Defence, continued - cosmic, comical timing

I am prompted by a contribution to the previous thread from my occasional interlocutor Indy to start a new one afresh.

"I can't believe you can have so many comments on this. The NATO issue does not, in itself, matter. It is one of the things that will be negotiated and decided on at the time.

What matters is the way it is spun in the here and now in the run up to the election.

That's the politics of it which you guys don't seem to understand."

Hmm. Let's see, shall we?

"Re the spending issue - this is a totally dead duck for you unionists. Scotland does not benefit from UK defence spending. There is in fact a massive underspend. You can bet the SNP will go large with that one."

(Metaphorically rolling up sleeves while trying to stifle a snigger and conceal a feral grin.)

First of all, this is a total misconception of the notion of defence spending. It's supposed to buy you defence and security - it's not supposed to be pork-barrelled up into spending in particular bits of the country for political reasons. The spending happens where the defences need to be for strategic reasons.

We don't need naval bases at Scapa Flow, Invergordon, Tobermory and Rosyth - or for that matter Harwich or Chatham - any more, so we don't have them. Similarly, East Anglia is no longer full of bomber bases sited for maximum proximity to the Soviet Union (or Germany, for that matter).

But even if you wish to pursue the "underspend" argument, it's so wrong it's comical. On this of all days. (Cough. Splutter. Hee!)

Defend And Destroy: Navy's Latest Ship Launched on Clyde

"Thousands turned out on the banks of the Clyde today to cheer on the latest ship to make up the Royal Navy’s formidable new Type 45 destroyer class. Defender sailed for the first time today.

Chief in Command Fleet Admiral Trevor Soar said:

“The thousands gathered here today to witness the launch of Defender is testament to the pride Scotland rightly takes in its shipbuilding industry which has seen a resurgence in recent times with the Type 45 build programme and the manufacture of the Aircraft Carriers that they will defend.

“Defender’s affiliation with her ‘home town’ of Glasgow will ensure these strong links live on and gives the Royal Navy the chance to give something back to the community that worked so hard to deliver her and her sister ships.

“The launch of the fifth ship is an exciting milestone as we draw nearer to the first of class HMS Daring entering into service in the New Year to begin her duties with the Royal Navy.”

Defender was launched amid a cloud of balloons and fireworks by Lady Julie Massey, wife of the Deputy Head of the Navy Second Sea Lord Sir Alan Massey, to the fanfare of the Band of the Royal Marines.

Chief of Materiel Fleet Vice Admiral Andrew Mathews said:

“The Type 45 class is a most formidable ship. Her world-class Sea Viper missile system which can defend against multiple attacks by the most sophisticated anti-ship missiles bears out the title ‘destroyer’, while Defender’s name hints to her main future role in providing air defence to the Navy’s new aircraft carriers.

"Defender will be capable of carrying out a wide range of operations, including anti-piracy and anti-smuggling activities, disaster-relief work and surveillance operations as well as high intensity warfighting.”

As versatile as they are powerful, the Type 45s will have a range of capabilities. They will be able to carry up to 60 Royal Marines Commandos and their equipment, and operate a Chinook-sized helicopter from the flight deck. The standards of accommodation are also able to exceed previous classes thanks to the ships’ size.

Defender is the fifth ship of six in the Type 45 destroyer class. Good progress is being made on the programme: HMS Daring (ship one) has been commissioned into the Royal Navy and is on her final trials prior to her entering service, planned for February 2010.

Dauntless (ship two) has recently completed two very successful sets of sea trials while Diamond (ship three) has just begun her sea trials. Dragon (ship four) was launched in Scotland at the end of 2008 and Duncan (ship six) is under construction in Govan."

Sorry Indy, you were saying?

Possibly you also missed the announcement that the Navy is moving all its submarines from Devonport to Faslane.

That's Faslane, the rather large naval base which really does employ 6500 people directly and another 3000 indirectly:

"The Base is the largest single site employer in Scotland with an integrated workforce of around 6,500 personnel – drawn from the Royal Navy, Ministry of Defence civilians, Babcock Marine (the MOD's industrial partner at the Base) and external contractors. A further 3,000 Scottish jobs are supported indirectly by HM Naval Base Clyde and more than £250 million is spent in Scotland on wages and contracts awarded each year, directly related to the Base."

Where do you think those 6500 people live and spend their wages, Indy? What do they eat and drink?

I apologise for having to mention the construction plans for the new Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers.

"The ACA has approved the following decisions under the developing build strategy:

• Lower Block 1 (the bow section) will be built by Babcock’s yards at Appledore and Rosyth;
• Lower Block 2 will be built by BVT Surface Fleet in Portsmouth;
• Lower Blocks 3 and 4 (the stern section) will be built by BVT on the Clyde;
• The sponsons (the overhanging upper hull structure) will be manufactured by Babcock Marine;
• and the two superstructure Islands will be built by BVT in Portsmouth.

Final assembly and integration of the two warships will be undertaken by the Aircraft Carrier Alliance partners at Rosyth."

I believe someone was saying something about "underspend in Scotland".

Let's look at the RAF at Kinloss, Lossiemouth and Leuchars. According to the RAF squadron list, we currently have 55 operational squadrons. A quick look at the station list shows that something like 9.5 of them are based at the three Scottish stations, going up to 10.5 next year as the Typhoons come into Leuchars.

9.5 / 55 = 17%. Got a problem with that?

I can't even be bothered to look at the Army's basing. It will be the same story.

So please, please, please let it be true that the Nats are planning to "go large" on the issue of defence spending in Scotland.

It will only prove the existence of a substantial Union benefit for Scotland from UK defence spending, and utterly discredit the idea that an "independent" Scotland could somehow sustain anything like it.

We were promised a "defence policy paper" from the Nats. Where is it?

Surely not delayed because they realise it will be a disaster?

Defence - the worthy thoughts of Macleod and Cochrane

Following the pompous Angus Roberton making an erse of himself and his party over their non-defence non-policy, I was impressed by the thoughts of the Times' Angus Mcleod:

SNP blueprint for English military bases to stay in independent Scotland ‘a fantasy’

"Defence has always been the SNP’s Achilles’ heel. The party has never been able to square the desire to leave the United Kingdom with the expense of providing an independent Scotland’s defence requirements.

Even then, they have tied themselves in knots explaining why an independent Scotland would need an Army, Navy and Air Force in any case and how exactly these soldiers, sailors and airmen would be equipped.

Neither has the party ever adequately explained how they would meet the social and employment cost of closing these bases they do not want to see in Scotland. It is an inescapable fact that the Trident nuclear submarine base on the Clyde employs, directly and indirectly, thousands of people and provides a key part of the economic backbone of a good part of West-Central Scotland.

Now, we learn from Angus Robertson, the party’s defence spokesman, that while Trident would go, the SNP’s latest thinking on defence would see other UK military bases in stay. So an independent Scotland which, according to the SNP, would not be a member of Nato would play host to the forces of a country which would very much be a part of Nato. It is a strange ambition to want to see your newly independent country reduced to the status of a base for another country’s forces. Not exactly Braveheart.

But the Robertson doctrine should not be seen in isolation. It comes after recent SNP policy documents that have envisaged Scots in an independent Scotland having shared citizenship with, we presume, what what is left of Britain: shared Scottish/British embassies abroad; a Scottish Broadcasting Corporation which would access programmes from what is left of the BBC at no extra cost; even a shared monarchy. The only thing this financially independent Scotland would not share would be the revenues from North Sea oil.

It’s all to do with the SNP’s new mantra of a “social union” between Scotland and England. The old notion of independence where brave little Scotland would go its own way and for which generations of nationalists campaigned is dead. Long Live the Social Union is the new cry.

In all this no one in the SNP has shown the English the courtesy of asking their opinion. Why would the rest of the UK, free of turbulent Scots, want to share anything with a country that had turned its back on them. Perhaps the SNP know that they wouldn’t like the answer."

And then we turn to the inestimable Alan Cochrane in the Telegraph:

With military thinkers like Angus Robertson, who needs enemies?

"Arguably the daftest aspect of the SNP’s policy portfolio has always been its attitude to defence. How to disentangle an independent Scotland, which they say should be non-nuclear and non-Nato, from one of the world’s leading military powers — which in spite of everything is what the UK still is — has always been a huge imponderable for the Nats.

However, as we head for their annual conference in Inverness, they have tried to find a way out of this difficulty. In doing so, they have come up with an even bigger load of nonsense. It should come as no surprise that they have managed to make things worse — the man they charged with finding a way out of this particular hole has been happily digging them deeper into the mire for years.

I refer, of course, to Angus Robertson, the MP for Moray, who rejoices in the twin titles of SNP defence spokesman and leader of the party’s seven Westminster MPs. Given that he has the major UK airbases of Kinloss and Lossiemouth in his constituency, Mr Robertson prides himself on his expertise in all matters pertaining to the defence of the realm, even if this interest is conditioned by his desire to hold the seat.

We are well used to Mr Robertson’s pompous declarations on military matters, but he has excelled himself with his latest pronouncements. I have often asked the Nats what they would do with those bases — Kinloss and “Lossie” included — currently dotted all over Scotland. They are home to elements of the Armed Forces of the United Kingdom, almost all of which the SNP says it would retain.

What would an independent Scotland do with all that military hardware? Were they planning to wage war against someone? For several years, there has come no answer. Until yesterday … Mr Robertson says the bases can indeed stay and the English can continue to use them, presumably on a rental basis. Only the Trident submarine base at Faslane on the Clyde would be booted out. An accommodating SNP government in an independent Scotland would allow its English, warmonger, next-door neighbours to continue to use their current homes.

There is no reason, says this latter-day Clausewitz, why Scotland and England couldn’t remain as “friends and allies”. No reason? I can think of lots. For one — why would the rest of the UK wish to reward Scotland, which wanted nothing to do with Nato and a united defence posture and wanted to pick and choose which bases it would allow on its soil, by stationing its servicemen and women here?

Mr Roberston added that it would be “perfectly possible” for the two countries to “share basing, procurement and training facilities”. He is clutching desperately — and ludicrously — at straws because he knows full well the effect losing all UK bases would have on Scotland’s economy, never mind its defence. If we are to have bases such as RAF Leuchars, as well as Kinloss and “Lossie”, won’t they remain targets for potential enemies, just as they are now?

Des Browne, the former Labour defence secretary, delivered a withering analysis of Lance Corporal Robertson’s plans last night, suggesting that they must have been drawn up on the back of an envelope. He added that the Nats “seem to want Scotland to be just a big military base for the remainder of the UK”, adding that in the absence of any idea of how to defend Scotland, “they simply want the rest of the UK to do it for them”.

They may have convinced the voters that they can govern reasonably competently but can only watch in despair as support for independence remains resolutely stuck at about one third or less. As a result, they try every trick to win the rest of us around.

They have accepted that they must keep the Queen. They have now agreed that we can individually choose which nationality we will be after independence — Scottish or British. And now they are admitting that they need the bulk of the bases. Why don’t they just admit defeat and say we might as well stay as we are? Better that, surely, than any more of this hokum from Angus Robertson."

Quite.