The island of Ireland is in an "absolutely critical position" amid tensions with Russia, the joint military commander in Northern Ireland has said.
Brigadier Piers Ashfield was speaking as the RAF brought a P-8 Poseidon from Lossiemouth in Scotland to the Joint Helicopter Command Flying Station Aldergrove in Co Antrim last week.
While the aircraft was primarily in Northern Ireland for a joint search and rescue exercise with the Coastguard and RNLI, there was also a military significance to the move.
The Poseidon, described as one of the RAF's primary intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance (Istar) assets, was operating from Aldergrove for the first time.
Brigadier Ashfield, commander of 38 Brigade and the senior military officer in Northern Ireland, called the exercise the "physical manifestation" of the updated memorandum of understanding signed by the UK and the Republic of Ireland in March to enhance bilateral defence co-operation.
"The aim of this has really been to test and adjust some of our operating procedures to provide an enhanced level of safety and security for people across the island of Ireland in the maritime domain, particularly focused on this exercise on search and rescue," he said.
"Ireland has always been a prisoner of that geography, and where it operates in the Greenland-Iceland gap, as you've seen the various ministerial leaders of the MoD (Ministry of Defence) describing the threat from Russian naval operations in that space that threatens both the critical national infrastructure that not only the UK depends on, but a significant part of Europe and our allies and partners depend on as well.
"It occupies an absolutely critical position covering this really important stretch of water in the North Atlantic.
"It's the most westerly (base), and I think that provides an advantage not only for the UK operating from here, but also our allies and partners across both Nato and through some of our bilateral arrangements as well."
Wing Commander Rob McCartney, the commanding officer of the Lossiemouth-based 201 Squadron, described the island of Ireland - with its position in the north Atlantic where the Russian navy regularly deploys - as "strategically important to what is going on in the world".
"The UK signed a memorandum of understanding with Ireland only a couple of months ago, which signals a much closer security relationship than we had before," he said.
"While we're here doing search and rescue, we're also here to plant a little flag in Aldergrove and say the RAF is here in Aldergrove, we plan to operate here and we plan to operate much closer with our Irish partners.
He added: "The North Atlantic has been strategically important for about 100 years, and since the Second World War has become even more strategic.
"The Russian Navy regularly deploy in the North Atlantic and, on this side of the Atlantic, it is the island of Ireland that is closest to that battlefield, so while we're not here today to conduct anti-submarine warfare, we're not here to track Russians or drop torpedoes, we are here to make the point partially that Ireland, the island of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Aldergrove, this airfield, will be strategically important in the future - of that there is no doubt.
"The RAF is here to get used to operating from here, and who knows where that will take us.
"We in a war of deterrence, what we're here to do is say to Putin 'we're willing and ready to be stronger than you and do things that win this war, and airfields like Aldergrove will be part of that solution'."
