Ireland has long been a free rider in security and defense. Officially neutral and spending an infinitesimal 0.22 percent of GDP on its military in 2025, the country is literally defenseless. With only four naval vessels available on a rotational basis, patrol ships that lack technicians to operate weapons, and zero fighter jets, Ireland is incapable of protecting itself, its waters, and the undersea infrastructure that surrounds the island and on which trans-Atlantic communications depend. Even today—in an era of heightened geopolitical threats—Dublin remains devoid of any coherent long-term security strategy.
Dublin has an immediate security problem to deal with: Embarrassed by its inability to deal with a drone incursion during a visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last December, Ireland is desperate to avoid similar incidents when it assumes the rotating presidency of the European Council—the intergovernmental body that is the true locus of power behind the European Union—with its summits and ministerial meetings, next month. Since it has little hope of handling security on its own, Dublin recently announced that it was seeking to engage the French Navy to provide temporary air defense during important European Council meetings.
Ireland has long been a free rider in security and defense. Officially neutral and spending an infinitesimal 0.22 percent of GDP on its military in 2025, the country is literally defenseless. With only four naval vessels available on a rotational basis, patrol ships that lack technicians to operate weapons, and zero fighter jets, Ireland is incapable of protecting itself, its waters, and the undersea infrastructure that surrounds the island and on which trans-Atlantic communications depend. Even today—in an era of heightened geopolitical threats—Dublin remains devoid of any coherent long-term security strategy.
Dublin has an immediate security problem to deal with: Embarrassed by its inability to deal with a drone incursion during a visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last December, Ireland is desperate to avoid similar incidents when it assumes the rotating presidency of the European Council—the intergovernmental body that is the true locus of power behind the European Union—with its summits and ministerial meetings, next month. Since it has little hope of handling security on its own, Dublin recently announced that it was seeking to engage the French Navy to provide temporary air defense during important European Council meetings.
Facing pressure from both the EU and the United States, Ireland has also embarked on a defense-spending program to start addressing its most grievous shortcomings. Here, too, Ireland is partnering with France. In January, Dublin and Paris signed a joint strategic framework that will run until 2030. In February, there followed a military cooperation agreement covering joint training, intelligence sharing, and other areas. Most significantly, Ireland has outsourced its military procurement, including legal, administrative, and logistical control, almost entirely to France.
Under the umbrella of the new treaties, Ireland and France are finalizing a series of individual government-to-government (G2G) procurement agreements. In effect, the Irish government is commissioning France to negotiate, execute, and sign contracts for critical military equipment on its behalf. France will choose the supplier, determine timelines, and set pricing terms—without any competitive tender, independent Irish technical assessment, or mechanism to verify that Ireland is receiving value for money. Paris will also control the maintenance and supply chains required for the long-term use of this equipment, while simultaneously commanding the training of relevant Irish troops.
France’s Direction Générale de l’Armement (DGA), whose official stated purpose is to equip the French military and promote French arms exports, is now managing Ireland’s rearmament. Given the French state’s deep tradition of using defense procurement as industrial policy—reflected to this day by government shareholdings in Thales, Safran, and other arms conglomerates—French firms will likely be the exclusive beneficiaries of Dublin’s blank check.
Even before the latest round of Franco-Irish agreements, Thales was chosen in June 2025 to provide the Irish navy with its first-ever towed sonar, which is used by naval vessels to detect intruding submarines, in a 60-million-euro deal. In December 2025, the Irish government also approved the opening of negotiations with Paris for a 500-million-euro radar system. The Irish Times described this as Ireland “effectively outsourcing the procurement of the system to officials in Paris.” Irish Defense Minister Helen McEntee said that the French proposal was accepted because it “substantially fulfils Ireland’s capability requirements.” What she didn’t say was that this vast amount will be spent without public tender or competitive bidding. In essence, the French government decides which radar system suits Ireland best and which French supplier should get the contract.
In February, a further G2G agreement was signed with France over Ireland’s purchase of up to 800 million euros’ worth of Griffon, Jaguar, and Serval armored vehicles, the largest investment in the history of the Irish Army. Negotiations are due to finish in the coming months.
Ireland’s dependence on France has become almost exclusive. Between 2015 and 2024, Ireland ordered French military equipment worth a total of 53 million euros. Since 2025, Dublin has either signed contracts or opened negotiations with the French government for more than 1.4 billion euros. To put these numbers into perspective: Ireland’s total 2026 defense budget is only 1.5 billion euros.
Ireland’s defense marriage to France is transformational, but the dependency risks undermining Ireland’s military and strategic independence. The fixation on France is already undercutting relations with Britain, Ireland’s hitherto closest defense partner and most important neighbor—an effect that may very well have played a part in French overtures. (Ireland has relied on a secret 1950s arrangement in which Britain’s Royal Air Force monitors and intercepts hostile aircraft in Irish airspace.)
Dublin’s unprecedented dependency could also erode trans-Atlantic relations by handing France leverage over Ireland to challenge, for example, Dublin’s free-market, low-tax, U.S.-oriented economic model. France need not threaten Ireland explicitly. When Ireland next blocks a French priority at the European Council, Paris could slow-walk an arms maintenance contract or delay an upgrade cycle.
For France, Ireland is also a useful client state to advance its long-held strategic objective of European defense sovereignty under French leadership.
Ireland fits into French efforts to build a network of bilateral defense partnerships parallel to NATO based on French leadership, French equipment, and French military doctrine. The template here is Capacité Motorisée, France’s 2019 strategic partnership with Belgium that was subsequently expanded to include Luxembourg. The partnership standardizes doctrine, command and control, equipment, and maintenance across their land forces. The three countries use France’s proprietary networked digital battle system—called Scorpion— for their armoured vehicles. This system will now incorporate Ireland as well. Although Scorpion is compatible with NATO networks, the software is owned by French company Eviden, hardware is supplied by Thales and other French companies, and all access and upgrades are controlled exclusively by Paris. Belgian industry has to make do with vehicle assembly and producing some add-on weapons.
Already, France, Belgium, and Luxembourg have the Scorpion-enabled ability to fight as one cohesive force, independently of NATO. Ireland will now join the Scorpion platform as a non-NATO member.
Belgium’s experience should provide a sobering warning to Dublin. In April 2025, the Belgian Court of Audit found that a contract for 442 French-made armored vehicles will end up costing almost 10 times the initial estimate—14.4 billion euros instead of 1.5 billion euros. Belgian media also reported various other contract discrepancies, in addition to intransparency over prices and conditions on the French side.
A protectorate is a state that maintains nominal sovereignty while ceding control of its security to a more powerful patron. Having reached the dead end of free riding on defense, a French protectorate is what Ireland has now chosen to become.