How Scotland has big part to play in European defence as Trump and Putin carve up the world

Scotland’s renewable energy supplies and expertise in building satellites and drones could help Europe increase its security, as the debate continues over whether Trump’s America is a friend, frenemy or foe

Donald Trump has upended the post-Second World War global order of the past 80 years just a few weeks into his second term as US President. His apparent embrace of Vladimir Putin's aggressively imperialist ambitions over Ukraine and his manifest hatred of and contempt for Europe have left the UK and EU leadership floundering like headless chickens and feeling very vulnerable in an unstable, hostile world that’s being carved up by Washington, Beijing and Moscow.

Senior Trump administration figures view Europe as a ‘third-rate backwater’. While the gross domestic products of the US and EU were similar in 2008, the American economy is now 50 per cent bigger. Led by Vice-President JD Vance, Trump's attack dogs call out Europeans for "freeloading" on American largesse, enabling them to nestle parasitically under the USA security umbrella while feeding their bloated welfare systems.

This highly disruptive geopolitical environment provided the backdrop to an all-day conference on “the Futures of Europe”, organised last week by the Scottish Council on Global Affairs and held in private under Chatham House rules.

A Poseidon MRA1 plane, designed for submarine-hunting and the tracking of maritime targets, arrives at RAF Lossiemouth (Picture: Jane Barlow) | PA

Security, not climate change, now top priority

The discussions highlighted the often conflicting views among European analysts about how to handle Trump 2.0's America: continuing friend, frenemy, or foe? Is the US-Europe relationship (still) based on shared values or crude transactionalism? If the latter, is the price too extortionist (namely Greenland and Ukraine and their minerals)?

Inevitably, the consensus was that Europe would have to raise its game in defence and security. That much is already a given whether we call it strategic autonomy after France's President Emmanuel Macron or interdependency – defence spending as a share of GDP is on the rise, including in the UK. Security has replaced climate change as Europe's top priority.

But there is no consensus in Europe about how to respond to Trump 2.0: refuse to choose between the US and EU (doing so would be "childish" in the words of Italy's Georgia Meloni); act as a bridge (Keir Starmer); warmly embrace the Maga agenda (Viktor Orban's Hungary); think of the European Defence Union as an adjunct or, eventually, an alternative to Nato (Macron and Germany's likely new Chancellor, Friedrich Merz); worry about greater exposure (central and eastern Europe).

Scotland’s role

Also, where does Scotland fit into this volatile picture? Defence, of course, is a reserved matter but the Scottish Government shares at least some responsibility for security with Westminster. Some senior figures within it, we heard, would like to expand that role after the motto: "Think like a state, act like a state."

Russia's growing presence in the North Atlantic alongside China and the US is heightening tension as is that of Russian ships in the North and Irish Seas. This potential threat prompted suggestions that Scottish-based naval vessels as well as maritime patrol aircraft based in Lossiemouth should be monitoring these waters where the Russian presence is likely to grow.

But it is the deployment of "soft power" like cultural diplomacy that most interests government officials. There is the fanciful idea that Scotland could offer its nascent Peace Institute as a forum for debating ideas on how to resolve global conflicts. The obvious issue here is what place is there for Scotland to offer such facilities which traditionally belong to international bodies or established nation states.

More tangible is Scotland’s energy potential – producing "green" hydrogen and co-operating with other countries in north-west Europe such as Ireland and Denmark in building infrastructure for distributing it, towards, say, Germany as it transitions away from fossil fuels.

There is undoubtedly huge interest in Germany in developing clean energy ties with Scotland as Europe's biggest economy undertakes the modernisation of its sclerotic industrial base. The Bundestag recently approved a special, 500-billion-euro (£418bn), off-budget fund for infrastructure spending over the next ten years – a move that would have been unthinkable a few years ago.

New UK-EU defence pact looms?

The EU as such is ramping up its security policy, including the new €150bn fund for defence loans – unavailable so far to the UK. But that latter issue may be resolved at the May 19 summit between the EU and UK that could trigger a defence pact which might in turn evolve into a European Defence Union as envisaged by Churchill (without Britain) in the 1950s. The as yet unanswerable question is whether this would be a wholly European arm of Nato or even replace the Atlantic alliance.

Certainly, Scotland would bring (British) assets to such an arrangement – 17 regular armed forces sites, seven Royal Navy operated sites and two key RAF bases, plus its shipbuilding facilities on the Clyde and Forth, and its growing presence in the space sector where it builds more small satellites than anywhere else in Europe. We may not build tanks but we do produce drones – arguably proving to be the key weapon in the Ukraine War.

And, of course, Scotland is home to Faslane, aka HM Naval Base Clyde, with its Trident nuclear deterrent and new generation of hunter-killer submarines. This is likely to grow in importance, and controversy, in what experts call the new third nuclear age: one marked by multipolar foes but also allies such as South Korea, maybe even Germany, seeking their own deterrent. The Putin Doctrine that marks this new era includes scrapping, or putting on life support, international arms control treaties, with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty at risk.

The key issue for Scotland is to secure presence and leverage in this debate on Europe's future triggered by the Putin/Trump tandem plans to decide this together in their own countries' strategic (and commercial) interests – not ours. We too must step up our game.

David Gow, a former London editor of The Scotsman and ex-European business editor and German correspondent of the Guardian, is a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh where he chairs its Scotland Europe Initiative