Costs of "independence" II - Defence

In my wanderings I came across an interesting set of numbers, and I felt like writing something.

And then, lo! and behold, Christine "Dingbat" Grahame started one of her bonkers fulminations about how terrible it is for the Services to recruit in poorer areas, so I'm even topical!

We all know the Nats face in all directions and none on Defence. Salmond moans about the "folly" of spending "£100bn" on Trident replacement. (That's a Greenpeace number, BTW, and so hardly reliable; also it would be spread over 30 years or so, so is total nonsense.) The Nat lefties like "Dingbat" clearly think Defence as a whole is unnecessary and would like to "do an Ireland", spend virtually nothing on it and free-ride on the UK and NATO.

Meanwhile, others in the party seem to think that that would be a) immoral, b) unwise and c) electoral suicide, and so promise to maintain Defence spending on "nice" conventional weaponry, which would keep bases like Faslane, Kinloss, Lossiemouth and Leuchars, as well as the shipyards at Govan and Rosyth, open.

The designated spokesman, Angus "Fat Head" Robertson, moans about an "underspend" of Defence money in Scotland. Well Angus, it is hardly possible for the MOD to spend money buying tanks, aircraft, helicopters and submarines in Scotland if there aren't any made here - basically what we do are ships and various components. And of course, "independence" would make no difference to any of this, since a "Scottish" MOD would still have to buy its tanks, aircraft, helicopters and submarines from the places where they are made.

But anyway, back to the data source which set me off.

This is the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) database of international defence budgets.

The UK seems to have the 4th largest defence budget in the world, at $58.3bn. [EDIT: since the time of writing, SIPRI have apparently changed this to $69.3bn.] At an 8.5% population share, this costs us in Scotland just under $5bn [EDIT: $5.9bn, on the new number.]. For which we get the services of a full-spectrum Gucci military: Trident, aircraft carriers, SSNs, assault ships, first-class fast jets, AWACS, long-range transport aircraft, attack and transport helicopters, proper tanks, UAVs and so on. Clearly everything isn't rosy in the defence garden (and some things are about to get worse as the cuts hit), but this is still a setup which is the envy of most countries in the world.

Now, let's do a comparison. Hmm, how about Norway, which is always being held up by Nats as our "natural" comparator?

They have exactly the sort of military which the "official" Nats tell us we should have. A handful of frigates, diesel subs and patrol boats, 50 fast jets and a handful of transports and maritime patrol aircraft, 50 tanks and associated other ground stuff adding up to one brigade. Penny-packet stuff, enough to make things difficult for any putative invader of Norway but nothing which can go anywhere in the world doing Necessary Things in Dangerous Places.

And no nukes, although as a member of NATO, Norway is fully signed up to nukes being brandished as a deterrent on its behalf by those members of NATO which do have them. This, of course, is another fundamental problem for the Nats, since even the "official" "pro-defence" line excludes NATO membership, because of those nasty buckets of instant sunshine.

So what does this cost the Norwegians? About $6.1bn, according to SIPRI.

Oops!

So the peaceable, non-nuclear Norwegians, with exactly the sort of defence set-up that the "official" Nats tell us we should have, actually pay a billion dollars a year more [$200m more, on the new figure] for it than we currently do?

Oh dear.

Maybe they get more local spending out of their budget, with less of the "underspend" that "Fat Head" keeps complaining about?

No, not really. The frigates are Spanish, the aircraft are American, the subs, tanks and other army bits & pieces are German.

Sure, they've been able to get some offset spending sent back to Norway, but that's largely because they've been part of the NATO procurement setup. "Independent" Scotland, apparently, wouldn't be.

So the conclusion is simple, and utterly unsurprising. As with the Foreign Office, as with the BBC, all "independence" would leave us with in Defence would be paying more for less. A less safe country, with an infinitesimal capability to contribute to global security.

More bucks, practically no bang.

Yet another cost of "independence".