Between the 13th and the 17th Centuries, Great Britain established dominance over Ireland for imperial reasons. During the 18th and 19th Centuries and up to the middle of the 20th Century, Ireland's relationship with Great Britain illustrated how one country's strategic convictions became another country's oppression. Vulnerable and inevitably dominated by the asymmetric nature of its position vis-a-vis England, Ireland's status as a subdued threat and strategic asset was assured as long as territorial defense represented a concept with some strategic substance. Tudor absolutism, imperial necessity, and defense of the western approaches to Great Britain and Europe were thus synoptic but nonetheless totalizing abstractions by which the suppression of Ireland was attempted. After World War II, the neutrality (strategic significance) of Ireland became particularly relevant in the context of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and nuclear deterrence, as well as political and territorial dimensions of assessing the strategic significance of Ireland to Great Britain. 74 notes