Opponents of the Nice Treaty, be they political parties like the Greens or Sinn Fein or pressure groups, have shown an undue concentration on the military aspects of the treaty to the virtual exclusion of the momentous decisions on enlargement. The spectre of the Defence Forces being part of a European army, going into NATO through the back door and undermining our military neutrality has been raised. These arguments are inaccurate and disingenuous.
Since the Amsterdam Treaty, an EU Rapid Reaction Force (RRF), designed to give the EU an ability to intervene in conflict situations in a peace-support capacity, was established. Work on organising, developing and training this force will be completed by 2003.
To control and co-ordinate the RRF, various political and military structures have been created in Brussels on an interim basis. At the time of the Amsterdam Treaty it was thought the moribund Western European Union could be resurrected to provide these structures.
Subsequently it was felt the EU should create new structures instead. This is a more efficient solution and it carries less baggage than the WEU option. What the Irish people are being asked in this area is simply to make the existing interim control structures permanent.
The public is not being asked to authorise the abandonment of neutrality or our admission to NATO. The public is not voting on whether there should be a European army or whether our troops should be used on European neo-colonial adventures. The public is not being asked to authorise our Government to turn its back on the UN as the main organ of world peace and security.
A Yes vote will not see us abandon our military neutrality or bring us into NATO. European defence with mutual guarantees of assistance to fellow members under threat is not an issue here. Eleven of our 14 EU partners are members of NATO and they see the existing mutual defence guarantees of the alliance as being adequate to their security needs.
The four non-aligned members, Sweden, Finland, Austria and Ireland, are not being forced into NATO. If they wish to remain neutral, they remain neutral.
The authorisation of our troops to participate in what some would see as neo-colonial adventures is not at issue here. Our non-participation in such unlikely activity is guaranteed by an opt-out clause on any operation we feel we cannot support due to national interest.
A Yes vote does not create a European army. There is no need for a European army. Europe has NATO as its security umbrella. It would be wasteful duplication on a massive scale to create such an unwanted institution. What is being created is an ability for the EU to participate in peacekeeping, peacemaking, humanitarian and rescue tasks in its area of influence.
It will allow the EU to undertake such tasks and not stand idly by as it did in Yugoslavia while a UN force, hampered by indecision at the UN and unclear mandates from the Security Council, was powerless to avert ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity and other barbarities on the EU's doorstep.
A Yes vote will not mean Ireland will somehow turn its back on the UN. The UN is capable of running low-intensity peacekeeping operations and observer missions from its offices in New York. It does not have the ability to command and control peace operations at a higher level of intensity.
In such cases it subcontracts to either lead nations or regional organisations. It used Australia as a lead nation in the initial stages in East Timor but now that the operation is at a low level of intensity it has become a direct UN operation. The UN is also using regional organisations (i.e. the NATO-led forces in Bosnia and Kosovo).
A Yes vote will allow the EU to offer its services to the UN as a regional organisation. To copperfasten the arrangement, the Government has made it clear it will not participate in any EU peace operation unless it is mandated by the UN.
To summarise, the Irish people are simply being asked to make permanent the interim command and control structures which exist for the RRF. All the talk of European armies, desertion of neutrality, turning our back on the UN, and so on, is just a smokescreen to confuse the voting public and obscure the real and simple issue involved.
Finally, it is interesting to see proponents of a No vote indicating the Government should "obtain a special protocol to preserve our independence in foreign and security policy as did Denmark". What they neglect to tell the Irish people is that Denmark is a full member of NATO and is hardly an example of neutrality or nonalignment.
Lieut Gen Gerry McMahon is a former chief-of-staff of the Defence Forces.