ultimately threaten them and us.




The best example of this in action is from WW2 Dev kept Ireland half neutral during the war so as not to precipitate invasion by Britain and also so as not to anger Germany who many felt would win. Therefore most Irish artillery faced North in order to prevent the UK trying to seize vital ports and airfields which Churchill felt were vital to his winning the war.

German prisoners of war in Ireland were kept here for the duration of the war however Allied prisoners mysteriously found themselves across the border after a day or two. The British and Irish regularly exchanged what little info they had on various threats and Britain helped set up G2 our military intelligence section. Info on weather was passed on as a matter of course which helped the allies on D-Day all done under cover of neutrality.

Any attempt by Dev to support Britain too strongly could instead tip Ireland into a second civil war which would have been used as an excuse to invade therefore internal security trumped all other considerations. Hence Dev interned as many IRA men as he could find during the war to ensure Irish stability.

When your a small country you must run between the legs of the elephant but you also have to make sure he does not take a notion to stamp on you.