IN IRELAND, as in Britain, debate about the future of the European Union tends to be conducted in a historical time warp.

For British Eurosceptics little has changed since the era of empire and the heroic defiance of Napoleon and Hitler. Equally, for at least some people in Ireland, discussion about European security and defence policy is premised on the belief that the military superpowers are still locked in a ghostly global Cold War confrontation in the world outside.

The end of the real Cold War has plunged the western defence alliances, above all, Nato, into confusion and uncertainty. "The enemy" has disappeared, and with every passing month it becomes ever more difficult to justify the retention of the nuclear and other war making arsenals of the leading former Cold War powers.

The ludicrous political pantomime surrounding the French nuclear tests in the south Pacific last year disguised the reality that France no longer can afford, nor has any meaningful use for, its nuclear force de frappe.

The collapse of Stalinism in Russia and the former Warsaw Pact bloc is also transforming Nato itself. Although the Russian government is still keeping Nato at arm's length - at least until after the presidential election this summer - its former pact allies are falling over themselves to join the alliance.

Indeed, a great deal of time and resources are now spent at Nato headquarters in Brussels in running the North Atlantic Co operation Council (NACC) which involves all Nato countries, virtually all the European neutrals, the former members of the Warsaw Pact and former Soviet republics.

This means that it is becoming increasingly difficult to tell where Nato as a purely "western" military alliance ends and the pan European collective security organisation, the Organisation for Security and Co operation in Europe (OSCE), begins.

Yet there is little awareness in the Irish Government's White Paper on foreign policy that the structures of European security are in such flux or that the old dividing lines between Nato, the EU and WEU on the one hand and the United Nations and the OSCE on the other are now in question.

AS we all know the end of the Cold War has not led to a more peaceful world. Bloody military conflict has returned to Europe in a way never seen during the Cold War years or possibly since before the first World War. The war of ethnic nationalist aggression (waged by both Serb and Croat extremists) against multi ethnic Bosnia has exposed the weakness of all the global and European security organisations in this dangerous new security environment.

As the White Paper makes clear "neutrality" has had its advantages for Ireland in the past, but it is no longer "sufficient on its own to maintain conditions of peace, stability and justice in Europe, and beyond". The Irish Government accepts there is now an urgent need to reform and give effective authority to the UN and the OSCE, as a regional collective security organisation.

The trouble is that neither body is remotely equipped to deal with the actual challenges posed in the real world. An absolutely critical flaw is the dependence of both bodies on unanimity among their member states before effective action can be taken to deal with threats to peace and stability.

In Europe the prospects for peace and stability - whether in the Balkans or elsewhere - depend on the development of democracy and the rule of law, including respect for human and minority rights. It is the undemocratic character of some of the Balkan regimes that makes them prone to xenophobic nationalism and the use of aggressive force as an instrument of state policy.

This is where the European Union comes in. The development and progressive enlargement of the EU is intimately linked to safeguarding the strengthening of democracy (as it was for earlier EU member states such as Portugal, Spain and Greece).

But the European Union cannot enlarge and meet the expectation of tens of millions of new European citizens without being given the political authority and institutional means to do so.

That is why either during the present Inter Governmental Conference (IGC) or later, there will have to be agreement on closer political as well as economic and monetary union. Political union means more effective decision making (majority voting), more democratic control (stronger powers for the European and national parliaments), more openness and also a real common foreign, security and defence policy.

Unless the EU is given the authority to act in these fields, collective security through the UN or the OSCE will be meaningless. As matters stand, only the EU/WEU/Nato provide between them the military means to act on behalf of the UN/OSCE whether in humanitarians missions, conventional peacekeeping or militarily enforced peace making.

The division of responsibility for these matters between Nato and the EU/WEU is also changing. Under an agreement reached recently between the United States and its European allies, the WEU will in future be able to call on massive Nato military resources when carrying out approved, European run security missions of the type outlined in the Petersberg Declaration.

The Maastricht Treaty review conference will also have to clarify the exact relationship between the European Union and the WEU. Ireland and other neutral EU countries are not yet full members, although Ireland is proposing discussions with the WEU on how Irish security and military forces might be used in at least some future crises.

EVENTUALLY the responsibilities of the WEU will have to be formally made those of the European Union itself, even if this involves some modification of Article Five on mutual defence obligations. At the same time the European Union should incorporate the charter values and objectives of both the UN and the OSCE.

In this way a common European defence would be linked to and subordinated, to the wider purposes of a peace oriented and democratic world order.

The White Paper marks a modest, but unmistakable step by Ireland towards recognition of the complex realities of the new European security system. The logic is clear. Discussions with the WEU about Irish involvement in future peace missions and possible participation in Nato's Partnership for Peace will inexorably lead to a more comprehensive Irish role in the fullness of time.

The process of constructing a European Union is just that, "a process". It did not begin in Turin and it will not end with the successor to the Maastricht Treaty. The final shape of European security will not become clear until the European Union begins opening its doors to countries in central and eastern Europe, and until Nato and Russia have worked out a new relationship which gives the OSCE a real role.

Much depends on whether Russia's June elections will facilitate or block its democratic transformation. In this context the future of Russia's bloody colonial style repression of the Chechens will probably provide a litmus test.

For the present IGC, the Irish Government has done the minimum it needed to stay in touch with a rapidly changing security situation in Europe. Hopefully, when the time comes for more radical moves to political and security union in Europe, the Irish debate will have moved on as well.