Defence for an independent Scotland (not)

In a recent response to my article for Bylines Scotland, the author argued against my proposition that with wars in Europe and the Middle East and the US as an unreliable ally, it would be dangerous to pursue independence in the current international security situation.

Significantly, Mr Sillitto presents his own ideas, he speaks for himself and does not reference any SNP publication or any from the wider independence movement. It seems, if you want to make a case for national security in the independence movement, you’re on your own, you have to ‘fly solo’.

The other great weakness in Mr Sillitto’s contribution is he doesn’t actually address the key point I made or the questions I asked. These were:

That Scotland has a £26bn/11.6% of GDP income and expenditure gap, meaning that if independent, there would have to be cuts to essential services including the military.
How does it possibly make sense to weaken the UK military, and therefore NATO, in the current international chaos?
How would a newly independent Scotland defend its borders?
How would it deter Putin?
Would we be in or out of NATO?

Responses one by one

Mr Sillitto doesn’t address the question of how the military would be funded. In his entire article there are no numbers or values, no ‘£’ signs and no tables of contract costs or running costs or any mention of money at all. The fact that European countries are planning to invest 3.5%, and probably more, of their GDP in defence, and an independent Scotland with less money, and more calls on that money, would be expected to do at least that, passes him by.

He points out, correctly, that the UK military has been significantly weakened in recent years, but fails to explain why weakening them even more by cutting off the Scottish contribution and effectively cutting the country in half, in the face of escalating threats is a sensible option.

He addresses the threat of an aggressive Russia by implying that it doesn’t exist:

“Putin failed to invade a country next door, and his Black Sea Fleet was defeated by Ukraine, a country that doesn’t even have a navy. How would Russian soldiers get here to invade us? Why would they even bother …?”

Which is all very well but blithely replying to serious question about Russian aggression with: “Don’t worry, Putin’s not a threat” just doesn’t hack it. Why else are all the countries of Europe doubling their defence spending in the near future? Not for fun, I assure you. The chancelleries of Europe are in a panic, Ukraine is in tatters, the Baltic states are girding for war, but an independent Scotland just shrugs and dismisses the threat out of hand. This attitude strikes me as particularly unserious.

Nato membership?

And he skirts the matter of NATO membership. Alliances do get a mention, but not NATO, although it is strongly implied that there would be no nuclear weapons in the new country, and therefore no NATO membership. In which case we would be in splendid isolation in very dangerous times. And, by the way, in conflict with SNP policy which is to apply for NATO membership.

Mr Sillitto does make some general points, eg only concern ourselves with credible threats to Scotland’s integrity, invest effectively, spend the majority of the money involved within Scotland, invest in 21st century capabilities, focus totally on protecting Scotland against credible threats, we need ships to cover our 200 mile territory, information is key in modern warfare and so on. But these are generalities and truisms and tell us nothing about the actual defence capability that would be available to the new country on day 1 or day 100 or day 1000.

In summary: whatever the merits of Mr Sillitto’s proposals, he is a freelancer and doesn’t speak for the wider independence movement. He dismisses the Russian threat, ignores the question of NATO membership, doesn’t address the matter of weakening the UK and NATO and avoids the question of costs and affordability. So, my article stands and the questions it poses are yet to be satisfactorily addressed by the supporters of independence.