Britain and Ireland have refreshed their defence cooperation memorandum, giving two neighbours a new framework for maritime security, cyber defence, air information sharing and joint procurement. They have also agreed to locate the map before anyone suggests using the old one from 2015.
The updated memorandum replaces the agreement signed ten years ago. That is a sensible interval for a security document, especially when the threats now include undersea infrastructure and cyber attacks. It is also long enough for every shared password to become a difficult family story told by someone who has forgotten the password again.
The agreement is intended to strengthen cooperation between the UK Armed Forces and the Irish Defence Forces. Officials will explore closer work on maritime security, including better responses to incidents at sea. Somewhere, a spreadsheet has discovered that it can be nautical and is demanding a life jacket.
There will also be more information sharing in the air and cyber domains, along with improved joint awareness of what is happening. Both countries can now become aware of the same problem at almost exactly the same time, which is the foundation of most successful meetings and several unsuccessful filing systems.
The memorandum includes possible joint procurement and government to government sales. The two countries can discuss buying military equipment together, rather than independently purchasing similar objects and meeting afterwards to compare receipts. This is progress, although the receipts may already be in the folder labelled map.
Training, military education exchanges, peacekeeping, crisis management and humanitarian operations remain part of the wider cooperation. The agenda is broad enough to cover international emergencies and the familiar emergency in which nobody knows who has the latest version of the document.
The framework respects the distinct defence and security policies of both countries. Good neighbours share information about a suspicious noise in the garden. They do not immediately redesign each other’s curtains, install a naval radar in the shed or invite the spreadsheet to chair the residents’ association.
After ten years, Britain and Ireland have a more formal basis for working together against common threats. The memorandum has strengthened the paperwork and placed the map somewhere safe. It will be found during the next review, just after both countries have bought replacement maps together.
Source: GOV.UK.
