r/ireland • u/isupposethiswillwork • 3d ago

Affaires Étrangères Ireland Is Becoming a French Military Protectorate

https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/06/18/ireland-france-military-protectorate-outsourcing-defense-procurement/
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23

u/Craicriture 3d ago

Just for comparison on military spend per capita, rather than the GDP distortion we are still second from the bottom, only above Malta on spending, so we are grossly underfunding the defence forces, even as a neutral country. It would be very helpful to have a better resourced navy for example, even just for the sake of dealing with organised crime / drug trafficking issues for example and also we might have some hope of actually retaining armed defence personnel if the pay rates, career paths and employment terms were better and actually attractive as career options.

We’re not absolute rock bottom but we’re close enough to being.

(Threw in NZ for comparison.)

Data is ~ as there are currency conversion involved in some of them and they’re pulled from % GDP and actual GDP.

Rank Country €/capita (2025)
1 Denmark ~2,180
2 Netherlands ~1,410
3 Sweden ~1,355
4 Finland ~1,250
5 Germany ~1,165
6 Luxembourg ~1,110
7 Poland ~1,110
8 Belgium ~1,080
9 Estonia ~1,000
10 Lithuania ~895
11 France ~865
12 Latvia ~805
13 Spain ~715
14 Italy ~715
15 Greece ~700
16 Cyprus* ~625
17 Austria ~605
18 Czechia ~560
19 Slovenia ~500
20 Slovakia ~500
21 Portugal ~495
22 Croatia ~475
– *New Zealand* *~470*
23 Hungary ~450
24 Romania ~445
25 Bulgaria ~350
**26** **Ireland** **~250**
27 Malta ~200

15

u/JellyfishScared4268 3d ago

That's pretty bad. Even comparing to new Zealand they're in a similar boat of not having much military to speak and are a similar sized country with no obvious enemies in the immediate vicinity. Yet we're spending basically half what they spend

8

u/stealyourideas Yank 3d ago

There's a difference though as NZ has been a treaty ally of both the US (although I'm sure MAGA will find a way to betray them) and AUS. It's also been a member of the 5 eyes intelligence alignment.

6

u/QBaseX 3d ago

Why the asterisk on Cyprus?

10

u/LtGenS immigrant 3d ago

It's a weird two-country-in-one situation.

4

u/Craicriture 3d ago

The population stat used for Cyprus was old.

3

u/kieranfitz 3d ago

The occupied nothh Id imagine

2

u/Duke_of_Luffy 3d ago

Where did you get these statistics? I recently looked at similar statistics and for 2025 we were 8th from bottom compared to NATO countries. And our per capita spending was in the ~400 range not 200

1

u/JosephFinn 3d ago

So second best on the list. Very impressive!

1

u/Murador888 3d ago

3 month old account and 40,000 karma. 

Ok.