Scotland defence

Professor Malcolm Chalmers’ excessively negative attitude to the defence implications of Scottish independence (your report, 13 June) renders his comments irrelevant. He, and the UK establishment, need to realise four things.

First, Scottish independence is a real possibility.

Second, as noted in your report, Scotland owns about 8 per cent of all Ministry of Defence moveable property. We also own the immovable UK government property in Scotland, such as bases and training areas.

Since the rest of the UK will want all the large warships, Scotland could select what we need from the rest. We could also claim a share of the Typhoons, plus helicopters and transports. Alternatively, as one of your contributors pointed out, we could lease suitable Saab jets.

Scottish regiments would form a multi-role brigade with the usual support services – engineers, communication and transport.

Third, the Scottish Defence Force would defend England’s back, and vice versa, so both parties would have to agree an appropriate sharing of resources.

Fourth, since there is a great deal of movement of forces at present, it would make sense to locate in Scotland forces that might be placed under Scottish control on independence.

As Clive Fairweather and others have pointed out, there should be a special forces unit to protect the North Sea assets, whether Scotland is independent or not. It takes years to build such an expert body, so that task should start now. Since Scotland will remain one of the founders of the Commonwealth, with the Queen as head of state, there need be no problem in units having mixed Scottish and other Commonwealth personnel to start with.

Scotland needs her own armed forces in order to be able to steer clear of rash 
and counter-productive foreign 
adventures, but both parties will depend on a close defensive 
alliance.

John Smart

Kinneddar Street

Lossiemouth

Bruce Skivington (Letters, 16 July) forgets that it is the moral responsibility of a nation to defend its population from external threat. There is not a choice.

A defenceless nation soon discovers threats that had never been imagined before, and an 
independent Scotland would have plenty to defend – space to live in, and a source of oil 
being two.

Malcolm Parkin

Gamekeepers Road

Kinnesswood, Kinross