The future of the Military of Scotland
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Fraser Walker describes himself as a eurosceptic and ardent unionist. He believes that Scotland is at the heart of the UK and that we must all back our Armed Forces.
Scotland has a proud military tradition. Her troops have served alongside the rest of the United Kingdom during the Napoleonic Wars, the Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny, the Mahdi’s Rebellion, both world wars, the Falklands and in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and in many more conflicts besides.
Britain in general and Scotland in particular have very close ties to the military. Yet, El Presidente Salmando has an incredibly limited defence policy. on 19th January, the First Minister said that what he now wanted was mobile brigade, one airbase and one Naval Base. There are no Scottish Formation Reconnaissance Regiments. Indeed, the SNP defence policy page redirects to something about Rosanna Cunningham and sniffer dogs.
Currently, the Scottish military is a critical element of UK defence policy. The Royal Regiment of Scotland is the most senior line regiment of the British Army, thanks to the lineage of the Royal Scots. The battalions of this regiment are deployed in all capacities, as Light Role Infantry, Armoured Infantry and as Air Assault Infantry.
However, Alex Salmond’s plan involves the resurrection of the former British Army infantry regiments: Royal Scots, Black Watch, the individual Highland Regiments and so on.
However, there are a few problems with that plan. Firstly, it is by no means certain that London will give an independent Scotland any military at all. Secondly, there is no guarantee that the Scottish troops in the military will want to serve in a Scottish military, since Salmond doesn’t want to get involved in foreign wars and has still not said how he intends to pay them. Thirdly, if the MOD do give anything to Edinburgh, then there is the problem of equipment. 4 SCOTS are equipped with British owned APCs. 5 SCOTS are equipped with helicopters and support 16 Air Assault Brigade. Then it comes down to rifles, pistols, mortars, machine guns, grenades, helmets and socks. The MOD budget is about 2% of UK GDP and the world’s fourth highest military budget.
Then there are the issues of the Scots Guards, which officially come under Guards Division and therefore are not actually part of the Scottish Division in Edinburgh. The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards are a Challenger Armoured Regiment soon to be recalled from Germany. I somehow doubt that Westminster would simply be willing to hand over a considerable investment in tanks to a new country; each costing £4.2 million: a total of £184.8 million for 44 Challengers in addition to 22 Scimitar Recce Tanks. Since the SNP are largely non interventionists and the Challengers are rarely deployed in Afghanistan anyway, then there would be no point in selling them anyway. 5 SCOTS is equipped with helicopters from AAC, largely Westland Lynx. Again, these are part of Army Air Corps as opposed to the battalion.
In terms of Naval presence, HMNB Clyde is the headquarters for the UK’s four Vanguard class submarines, the national nuclear deterrent, along with HMS Astute. This is the First Minister’s biggest target. Therefore, the 900 or so jobs reportedly based at Faslane will go, given the fact that there are no conventional naval units north of the border. It is unlikely that the MOD will give Scotland any elements of the surface fleet. It would be a bit like giving HMS Vanguard to the Swedish, incredibly unlikely. Therefore, there will be no job security for Faslane. The only active RN site in Scotland is a SAR Fleet Air Arm base at Prestwick.
I should also add that 45 Commando is based in Arbroath. This would be a simple matter of moving it to meet up with the rest of the brigade.
Then were come to the RAF. Lossiemouth is home to Tornados. However, come 2013 on the closure of Leuchars in Fife, the Typhoon squadron will also move to Lossiemouth. Again, the £67 million aircraft are not something I would imagine Westminster would be willing to hand them over for nothing. Leuchars and Kinloss will be converted to army bases for those coming back from Germany.
There is even more. I haven’t even touched on artillery, engineers, signals, intelligence, logistics, administration or special operations.
Therefore, it seems very clear to me that, on top of everything else. El Presidente Eck is going to have considerable problems with a military. He could, however, simply go for the Icelandic approach: disband the forces and call in NATO whenever gets into a spot of bother…
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An excellent piece, Fraser. It will be interesting to see how the cyber-nats respond, not very well i imagine, given Angus Robertson`s floundering response to the recent analysis of scottish/UK defence needs, by Admiral Lord West. Thousands of Scots are serving in the Uk armed forces, the defence industries employ thousands of Scots at Faslane, Rosyth and elsewhere. These people need answers from the SNP, they deserve better than the ” dad`s army ” proposals outlined my Alex Salmond, proposals which appear to have been scribbled down on the back of a bookies receipt. The contempt that nationalists show towards our servicepeople and their families, is revealing. The nats would like to believe that defence will not figure in the referendum debate and will have no bearing on the outcome, but here they are wrong. Just as the Scottish people need to know exactly what sort of money will be coming out of the cash machines, on the day after the referendum, they also demand to know how the country will be adequatey defended. On both of these issues, a credible policy from the SNP, is wanting.
” The contempt that Nationalists show to our servicepeople and their familys, is revealing.” Well here is some true contempt being show for Scotland, according to the Sunday Times the commitment to base a squadron of the worlds most advanced fighter jets at RAF Lossiemouth has been abandoned. Instead they are to go to RAF Marham in Norfolk following a campaign by local Conservative MP’s.
There you are, True Tory Blue Unionist Contempt. Sadly not unexpected.
“Hand over for nothing”–perhaps Mr Walker thinks Scots pay no taxes or contribute to the Uks present armed forces. While it would all be up for negotiation, Scotland would be entitled to a share of the defence establishment stucture. I am puzzled as to why British Nationalists are being so negative in everything they say. While it may still appear to be unlikely there will be a vote for Independence, the polls only need to move a few percentage points and it WILL happen. But by then you will have painted the rUK into a negative corner vis-a-vis Scotland. Instead of two neigbours with a lot of common interests, we will have two Governments at each others throats, enemies for decades, to each others detriment.
So, given the choice of spending on defence based on a rational assessment of all risks or of throwing money away on delusions of being a great power while ignoring many real but less overtly military risks, the SCUP favours delusion?
Nuclear weapons do not contribute to our safety. Aircraft carriers without aircraft do not contribute to our safety. An army equipped to refight the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is no more likely to be fit for purpose in the future than one equipped to fight World War III in Germany was suited to Afghanistan and Iraq. And as for the air force, words fail me.
Good luck with convincing Scots voters that the £40 billion the UK spends on defence is a wise use of taxpayer’s money. Even MPs aren’t convinced of that.
I’m glad I’m attracting some debate.It’s another wait and see. Anyway, this will be outdated next time the FM speaks.
F
If the Nats win the Referendum, then its fairly certain the Carrier order will be moved to either Wallsend, Barrow or Birkenhead RN Policy is not to order overseas. It does mean that Yarrows will close.
The nearest parallel is the division of Ireland in 1922. The Free State received little even HMS Dublin stayed in the RN, the Regiments were disbanded and their colours laid up. I suppose from a Scottish perspective we could at least expect Alex to demand the 104th Royal Tank Regiment.
Actually Alex’s biggest problem will be that if he scrapes a victory, there’s going to be a a million and a half to two million people who wanted toremain loyal to the UK. Does Alex intend using those forces to keep us down
Oh dear just when they must have been hoping that things could only get better another mad cap declaration escapes from the cluttered mind of our wee tartan Duce. We know that he’s not one for details, but his back of the hand defence master plan to take six infantry Bns from the British Army seems exceptionally odd..
Australia with four times the population and an enormous land mass only has seven regular Bns! He could only use so many to go pirouetting round the Presidential Palace. Then, given his unblinking pacifism what is the purpose of the others??
I’ll leave the specific nonsense of this declaration for others to highlight. The interesting thing here is that none of these serial delusions seem to produce the smallest spark of cognitive dissonance amongst his unquestioning devotees. The Fuhrer principle is obviously still alive and well in Scotland.
[...] better off once it stops subsidising the UK defence budget to the tune of £2 billion a year. But Fraser Walker at Tory Hoose predicts major military problems for an independent [...]
Scotland pays £3bl in defence taxes yet only £2bl comes back to us from the defence budget.Our defence needs would not be large in international terms.The UK in the meantime is making thousands of Army,Navy and Airforce personnel redundent.The MOD overspends its budget on a regular basis, at great cost to serving troops, who get stuck with inadequate or outdated equipment. It is building Aircraft carriers, one of which will be mothballed and the other will have no aircraft to fly off the ship. Has it got enough surface ships to defend a carrier? Has it got a defence against anti-ship missiles now being developed? Sadly our armies reputation has also suffered in the role we played in Basra and Helmond and it seems that the US no longer has the same respect for us as previously.
If an independent Scottish Govt is entitled to roughly 10% of British assets because of their contribution towards it, is the Westmister Govt entitled to 90% of Scottish assests because of its contribution towards them?
Regan, consistency of terms is important in mathematics. The remainder of the UK would be entitled to 90% of British assets because of their contribution towards them. That is a very different thing. You are getting your apples and pears mixed up. If we went with your argument you could say Scotland gets 10% of Scotlands assets and 10% of the Englands assets, and England gets 90% of Scotlands assets and 90% of their own assets. So lets just stick to saying Scotland gets 10% of British assets, as its easier to say and doesnt imply massive logistic costs of moving bit of the country up and down the M74.