Beating the Battle Drums
On St. Bartholomew’s Day the BBC broadcast a radio drama under the title A Dog in the Fight, written by Hugh Costello and produced by Eoin O’Callaghan (Big Fish Media). Perhaps a reader in Ireland could tell us whether it has also appeared on RTÉ; but even if it has not it will have been available to analogue listeners in the eastern counties and to all listeners anywhere in Ulster and also in Louth.
Like many of Mr. O’Callaghan’s productions it had an informative and cleverly written script replete with political ambiguity concerning the subject at issue such that it would be entirely possible for either the writer or the production company to deny having taken any position on the relevant questions. Nevertheless drama is drama, and the veil of fiction does not so much conceal as reduce that which it covers to outlines and contrasts. The position promoted was, of course, that taken by the character presented as the most reasonable and likeable, i.e. in this case the wife.
The story concerns a Dublin couple who had moved to the country to give their troubled marriage a fresh start. A Russian drone is shot down in their garden; and a civil servant comes to collect it, claims that they are obliged to keep the matter secret, and offers to make the wife’s temporary teaching job permanent in return for their co-operation. Enter next a neutrality campaigner seeking evidence of the drone’s existence. He explains that only Official Secrets Act signatories are bound by its provisions; and also that Ireland is no longer genuinely neutral but is in a ‘Partnership for Peace’ with NATO, making its skies open to NATO aircraft. The husband agrees to appear in an internet video on the subject. This brings the civil servant back to tell them that the campaigner is an extreme nationalist responsible for a racist attack upon a direct provision hostel. This, incidentally, is far from plausible. While some ethno-cutural nationalists do prize neutrality, they seldom campaign actively on the issue; neutrality campaigners are generally pacifists using the subject to combat militarism without reference to Irish national identity. The wife feels obliged to support her husband publicly while urging him to break with the campaigner. Her character emerges as one calculated to appeal to an educated, urban audience with liberal modern mores. The husband, on the other hand, for all that they had come from the city, soon degenerates into something of a rustic stereotype, enjoying manual labour and talking about neutrality as a key element of national identity. The play culminates in the wife’s declaring her sympathies with the Ukrainians whose children she teaches, and claiming that as Ireland is entirely bound up with the fortunes of the western world (NATO and the EU) it is not and should not pretend to be neutral but should, in effect, go all in with its allies.
This was propaganda with a purpose, and it came in the context of concerted efforts over many years to overcome Ireland’s formal commitment to neutrality. To start with, it must be said that that commitment is a good deal less definite than is generally imagined and that, in practice, it has been greatly diminished in recent decades. The Constitution of Ireland is a curious document full of contradictions and giving full play to the paradoxes of political life in its balance between a variety of claims, interests, visions and objectives with the intention of creating a secular state culturally grounded in Catholic social teaching without actually saying so explicitly. The word ‘neutrality’ does not appear in it and neither does the concept. What does appear there is a commitment to peace:
ARTICLE 29
1 Ireland affirms its devotion to the ideal of peace and friendly co-operation amongst nations founded on international justice and morality.
2 Ireland affirms its adherence to the principle of the pacific settlement of international disputes by international arbitration or judicial determination.
3 Ireland accepts the generally recognised principles of international law as its rule of conduct in its relations with other States.
Countered by the vaguely worded grant to the State of a capacity to act in concert with other nations that does not rule out military activity:
4.2 For the purpose of the exercise of any executive function of the State in or in connection with its external relations, the Government may to such extent and subject to such conditions, if any, as may be determined by law, avail of or adopt any organ, instrument, or method of procedure used or adopted for the like purpose by the members of any group or league of nations with which the State is or becomes associated for the purpose of international co-operation in matters of common concern.
Indeed, this ability to adopt the methods of procedure employed by any group or league of nations with which the State is associated, was used as the legal basis for Irish participation in the suppression of Katanga and in subsequent UN ‘peacekeeping’ operations some of which have also involved active combat.
It is the basis for membership of NATO’s Partnership for Peace programme under which non-members cooperate with NATO across as many of a wide range of operational areas as they care to choose. Here it is clear just how unclear – in the absence of any constitutional or other legal definition – the concept of Irish neutrality really is. Although working closely with NATO which appears to be one ‘side’ or ‘pole’ of a divided world – howsoever one might care to demarcate the division – would appear to be a clear renunciation of any neutrality policy that might have operated previously, governments of or led by both major parties claim, and have claimed since joining up in 1999, that Ireland operates within the Partnership for Peace framework, on the basis of its military neutrality. It is possible that such a claim might have been made in good faith in 1999 on the assumption that the world after the Cold War was, and would remain, unipolar and that Russia might take up the suggestion that it join NATO while Chinese membership of the WTO led the PRC into a non-confrontational relationship with other nations. Those ideas were certainly in the air at the time, but they are not now.
Another possibility is that America could be viewed as one side and Russia (or Russia and China combined) as the other, and either everybody else or ‘Europe’ (the European Union) in particular as the neutral third party. This idea belongs to a Gaullist concept of the nature and destiny of Europe as a united continent led – and this is unspoken but at the heart of the idea – by France and powered by Germany working in a Carolingian union. President Macron spoke in just such terms in November 2018 when discussing a European army to defend against America, Russia and China without explaining how such a force could be squared with membership of a defensive alliance including America.
On this reading NATO is not led by America as its funding model would suggest; it is, rather, a union of European nations, the Western European Union, acting in partnership with its transatlantic allies America and Canada. The WEU officially redefined itself in a 1991 declaration: “WEU will be developed as the defence component of the European Union and as the means to strengthen the European pillar of the Atlantic Alliance”. Hence the Partnership for Peace operates through the WEU and within the European Union context in which Ireland generally conducts its international politics.
As part of the negotiations leading to accession to the Treaty of Nice the Constitution was amended to preclude (26th Amendment) Irish participation in what the Treaty on European Union, referred to as a ‘common defence’ by which it means its own armed forces with Circle of Stars cap badges.
Article 29.4.9 The State shall not adopt a decision taken by the European Council to establish a common defence pursuant to Article 42 of the Treaty on European Union where that common defence would include the State.
While the keenest of EUrophiles, the federalists, might well want something of that sort as an integral element of national sovereignty which the EU must have if it is ever to be recognisable as a country in its own right, it is not in any way necessary that it exist in theory for the reality of it to exist in fact. This external ambiguity builds upon the ambivalence characteristic of Irish legal culture to result in a situation under which Ireland’s commitment to peace stands alongside commitments inexorably leading to military preparation and cooperation with those actively engaged in warfare even if Irish troops stay at home. Ireland actively participates in every step intended to lead to the establishment of the ‘common defence’ as described in the Treaty on European Union
Article 42. 1. The common security and defence policy shall be an integral part of the common foreign and security policy. It shall provide the Union with an operational capacity drawing on civilian and military assets. The Union may use them on missions outside the Union for peace-keeping, conflict prevention and strengthening international security in accordance with the principles of the United Nations Charter. The performance of these tasks shall be undertaken using capabilities provided by the Member States.
Article 42.2 The common security and defence policy shall include the progressive framing of a common Union defence policy. This will lead to a common defence, when the European Council, acting unanimously, so decides. It shall in that case recommend to the Member States the adoption of such a decision in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements. The policy of the Union in accordance with this Section shall not prejudice the specific character of the security and defence policy of certain Member States and shall respect the obligations of certain Member States, which see their common defence realised in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), under the North Atlantic Treaty and be compatible with the common security and defence policy established within that framework.
It shares in the common security and defence policy and, in so far as it exists, the common Union defence policy, if not precisely as such then through the Partnership for Peace. Because the WEU has been effectively incorporated into the EU there is, in practice, no distinction between acting on the basis of one or on that of the other. The EU’s words about NATO in Article 42.2 (above) and 42.7
If a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power, in accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. This shall not prejudice the specific character of the security and defence policy of certain Member States. Commitments and cooperation in this area shall be consistent with commitments under the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which, for those States which are members of it, remains the foundation of their collective defence and the forum for its implementation.
and in the official European Council notification on PESCO
A long-term vision of Pesco could be to arrive at a coherent full spectrum force package – in complementarity with Nato, which will continue to be the cornerstone of collective defence for its members.
can be understood only in that light. A Union action, even one of a ‘common defence’, could equally be described as a NATO ‘coalition of the willing’ in circles where that would be more acceptable e.g. in NATO friendly but EUrosceptic nations. How else could the British be persuaded to fall in behind the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy post-Brexit?Ireland joined the EU’s Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) initiative under Article 42.6:
Those Member States whose military capabilities fulfil higher criteria and which have made more binding commitments to one another in this area with a view to the most demanding missions shall establish permanent structured cooperation within the Union framework. Such cooperation shall be governed by Article 46. It shall not affect the provisions of Article 43.
in 2017 and its military expenditure has grown by over 27% to meet that commitment. Article 42.7 respects peace and neutrality policies at least in principle while not ruling out a demand that obligations under the clause be fulfilled in some not necessarily military manner; but PESCO is for volunteer nations willing to participate in ‘European external action in the military field’ and Ireland has joined up not been conscripted. In January 2018 an Taoiseach told the European Parliament how broad Ireland’s contribution to PESCO would be:
A Europe worth building is a Europe worth defending. With the launch of PESCO in December, which Ireland was pleased to join, we are coming together to deal with new threats in an inclusive way. The threats we face in the 21st century include cyber terrorism, cyber attacks, international terrorism, uncontrolled mass migration, natural disasters, and drug and human trafficking. We want to be involved in European actions against all of these.
Ireland also has a proud history of military neutrality, participation in UN Peacekeeping Operations, EU Common Security Defence Policy Operations and non-membership of NATO. So, we will participate in PESCO in ways consistent with those traditions.
‘Military neutrality’, ‘non-membership of NATO’ and the constitutional prohibition on joining the as yet non-existent common defence have little practical effect or meaning; Ireland conducts economic warfare through the international sanctions regime; it refuels warships and military aircraft; it provides battlefield medical and nursing services, using its new Casa CE95 aircraft for evacuations from war zones; it provides counter-terrorism training; it sent troops to Kosovo and to Afghanistan as part of KFOR and ISAF; and has now, as of September, signed up to provide intelligence and cybersecurity services. It would not, then, be a great change of direction for Ireland to abandon any pretence that it is thoroughly militarised and far from ‘neutral’ as many people now understand that word. To make such a declaration would, however, open to public debate that which is customarily settled by private agreement, allowing the possibility of a public rejection of the political class’ negotiations and even of the political class itself. The policy of ‘neutrality’ has always rested exclusively on political declarations issued to meet the expediencies of a passing moment and was only ever really intended to paper over the cracks arising from the differences between nationalists in the degree to which they recognised the realities of geography and sought either a cultural and political separation from Britain, or else sought a fantasy of independence by forming alliances with Britain’s enemies. As a term of political art, it could mean anything or nothing depending on the circumstances, but the word ‘neutrality’ secured peace between the people of Ireland in Ireland itself, and might objectively be said to have served its purpose in that. Its time, however, is not done yet as, while they might debate ‘redefining’ it for ever, the politicians fear that, it having been for so long a watchword for many believers in independence (however that might be understood), dropping it might rally people to put all the sterile debates of the past behind them and set out on a new path under new leadership. I fear that their fears are unrealistic.
This fear of public debate, with a fear of the public itself behind it, is the hallmark of politicians who wish to lead us where we do not wish to go. They want us to think we want it too, and to take responsibility for it to escape being held responsible themselves; use of the referendum under Art. 47 of the Constitution allows this in Ireland. Relentless EUrophile propaganda might persuade Ireland and other EU nations to make a formal commitment to a federal Union; but even if it does not, the reality of one will be created without officially naming it as such just as the European Constitution rejected under the referendum of 2001 on the proposed 24th amendment came back as merely another Treaty and with some frightening words taken out for incorporation into an Bunreacht under the 26th amendment the following year, and just as the constitutional PESCO is none other than the unconstitutional common defence wearing not even a different hat, just a different badge on it. As pro-life campaigners know from old battles, Ireland’s Supreme Court is neither, in the American parlance, ‘originalist’ nor ‘constructivist’ but merely literalist, so the verbal distinction makes all the difference.
While absolute pacifists must be respected in the integrity of their convictions, a nation cannot pursue a policy of pacifism in practice, but what it can do is to limit its military commitments to those necessary to defend its own interests without being drawn into wider alliances. A realistic assessment of Ireland’s defence requirements would be that, firstly as an importing nation, Ireland must act in concert with other countries to safeguard the freedom of the high seas with freedom of passage and freedom of trade; and secondly, that Ireland must work closely with the United Kingdom in the defence of our shared archipelago. The first is principally a diplomatic task but might well involve naval activity against either state or non-state parties. The second is largely fulfilled already by Irish volunteers within the British armed forces, but formalised defence and intelligence cooperation with an explicit territorial limitation is highly desirable. On the strength of what I have already said, I must add that the only way for Ireland to reject the big bloc alliances that lead inexorably to war, and to fulfil the ‘international vocation in support of peace and security’ to which the amendment seeking to stall accession to the Partnership for Peace referred all those years ago would be for Ireland to reject the European Union in favour of open and peaceable relations with the world at large.
The Constitution with its ambiguities, verbal gymnastics, get out clauses and general two facedness is unworthy of its preamble which should be a constant inspiration to us all:
In the Name
of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority and to Whom, as our final
end, all actions both of men and States must be referred,
We, the
people of Éire,
Humbly acknowledging all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ, Who sustained our fathers through centuries of trial,
Gratefully
remembering their heroic and unremitting struggle to regain the rightful
independence of our Nation,
And seeking
to promote the common good, with due observance of Prudence, Justice and
Charity, so that the dignity and freedom of the individual may be assured, true
social order attained, the unity of our country restored, and concord
established with other nations,
Do hereby
adopt, enact, and give to ourselves this Constitution.
Which should be a constant inspiration to us all.
When the election comes make your vote worthy of it and reject the siren voices; remember your obligation to our Saviour; follow your duty to promote the common good with due observance of prudence, justice and charity; and observe your own calling to seek peace at home and abroad. In all your choices, electoral, social and personal choose Christ. Vote only for candidates who support Irexit as part of your commitment to peaceable relations between, sovereign nations, and to the level of independence that should be the natural concomitant of Ireland’s geographical, historical and cultural circumstances.
By Prayer Crusader St Philip Howard
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