WGA 2020 | Ireland | Policies Developed

Policies Developed

Question:
Discuss both explicitly formulated WGA policies and more implicit references to a WGA in your country. You may, for example, describe and assess the scope and quality of official or semi-official policies or discuss the country’s obligations under international and EU agreements.

Ireland Expert

Isaac Bennett

PhD Researcher, UCD School of Politics and International Relations, Dublin

Isaac Bennett is a second-year PhD Researcher at the UCD School of Politics and International Relations in Dublin. His research focuses on the relationship between advanced military technology and casualty aversion in democratic countries. Prior to this research, Isaac worked as the owner and operator of Bennett Research Services, a political and security affairs consultancy. He was engaged in several projects for lobby groups and individuals, including a large, in-depth analysis of alleged police and judicial corruption in Ireland (2015). Between 2015 and 2017, he worked for the Cork County Council as part of a change management team to improve local government service provision to citizens and to enhance communication links via a new website. Isaac holds a BA in History and Political Science from Trinity College Dublin (2012), and an MA in International Security and Conflict Studies from Dublin City University (2014).

Ben Tonra

Full Professor of International Relations, UCD School of Politics and International Relations, Dublin

Ben Tonra is Full Professor of International Relations at the UCD School of Politics and International Relations in Dublin. There, he teaches, researches and publishes on European foreign, security and defence policy; Irish foreign, security and defence policy; and the theory of international relations. Outside the university, he has served as Chair of the Royal Irish Academy’s Standing Committee on International Affairs and is a Co-leader of a research programme on EU security and defence at the Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA) in Dublin. In Ireland, he has also lectured for and worked with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Department of Defence, and the Defence Forces. Previously, he was a Lecturer at the Department of International Politics of the University of Wales (Aberystwyth) and a Research Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC. Ben is a graduate of the University of Limerick (BA and MA) and completed his doctoral studies at the University of Dublin (Trinity College) in 1996.

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There are no formal WGA policies or strategies that explicitly state how Ireland is to come together to respond to an external security crisis. Instead, as noted above, there is a standing inter-departmental committee that deals with such crises on a case-by-case basis. This committee draws on participants from all sectors of government and ministerial departments as well as associated agencies, as needed. Consultations with civilian actors or NGOs that might have a stake in the region or crisis itself are also facilitated. Military commanders are key stakeholders and ones who have a role in this committee, whether they are reporting in person or via secure teleconference from the region experiencing the crisis. Various members of the myriad sections within the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Department of Justice and Equality, the Taoiseach (i.e. the prime minister’s office), and the Department of Defence are gathered together in order to establish the exact context of the crisis and the best way to respond to it. Of course, these decisions are not made in a vacuum. Instead, consultation with EU member states and institutions is an important aspect of the committee’s work, as it ensures that there is no duplication of efforts among these various bodies.

There are other reasons for this coordination and cooperation that are practical in nature. While Ireland is often willing to deploy its armed forces as part of international security operations, the fact that it does not have a full-spectrum military capacity means that it must rely on collective infrastructures provided by multilateral actors (e.g. the EU, the UN and NATO). In addition to coordinating with the EU, it may be necessary at times to contact and arrange cooperation with other external actors, such as those just cited or the African Union (AU). This may be for several reasons, such as: to facilitate passage across other nations’ sovereign territory en route to the crisis region; to ensure that the mission does not conflict with any existing mission in the region; to facilitate a transfer of intelligence and information in a more efficient manner; or to establish basic protocols for troop interaction, the provision of support, and deconflicting the airspace over the crisis theatre.

The WGA mechanism that Ireland employs during responses to external crises is not a formalised structure with directly supporting human resources (HR) and administration assets to call upon. However, this does not limit its effectiveness in achieving efficient mission deployment and successful outcomes in responses to external crises. In fact, the argument can be made that this model of WGA is ideal for geographically small nations with smaller populations and centralised governments. Sources within the ministries that were interviewed for this analysis discussed the utility of having all main stakeholders in the same room in person for ensuring clarification of roles and responsibilities as well as for dealing with any disputes or conflicts that might arise due to having so many different actors involved in an operation. This conflict resolution and clarity generation does not merely come from formal ‘roundtable’ discussions, but also from informal conversations – or so-called ‘water-cooler’ moments – which allow for issues to be discussed and resolved on an inter-personal basis. Government documents analysed for this report refer to the importance of WGAs for future interaction within both the national and international security realms.

As has been noted throughout, Ireland uses an inter-departmental committee to coordinate within the administration and to respond to external crises and conflicts, but the documentation and strategies make no reference to this committee other than acknowledging the “current arrangements”. It is possible, however, to identify a renewed commitment to a more robust defensive military posture in the most recent White Paper on Defence (Department of Defence 2015). Indeed, there are explicit commitments made regarding continued participation in the CSDP and a recognition of the importance of having national militaries possess “expeditionary potential” so they can better intervene and assist in conflicts and crises outside the borders of the EU (ibid.: 27). Rather than making any direct references to a WGA, these documents assume that the response mechanism (i.e. the Interdepartmental Committee for Peacekeeping) is the only vector through which developments or issues in the military sphere will be pursued. It is evidence nonetheless that the bureaucratic and military leadership is aware of the concept of a whole-of-government approach to military affairs.

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