Sir, – The fundamental cause of the debacle for the US navy which occurred at Pearl Harbor was a lack of imagination.
It was not conceived of that such an audacious attack was possible.
Given that people's opinions generally tend to coincide with their perceived self-interest, I believe that the proponents of Irish military non-alignment are primarily lacking the imagination to see the potential consequences of our current vulnerability, which, like Rebecca Crowley(Letters, May 23rd), I have no doubt has been identified by others.
While we are not members of Nato, we are in effect their poorly guarded back door, the worst of all positions.
Ireland could be overtaken with ease, with disastrous consequences for us all, as an outflanking manoeuvre against Nato in the event of an escalation of conflict.
Given the time required to build up our own defence capabilities, early accession to Nato has to be the best choice to reduce our risk.
If and when we have built up our own defence capabilities, we can then consider standing apart, a luxury which is currently foolish. – Yours, etc,
TOM HOGAN,
Castleknock,
Dublin 15.
Sir, – Using 2020 data from the World Bank, increasing Ireland’s military expenditure to the median expenditure of Nato countries (based on a percentage of GDP) would cost us an additional €5.3 billion every year. Where do proponents of increasing our military expenditure propose this money comes from?
Further, if we did find the money, do they really believe that it would put us in a genuine position of defending ourselves against any serious attack? That idea seems laughable to me.
Like it or lump it, we are always going to be reliant on others to defend us and increasing our military expenditure would be a colossal waste of money.
Examples of how we can make truly impactful contributions to the world have been proposed by other letter writers. – Yours, etc,
CONOR McDONNELL,
Dundrum,
Dublin 16.