Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg. Photo: Getty Taoiseach Simon Harris met President Volodymyr Zelensky at Shannon Airport yesterday and unequivocally reaffirmed Ireland’s commitment to Ukraine in its war against Russia. The reason the first bilateral meeting between the two leaders on Irish soil happened where it did is because Mr Zelensky was on his way home from last week’s Nato summit in Washington, an event dominated by continuing concerns about the fitness of US president Joe Biden to fight November’s election.
What makes Mr Biden’s well-being such an urgent issue is that Nato members were gathering at a time when the risk of war in Europe has never been so great since the formation of the mutual defence pact 75 years ago. Given such a threat, it is worth asking whether the time has come to openly acknowledge our obvious support for, and solidarity with, the Western family of nations by joining the 23 out of 27 EU states that are already Nato members. To ask that question risks stirring up sensitivities at home, even if, despite common misconceptions, neutrality is not actually enshrined in the Constitution; indeed, it imposes few military restrictions on the government of the day.
Irish troops have, after all, previously served on Nato missions in Bosnia, and Ireland contributes financially to Nato Trust Funds. It could be argued that these sensitivities belong in the last century anyway, rather than this one. We stayed out of World War II to assert our i.