Originally Posted by
melmothtw
It seems to be that the chief interest that an aggressor, Russia say, would have in Irish airspace is as a backdoor into UK airspace, As such, I would say it is very much in our interest to help them plug that gap.
Agreed. Anyway, we would police that airspace even if Ireland wasn't there. So in many ways it is an irrelevance that Ireland IS there in terms of policing the UK Air Defence Region. We would do it anyway, so the fact that Ireland benefits would not cost the UK anything in addition.