Disruption of 1970s US & USSR Arms Supplies to Provisional IRA

With relevance to tomorrow's Submarine Matters’ article:

“Provisional Irish Republican Army arms importation into Ireland for use in Northern Ireland began in the early 1970s. With these weapons it conducted an armed campaign against the British state in Northern Ireland. 

In the early stages of the Troubles, during the period 1969–1972, the Provisional IRA was poorly armed. They had access to weapons remaining from the IRA's failed Border Campaign between 1956 and 1962, but these weapons were outdated and unsuitable for a modern campaign.

To continue and escalate their armed campaign, the IRA needed to be better equipped, which meant securing modern small arms.

The IRA's main gun runner in the United States was George Harrison [not a Beatle of course], an IRA veteran, resident in New York since 1938...In 1971, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) had already seized 700 modern weapons from the IRA, including 2 tonnes of high explosive and 157,000 rounds of ammunition, most of which were of American manufacture.”

The FBI did much to arrest and disrupt US citizen exports of arms by sea to the IRA in Northern Ireland.

Other exports by sea to the IRA came from a complex network of suppliers including USSR and East German intelligence services using, or working with, Middle Eastern and Western Euro-terrorist cut-outs. The USSR considered aid as one way of boosting the USSR’s international revolutionary  credentials. USSR aid also weakened (if ever so little) the armed forces of a key NATO country (Britain). USSR aid further complicated the British Government’s prolonged, overall poor political record in Ireland.

The British Army was the largest and most visible British regular armed force fighting in the Troubles but the Royal Navy also played a part, little discussed in English - until tomorrow.