Military experts warn SNP defence projections are over the top

A SEPARATE Scottish Defence Force need not be as large as SNP figures are proposing as there would be little requirement for submarines, jets, or battle-ready troops, leading military experts have claimed.

First Minister Alex Salmond declared last week that all of Scotland’s regiments would be subsumed within a new Scottish Defence Force, an RAF base in Lossiemouth and naval base at Faslane. Dr Phillips O’Brien, director of the Centre for War Studies at Glasgow University, said: “Why would you keep Faslane? It is a very large and well-equipped place for a nuclear carrying force. What else are they going to do there?”

Stuart Crawford, a former SNP candidate and lieutenant colonel, added: “The SNP hasn’t got a foreign policy apart from being nice to everybody.”