Neither the United States or Britain would allow Russia to interfere with Ireland.
That's according to Independent Senator and retired army captain Tom Clonan.
It comes amid renewed debate over Ireland's neutrality in the face of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
While Russia has warned of Sweden and Finland against joining the NATO military alliance.
Senator Clonan told Pat Kenny in any scenario of a Russian invasion of Ireland: "De-facto, in real politique terms, it's game over: you're going to see a war between NATO and Russia.
"I absolutely hold with our military neutral status, but we're not politically neutral.
"We do not belong to a military alliance, but we're not politically neutral.
"For example, millions of US troops have passed through Shannon Airport which has - certainly when I was reporting on it - they have a permanent US military presence at Shannon.
"It's a forward airbase, as described by [former US Defence Secretary] Donald Rumsfeld and the others, it's on the US military establishment.
"Ireland is a main staging base, or a pivot area, for US forces and their projection of force into the Middle East, North Africa, into Central Asia.
"There is no way the United States or the British would allow Russian interference with that".
'Irish troops have been involved with NATO'
He believes while Ireland should not join a military alliance, we have already been involved with NATO.
"That's not to say that there isn't a debate to be had... but if you break it down and look at it on an evidence basis: we already contribute to NATO mission as we choose and as we see fit.
"It's not peacekeeping we've been involved in - Irish troops have been involved in peace enforcement, which is in support of full combat operations in Afghanistan for the last 20 years as part of NATO.
"We've had Irish troops in Kosovo as part of a NATO peace enforcement mission.
"And in fact one of our generals, General Gerry Hegarty, was actually the commander of a NATO multinational division in Kosovo."
Senator Clonan says in the event that Ireland is targeted, Britain would likely help.
"There is a Memorandum of Understanding between the Department of the Defence and the UK MoD [Ministry of Defence].
"The Royal Airforce patrols our skies and our controlled airspace - when the Russians incur into Irish-controlled airspace, it is the Royal Airforce that identify them, detect them and intercept them and shadow them.
"So if the Russians were to attempt that - even as a neutral state - because of our own lack of investment, it would be the RAF and the UK military that would intervene and stop it from happening".
