Scottish Independence and Defence

...an independent Scotland would supplant the rest of the UK as the Arctic’s “nearest neighbour” and inherit the requirement for surveillance and monitoring of growing Russian submarine and aircraft activity, the revitalisation of its “Bastion defence strategy” (Russia’s naval security zone which reaches south to the Shetland Islands), and the guarding of the Greenland-Iceland-UK (GUIK) gap which Russian submarines must navigate to access the North Atlantic....

His intervention comes after Professor Malcolm Chalmers of the Royal United Services Institute warned that the UK would veto Scottish membership of Nato if the SNP insisted on removing nuclear weapons within five years of a “yes” vote.

Professor Chalmers highlighted how a vulnerable Scotland could be “exploited by other powers” and thus NATO membership and good security relations are vital in the event on an independence vote north of the border. He added also how the UK would also want some “conventional military bases in Scotland which would be much less problematic” as part of any future security deals.