Militaries and the Emerging Disaster Security Paradigm-What Implications for The Irish Defence Forces?,

This paper explores an evolving Disaster Security Paradigm (Briggs and Matejova, 2019) which has seen 21st century militaries increasingly respond to emergencies, pandemics, extreme weather events, and relatedly, the challenge of climate change. These missions are nothing new to the Irish Defence Forces, which has played a significant role in responding nationally to the COVID19 pandemic and flooding, or internationally to the Mediterranean refugee crisis, the West African Ebola outbreak and other humanitarian disasters. While many western militaries continue to innovate in facing such threats within their existing force structures and capabilities, this paper explores to what extent this growing trend may require lasting and structural adjustment for national militaries, especially those of small states. Equally, what is in question is how militaries maintain their core roles and competences to avoid becoming civil protection forces by default, which could easily leave them incapable of a fuller spectrum of military operations. In the context of the Irish Defence Forces, such concerns pose challenges but also perhaps opportunities for a military that has some notable features: an outsize overseas peacekeeping contribution, achieved from a relatively small professional military base, with few reserves, and a predominance of traditional light infantry supported by relatively few specialist corps elements, augmented by small air and naval services. It is argued that a balancing act is evident as regards any implications for structural change. Professional small state militaries must be agile and credible responders to disasters and climate change, while at the same time keeping their force structure and capabilities suitable for diverse military threats. Moreover, rather than being the exclusive preserve of any one corps or service, there should be great attention paid to ensuring flexible joint and combined disaster relief operations and capabilities, whether on the island of Ireland or internationally. This has significant implications for resourcing, procurement and force structure.