David Maddox: The carrier contracts are in the spotlight but there are other military targets under greater threat

THE death of Jimmy Reid last month was a timely reminder of the iconic status of the Scottish shipbuilding industry and the continuing struggle to keep it alive.

So it is not surprising that the greatest alarm over the UK government's Strategic Defence Review (SDR) has been over the prospect of the cancellation or downgrading of the 5 billion aircraft carrier project. It is not an exaggeration to suggest that the supercarrier project is the difference between the life and death of Scotland's shipbuilding industry and up to 10,000 jobs linked to it.

The latest round of urgent talks on the issue was sparked by comments by BAE chief executive Ian King to the Defence Select Committee last week suggesting the whole project could be sunk.

But while the reaction of Scottish politicians to this is understandable, they may actually be doing Scotland a disservice by concentrating so much of their effort on one aspect of the SDR.

It is likely that Mr King's comments were deliberately inflammatory in order to maximise the effort to protect his company.The chances of the carrier contracts being cancelled altogether are small – and there are other defence items north of the Border which are under equal or even greater threat.

The lengthy list includes potentially two of the country's three RAF bases; the Marines base at Arbroath; the Black Watch regimental base at Fort George, near Inverness; the downgrade of the Craigiehall, Edinburgh command post to a one-star general command and a possible cut in the number of military personnel in Scotland by 20 per cent.

Yet the complaints about all these other possible cuts have been barely been a whisper in comparison to the cacophony made about the aircraft carrier contracts. A group of Moray councillors visited Westminster last week to fight for their two RAF bases, but little else has been said and done.

But if all these cuts come to pass Scotland would have a smaller military presence than the Republic of Ireland despite having a larger population, while the heart would be ripped out of communities where the bases are located.

It is interesting that the SNP are making the running on this issue. Conventional wisdom always suggests that Scotland's defence would suffer even more under independence, but as the comparison with Ireland suggests, that argument could be getting weaker.

Meanwhile, Labour struggle to make headway because the direction of travel on defence cuts (ie, to the south of England) accelerated under the previous government. The Liberal Democrat MPs with military bases in their constituencies have also been quiet – Danny Alexander is particularly constrained as the Cabinet minister for cuts in his role as chief secretary to the Treasury.

But time is running out. One thing that is sure is that at the end of October when the SDR is unveiled by Defence Secretary Liam Fox, it will almost certainly be too late to reverse its recommendations.