The world is facing the biggest security challenges since the 1970s, but is far more vulnerable to shocks that cause damaging economic consequences than ever before, the Minister for Foreign Affairs has said.
“We are again in a period of intense geopolitical competition. But there is an important difference. Then, the Cold War world was essentially split in two,” Helen McEntee told the British-Irish Association in Oxford.
“Now, globalisation and technological progress mean that we are more exposed to these developments – whether physically or online – than ever before.”
Large countries’ actions can have “a ripple effect – or a tsunami effect – that has a substantial impact on people far away,” she said, pointing to the grain shortages now being felt “in Europe and across Africa” as a result of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
The rapidly-changing security vulnerabilities of countries were illustrated, she said, by the actions “of individuals and groups from outside the island of Ireland” in this summer’s immigration riots in Northern Ireland.
“Disinformation spread like wildfire: AI-generated posters that created confusion about whether roads, schools and public services would remain open, causing real anxiety and disruption for communities,” the Minister said.
Such malign actions are particularly dangerous in Northern Ireland, she said, because “sinister actors can exploit fears and divisions” rooted in recent history. “That adds to the challenge.”
McEntee said last year’s presidential election campaign was exploited to create “a platform for the cultivation of division”, which was illustrated by the sectarian attacks made upon her former party colleague, Fine Gael’s Heather Humphries.
“We saw a minority try to weaponise her identity as an Irish Presbyterian woman. That took the form of online smears and misinformation about the Southern Protestant tradition,” she said.
“We might have hoped that we had left that kind of historically illiterate, dead-end sectarianism behind, she said, adding that such prejudice should be challenged head-on, even if it is not pervasive.
“It is on social media where we see a tidal wave of sectarianism, a hateful minority’s voice amplified over and over. This is a serious problem, but we can’t let ourselves be fooled into thinking that these people are in some way representative.”
Meanwhile, McEntee said she hoped the Government would decide before the end of the year whether Ireland will join the UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force, which attempts to stop security threats in Northern Europe.
Besides the UK, the force includes Denmark, Estonia, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Finland.
Due to the State’s long-standing military neutrality, the Government has ruled out involvement in any offensive actions by the force, but it is exploring ways of co-operating on security challenges such as the risks to undersea communication cables.
Responding to questions, McEntee said: “What I would like is that we’d have some form of a decision on what we’re doing before the end of the year, but I’d prefer it be sooner as well.
“If you look at our positioning and you look at obviously our economic zone and our own maritime domain, it’s really important for me that we would make progress in this regard.”
The Minister said she hoped to be in a position to provide more detail on what Ireland would be able to do soon. “But what I’d like to see is that we would have partner status, that we would be able to join some of the operations.”
The Minister again refused to confirm that the French military and the Royal Navy had offered significant security help to Ireland during the six-month presidency of the Council of the European Union. However, she argued that co-operation is now normal among friendly states.