Ireland is an EU member state without fighter jets, with only 6 patrol boats and an army of just over 6,000 people. To solve its security problem, Ireland has resorted to a controversial solution, to say the least.
Given that Ireland does not have much hope of managing its security on its own, Dublin recently announced that it is seeking cooperation with the French Navy to provide it with temporary air defense during important meetings of the European Council, as it is due to take over the rotating presidency next month.
The reason it has made such a political decision is because it is sacrificially unable to protect itself, its territorial waters and the underwater infrastructure that surrounds the island and on which transatlantic communications depend.
Officially neutral and spending just 0.22% of its GDP on the armed forces by 2025, the country is literally defenseless. In January, Dublin and Paris signed a joint strategic cooperation framework with a horizon of 2030. In February, a military cooperation agreement covering joint training, information sharing and other areas followed. Ireland has almost entirely entrusted France with the management of its military procurement, including legal, administrative and logistical control.
In effect, the Irish government is entrusting France with negotiating, executing and signing contracts for critical military equipment on its behalf.
France will select the supplier, set the timetable and set the financial terms, without a competitive tendering process, without an independent technical assessment by Ireland and without any mechanism to check whether the country is getting real value for its money. Paris will also control the maintenance and supply chains required for the long-term use of this equipment, while also undertaking the training of the corresponding Irish forces.
In “The Merciful Hands” of French Companies
France’s Direction Générale de l’Armement (DGA), whose official purpose is to equip the French armed forces and promote French arms exports, is now managing Ireland’s rearmament.
French companies are the sole beneficiaries of Dublin’s purchases, due to the French tradition of using defence procurement as an industrial policy tool.
Thales was already selected in June 2025 to supply the Irish Navy with its first sonar, to detect enemy submarines. In December 2025, the Irish government also approved the start of negotiations with Paris for a €500 million radar system, without a public tender or competitive bidding process.
In essence, the French government decides which radar system is best suited to Ireland and which French company will get the contract.
In February, another intergovernmental agreement was signed with France to purchase Griffon, Jaguar and Serval armoured vehicles worth up to €800 million, the largest investment in the history of the Irish military.
France does not need to openly threaten Ireland. The next time Dublin blocks a French priority in the European Council, Paris could simply delay a weapons maintenance contract or an upgrade cycle.
Is Ireland a “Protectorate”
For France, Ireland is also a useful client state in furthering its long-standing strategic goal of European defense dominance under French leadership. Ireland is part of French efforts to create a network of bilateral defense partnerships parallel to NATO (France, Belgium, and Luxembourg), based on French leadership, French equipment, and French military thinking.
A further worrying factor from this development is that Ireland will have limited involvement in production. In contrast, the Belgian industry is limited to vehicle assembly and the production of certain additional weapons systems.
In April 2025, the Belgian Court of Auditors found that the contract for 442 French armored vehicles would cost almost 10 times more than initially estimated, with Belgian media also citing a lack of transparency regarding prices and terms on the French side.
A protectorate is a state that formally retains its sovereignty while ceding control of its security to a more powerful protector.
Having reached the impasse of long-term defense inaction, Ireland has now chosen to become a French protectorate.
