Letter: Adapt and survive is the best defence

Has the government decision to continue with aircraft carrier work on the Clyde and at Rosyth (your report, 20 October) proved to be a Pyrrhic victory for the workforce and those who have lobbied on their behalf?

The intense cross-party pressure on the coalition came down to simple accounting. It was too expensive to cancel the projects. The strategic case has not been made wholeheartedly.

Loyal workforces on the Clyde and the Forth are left with short-term consolation but no long-term guarantees. What are the UK's allies to make of a situation where carriers exist but with no aircraft to launch from them?

The message for the workforce must now be clear. Diversification will be the only way to ensure future viability. Much of the lobbying was on the basis of maintaining skills rather than any detailed analysis of defence needs.

That will not overly concern a workforce whose immediate concerns have been met. But the effect on morale of no long-term commitment to repair and maintenance work remains to be seen. A new government in 2015, perhaps even before, may have a new strategic vision.

That must be one based on a thorough review of needs, resources and constraints. It should never be based on seeing the Ministry of Defence as an employment agency. That has been the root of much of the confusion in past months.

Bob Taylor

Shiel Court

Glenrothes, Fife

The recent defence review shows that David Cameron's foreign and defence strategy is completely different from that of the Blair era.

Instead of the imperial interventionist strategy of Tony Blair (possibly because Gordon Brown refused to let him do anything at home) we have a policy based on trade and co-operation as illustrated by the retention of the international aid budget.

It is clear that Prime Minister Cameron does not like sending other people's children to pointless war zones where the risk outweighs the advantages.

Also, at last, we have a prime minister who, unlike Blair, realises that fighting other people only produces more enemies, and that the Cold War is over.

Further, we are now also realising that the real threat comes from the denial of service or cyber attack on our internet-dependent society.

All this has implications for Scotland, especially in the provision of defence facilities. Scapa Flow and Invergordon, once essential to our defence against Germany in the both world wars, no longer serve as naval bases.

Most of the airfields built in Scotland were a reaction to the threat from Hitler's Germany and, although many closed in the 1950s, a few continued to defend us against the Warsaw Pact, a threat which, also, no longer exists.

Instead of hand-wringing and trying to retain redundant facilities against economic logic, the Scottish Government should instead be formulating a policy which deals with the expectation of the closure of all defence establishments, including Faslane.It is now clear that a replacement for the Trident nuclear missile system has no place in Cameron's doctrine.

Also our shipbuilding and electronic industries should be looking more to commercial work as the need for military projects recedes.

While some of these closures are immediate, we have time to look for alternatives for the rest of the air stations on the Moray coast and in Fife, the various army establishments and for Clyde shipbuilding. The Scottish Government should accept that Scottish regiments, naval facilities and air bases are no longer needed.

Non-state terrorism and cyber threats cannot be fought by conventional forces. Ironically, with Dundee being a computer gaming centre, we actually have the skills to become specialists in countering these modern threats. We should, therefore, be looking to different ways of using our population.

Bruce D Skivington

Strath

Gairloch, Wester Ross

It is humbug to describe massive expenditure on aircraft carriers which will never be used, and on wars engineered in the Middle East, as relevant to Scotland's defence.

Similarly, first-strike nuclear weapons which are targeted on the defenceless civilian populations of unspecified countries which have no hostile intentions to Scotland identify us as a target in any nuclear war.

As a "defence" policy this is morally indefensible.

It is becoming increasingly clear Scotland can no longer afford to belong to the United Kingdom, a dangerous relic of religious sectarianism from another age, which is neither a nation, a country nor a cultural community.

(Dr) David Purves

Strathalmond Road

Edinburgh

Rudyard Kipling saw a time when "far-called, our navies melt away; on dune and headland sinks the fire, and all our pomp of yesterday, is one with Nineveh and Tyre!"

Half a century later the British Empire started to collapse and today, a further 60 years on, any pretension we retained to being a world power has finally been finished off.

The two aircraft carriers will be built but only because Gordon Brown's "pork-barrel" politics locked us into Byzantine contracts to provide jobs for his constituents.

In the aftermath of New Labour's disastrous military adventures and shambolic economic stewardship, it is probably sensible that we stop pretending we can police the world.

Even Lord Curzon, our greatest Viceroy of India, prophesied at the height of our imperial power that one day we would resemble Belgium - small, comfortable and powerless.

(Dr) John Cameron

Howard Place

St Andrews, Fife