Not like the French to run from a fight, is it?
FRANCE WILL NOT carry out planned military exercises in Irish territorial waters or in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney has confirmed.
The Irish South and West Fish Producers Organisation had called on the Irish and French governments to intervene to stop the exercises.
Speaking in the Dáil today, Coveney said exercises like this are not “that common” but do happen. He thanked the Irish South and West Fish Producers Organisation for their input in recent days.
Easy and obvious jokes aside, France, obviously, is not Russia. There are levels on which that comparison matters, and a more fundamental one on which it does not. France is our EU colleague, friend, and, should we ever need one, likely ally. Russia is a military power which is openly hostile to the European Union, of which Ireland is a member. It is not foolish, on its face, to be more accommodating of French interests than Russian interests.
At the same time, though, France has more of a responsibility than Russia does to respect and observe Irish neutrality. There’s a big ocean out there where they can put their warships through their paces, and they have little to gain by holding their exercises in Irish waters. The Russians were transparently making a point to the EU at large by showing off their fleet. The French have no such incentive.
The bigger point to all this is that Ireland really can’t draw any distinction between France and Russia on issues like this. That is what “neutrality” means.
It is also, of course, the single biggest argument against neutrality. Not the specific issue of whether France can use our waters for an exercise, but the larger point that neutrality means we cannot show any favour to the French that we would not also extend to the Russians. That, dear reader, strikes me as very silly.
The ties between Ireland and France – the military ties specifically – go back generations. Almost every failed rebellion of note in our history was started with French assistance. The French Army, for hundreds of years, had Irish regiments. Over 400,000 Irish men served in the Irish brigade fighting in the armies of Louis XIV, for example. We are sporting rivals, political allies, and have many of the same interests. We are likely to turn to them for help in our hour of need, whether that need be political, economic, or, in extremis, military.
None of that, whatever your view of Russia, is true of the Russian Federation.
In fact, there’s an argument to be made that our neutrality is actually pro-Russian: After all, it compels us not to help our friends against their enemies, and to treat their enemies the same way we would treat them. Russia would never expect our help, anyway. The French, by contrast, have some claim on it.
This is, to be clear, a minority view and not one I’d expect many readers to share. The counterview to it is that there’s not much we could do to aid the French in any meaningful conflict anyway, and that we would just make ourselves a target without ever having the ability to change the course of a conflict in any case. That’s a fair, and respectable, position.
I wonder, though, what it gains us, ultimately. I don’t think it gains us very much, with anybody. And personally, I’m not sure I care if a French frigate is practicing its anti-torpedo manoeuvres 70 miles off the coast of Bantry Bay, in the way I’d care about the Russians doing the same. The country might be neutral, but it doesn’t mean the rest of us have to be.