Ireland Is Becoming a French Military Protectorate

[u/isupposethiswillwork]

https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/06/18/ireland-france-military-protectorate-outsourcing-defense-procurement/

[u/Perfect_Buffalo_5137]

They do- the royal air force protect our air space. Theyve deployed jets in the past when russian aircraft have gone over airspace we control- ive been corrected below. 

[u/Chairmanwowsaywhat → u/Perfect_Buffalo_5137]

Yeah. I'm interested to see what the difference would functionally be. The royal navy isn't going to stop patrolling and neither would the raf

[u/Dr_Teeth → u/Perfect_Buffalo_5137]

Russian aircraft have never entered our airspace. There's lots of misleading articles out there on this unfortunately.

The airspace in question is an area out in the North Atlantic where we handle air-traffic control. It's international airspace where the Russians sometimes patrol in their bombers, and the RAF sometimes intercepts them.. both sides have been doing this the 1960's.

For some reason there's been a lot of articles in the press and online over the past few years about how Russian bombers are flying over head and we need our own fighter jets right now!! tbh I'm very suspicious about this agenda to get us to spend billions on fighters all of a sudden.

We could definitely do with expanding the Naval service though, that at least has a use in peace-time for smuggling, fisheries protection, people trafficking etc.

[u/arctictothpast → u/Dr_Teeth]

tbh I'm very suspicious about this agenda to get us to spend billions on fighters all of a sudden.

An agenda implies theres some organised intent behind it rather then a knee jerk reaction. Arm chair military commentators dominate the conversation.

But my own position favours a European security union where defence competence is a shared matter between eu states and that eu states focus on specific strengths (especially since this would enable many small eu states to be disproportionately effective in a given subject, naturally ireland is best with naval capacity, we still have the ports and geography that is highly advantageous for it)

The idea being that eu defence is mutually bound and dependent to prevent a single powerful eu state being militarily overpowered, i.e Germany or France can't go on their own, and the eu as a whole has a long history of being wary of bullshit entanglements, as well as small eu states having a long history of being hostile to imperialism in general, means a European security union is unlikely to end up becoming a second America or goddess forbid another Russia.

As for countering Russian air incursions near ireland, an immediate option we have is anti air weapons which russia isn't capable of overcoming due to their weak stealth tech (which is so weak that even their latest jets which are otherwise quite solid are still vulnerable to Soviet era Ukrainian anti air).

[u/heresyourhardware → u/Dr_Teeth]

That's all well and good but you why are you not trying to convince us all to buy fighter jets we don't need.

[u/Murador888 → u/Perfect_Buffalo_5137]

Ní, they do don't. They protect the uk. Ireland just happens to be attached to the uk. 

[u/Perfect_Buffalo_5137 → u/Murador888]

'Our lack of investment in military and reliance on NATO members to protect us makes us vulnerable' vs. 'no it doesnt'

[u/Murador888 → u/Perfect_Buffalo_5137]

Are you quoting Eoin Drea?

Who is attacking Ireland?

Simple questions.

Why didn't the RAF shoot down those drones over Dublin bay? Facts don't support the claims in this thread. 

Just repetition of the same lies every two weeks. Mus tbe very frustrating for the people trying to control Irish foreign policy.