This article was published in the Polish language in the Polish weekly newspaper "Myśl Polska", 15-22 March 2026, Nr 11-12 (2596-2597), ISSN: 1231-2258

‍

The Polish and Irish people have suffered too much historically, due to wars and

occupation. Poland’s central European location makes its borders difficult to defend.

Ireland’s isolated Atlantic ‘island behind an island’ location left it vulnerable to

abusive British imperialism. Poland and Ireland achieved independence after World

War I. While Ireland avoided the devastation of World War II by remaining neutral,

Poland was invaded by both Germany and the Soviet Union. Up to six million Polish

people were killed during World War II, about half of whom were Polish Christians

and half were Polish Jews. How many Polish and Irish citizens will die if World War

III occurs?

This is not just a hypothetical question. If the militarisation of Europe and the wider

world continue at its present pace, and if the promotion of peace, justice and the

proper rule of international laws continue to be ignored and destroyed, World War III

seems inevitable.

After the end of the Cold War peaceful coexistence and global cooperation in the

interests of all humanity, should have been prioritised. NATO should have been

disbanded after the Warsaw Pact alliance ceased to exist. Instead, the US has used

NATO to try and achieve full spectrum global domination, by waging wars of

aggression against Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere in breach of the

UN Charter. Such ongoing wars are not being fought to achieve peace, democracy,

freedom or justice. They are mainly resource wars being fought by the ‘west against

the rest’ of humanity. Resource wars have been ongoing for several centuries

involving slavery, settler colonisation and multiple acts of genocide and crimes

against humanity. The European perpetrators used the excuse of bringing European

and Western civilisation to the colonised. The US, with less than 4% of the world’s

population is experiencing resources shortages, is now trying to maintain its full

spectrum dominance by abusive military force but is risking financial bankruptcy. The

Trump administration is not only targeting the vast resources of Russia and Ukraine

but has also been targeting the resources of Venezuela, Greenland and Canada and

is prepared to use military force to achieve this. The United Nations, which is meant

to be the foundation of international laws, is being targeted and denied its vital core

funding. By discrediting the UN and undermining the rule of international laws, and

using threats of sanctions, trade tariffs and regime change, the US has created a

global criminal protection racket with NATO as its enforcer. The Trump led Board of

Peace is attempting to usurp the UN’s primary role of maintaining international

peace. The Charter of Trump’s Board of Peace (BoP) has been cynically drafted

along the lines of the UN Charter but is outrageous in its attempted scope and

objectives and is dominated by the self-appointed Donald Trump. The UN Security

Council appeared to give Trump’s BoP some legitimacy on 17th November 2025

when it passed Resolution 2803 (2025), in the context of a peace agreement on

Gaza. However, the Charter of Trump’s BoP as announced in Davos on the 22

January 2026 attempts to set up the BoP as a virtual replacement for the UN, so as

to maintain US dominance of global finances and access to an undue share of the

world’s limited resources. The true nature of this Board of Peace was indicated on 11

February 2026 when indicted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu accepted Donald

Trump’s invitation for Israel to join the BoP for Gaza, even while Israel was

continuing to commit genocide in Gaza.

It is vital for humanity that the global criminality that is being perpetrated by the US

with the active complicity of its Western and other allies, is challenged and replaced

by a much-improved system of global jurisprudence. Human ingenuity created the

nuclear weapons that could cause the destruction of all life on Planet Earth. That

same human ingenuity must now be used to prevent such a catastrophe.

After Ireland was allowed to join the UN in 1955, Irish neutrality developed from its

isolationist neutrality during WWII into active or positive neutrality. This included

support for the decolonisation process and global justice. Ireland played an important

role in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in the 1960s and in the Treaty on

the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) adopted in 2017 and has participated in

UN peacekeeping since 1958. I served as a military peacekeeper with the UNEF II

mission in the Sinai Desert in 1973/74 alongside a Polish peacekeeping logistics

battalion. When Poland joined the European Union in 2004 tens of thousands of

Polish citizens came to live and work in Ireland and continue to make significant

economic and cultural contributions to Ireland.

Humanity now faces a multitude of existential interconnected crises, including

environmental destruction and global warming, conventional wars and genocides,

potential nuclear wars, migration crises, and the violations and virtual destruction of

the rule on international and humanitarian laws. Far too little is being done to deal

with any of these multiple crises, any one of which could provide the spark that could

ignite a nuclear holocaust.

There is an urgent need to halt the militarisation and wars and focus on creating

peace by peaceful means. We must avoid the Orwellian stupidity of trying to make

peace by making war. Defending national territories or the borders of Fortress

Europe in this age of hypersonic nuclear missiles, is not just a pipedream, it’s a

potential nightmare. What needs to be defended is the best interests of all our

national and global citizens, and this can only be achieved by peaceful non-violent

means, the foundations of which must be based on the proper rule of international

laws.

Now is the time for sovereign states including Poland to abandon military alliances,

especially NATO and join the nonaligned movement, as a first step towards adopting

national policies of active permanent neutrality. Possession of F35 fighter jets,

thousands of armoured vehicles and hypersonic missiles are not an asset to the

people of Poland, or the people of Europe, they are a liability. The Russian people

have also suffered many invasions including the Napoleonic wars and Hitler’s Nazi

German crimes against humanity. The Russian people do not want World War Three

and neither do the people of Europe and the rest of humanity. Its time to offer the

open hand of peace instead of the closed fist of violent wars. We, the people, must

prevent our reckless leaders from leading us into World War Three. Otherwise, future

generations of humanity may not exist.

‍

Dr Edward Horgan served as a senior officer in the Irish Defence Forces and is a

former UN peacekeeper in the Middle East. He is an active member of several Irish

and international peace groups and completed a PhD Thesis on international peace

and reform of the United Nations in 2008.

‍