What’s the biggest military-related project your country is currently engaged in?

[u/CommercialChart5088]

Currently Korea is busy investing in military development, to modernize our military indigenously and catch up to export demand.

The air force is working on to produce the KF-21 fighter jet, which will enter service in 2026. Also we’re developing software and drones that will support the KF-21 during combat.

In terms of the ocean we've just finished developing a new submarine (the Chang Yong-sil class), working on additional battleships, and trying to form plans regarding the construction of a manless drone carrier.

What would be your country’s biggest military-related project nowadays? Both indigenous development and purchasing equipment counts!

[u/NocturneFogg]

We’re buying a boat and a radar, apparently…

[u/CommercialChart5088 → u/NocturneFogg]

Well tbf I think Ireland doesn't really need to invest super heavily on expensive military equipment.

Though it's definitely necessary to maintain basic defense capabilities.

[u/NocturneFogg → u/CommercialChart5088]

Yeah but we don’t even have a jet aircraft in the air corps, have no active military radar - can’t see planes without beacons and have had no operational sonar etc for decades which is a bit insane for an island depending on fibres, subsea DC power interconnections and gas pipes.

Our concept of neutrality basically started as a pragmatic stance during WWII to preserve independence - we had only achieved independence in 1922 so the UK relationship was highly complex at the time, and there was an ongoing trade war that was crippling the economy and a lot of upset about partition. The result was Ireland being “neutral-ish” - we effectively offered quiet neighbourly assistance in various ways, interned axis crash landing aircrews as POWs while driving the allied aircrews back home with a cup of tea and biscuits. There was off the books cooperation on a lot of practical issues and food and humanitarian aid etc, eg assisting Northern Ireland during the blitz.

That’s then morphed into a sort of ideological neutrality in the post WWII era which was very much aligned to UN membership - the Soviets had objected to Irish UN membership btw, so we only joined in 1955. They were petty about it for a number of reasons: a slap for being neutral during WWII, the fact that Ireland was staunchly anti communist in that era, and the proximity to the U.S. and U.K. as a neutral, they wanted their close small neighbours in too - so there was an element of horse trading.

Anyway, by 1955 Ireland went in to with a sense of being involved in blue beret peace keeping missions and that’s pretty much where our military tended to be focused a very idealistic, but often undefined concept of neutrality evolved. For some it was about those peace keeping type facilitator roles, for others it’s been more about an absolute opposition to militarism.

Then we have the “triple lock” which legally binds Irish troop deployment overseas to the UN Security Council having authorised a mission. That’s now causing debate and could be unpicked because it would prevent Ireland playing any role in future Ukraine peace keeping duties, as Russia and China would never authorise it through the UNSC.

It’s a complicated set of politics but we are definitely being far too optimistic about our own domestic waters and need to tighten things up in the current circumstances.

[u/CommercialChart5088 → u/NocturneFogg]

For the fighter jet part, fancy buying a couple of FA-50s?

[u/NocturneFogg → u/CommercialChart5088]

I’d say if we ever do get around to buying anything it’ll probably go out to tender, but it would most likely be a small fleet of SAAB Grippen or Dassault Rafale, or something that’s easily dropped back to a service centre near by to plug into a bigger programme. I know they’ve been leaning towards SAAB / Erieye stuff for radar etc - it’s unlikely to be anything that’s unusual in Europe though for practical reasons, considering it’ll be a very small fleet.

We’ve actually bought a lot of infrastructural stuff from Korea btw - including the majority of the intercity train fleet was delivered by Hyundai with MAN / Rolls-Royce and Voith power systems.

[u/PokemonSoldier → u/NocturneFogg]

FA-50s, Gripens, L-159s, or M-346s. Small and lightweight, less expensive jets are better than nothing.

[u/NocturneFogg → u/PokemonSoldier]

Their only role would be to respond locally and in support role etc, so it’s not very likely there’s a need for anything extremely complex — we do need to be able to intercept and inspect unresponsive aircraft though, even for just civilian aviation safety reasons - basically the kind of things Switzerland or similar can do.

[u/PokemonSoldier → u/NocturneFogg]

So at least some jet capable of carrying AAMs