The April edition of Warship IFR [International Fleet Review] carries an article – The perils of divorce and the custody battle - which is an informed insider’s view of naval defence forces following Scottish independence.
It is not optimistic, for the continuing UK or for Scotland.
What this article has to say is, with the exception of its automatic assumption that the nuclear deterrent is worth the loss of much else of our defence force, largely a matter of logic that the most committed nationalist would be ill advised to dismiss without serious reflection.
This is no scaremongering piece but a rational dissection of the consequences of Scottish independence for a naval defence and protection service that has been at the heart of the history and mythology of this island nation for a very long time.
The issues it raises are important in their own right and, as they have done here, prompt further thought and analysis
It describes the Royal Navy as ‘probably the single British institution to suffer most with both its main submarine bar and main shipyards under a cloud of uncertainty’.
Naval redistribution
It sees the expulsion and loss of Trident submarines at Faslane and their support facilities at Coulport as leading to ‘vast expense’ in replicating this infrastructure in England or Wales.
In acknowledging that the cost of the Trident replacement programme is ‘already on the very limits of what the defence budget can bear’, it admits that the likelihood of independence is an end to UK nuclear deterrent on ‘purely financial grounds’.
The article is written from the perspective of dedicated support for the value of a naval service and an automatic assumption of the value of the independent nuclear deterrent – even at the cost of its admitted skewing of the defence budget. This position is a matter of opinion and received wisdom, not of analysis and comparative effectiveness.
The seven new commissioned Astute hunter-killer submarines, it notes, would have to relocate from Faslane to Devonport, requiring new support infrastructure there.
Then there is the question of what sort of Navy Scotland’s White Paper proposes we will have: two Type 23 frigates, four mine hunters/sweepers and a ‘command platform’ [presumably something like HMS Bulwark] which we would negotiate to inherit from the UK Royal Navy.
Warship IFR points to two practical difficulties. The Type 23 frigates are based in Devonport on the south coast of England. So is there infrastructural n logistics support – ammunition, spares, complex staff training etc. Neither easy nor cheap to replicate.
We would not be in the simple business of just sailing two Type 23s up the west coast and putting them in an empty Faslane.
Warship building
It is a fact that UK warships have never been built in ‘foreign’ countries, where British intelligence and British security forces could not guarantee that there would be no infiltration of their operational secrecy in matters like control and surveillance systems, armaments, propulsion and general performance capacity.
The Scottish shipyards at BAE on the Clyde and at Rosyth will complete the production and fitting out of the two new aircraft carriers,whatever the September 2014 referendum decision. Nothing else is practicable.
The Clyde yard has been given the reassurance of a contract for three offshore patrol vessels [OPVs] to keep them busy until the letting of the contract to build the new global combat ships, the Type 26 frigates.
Long before then Scotland’s decision on independence will be known.
If we are to be independent, it is naive to imagine that our yards would build the continuing United Kingdom’s warships.
The United Kingdom’s population would never countenance their country’s dependence on an external country in such a key matter of national security.
They would never permit their government to spend such vast sums outside their own borders.
In Argyll, it’s not so long since the widely respected SNP MSP, Jim Mather,our last constituency MSP, ran an energetic campaign which focused minds on the economic impact of working to ‘keep the Argyll pound in Argyll’.
Can the entire continuing UK be expected to be less economically literate than Argyll?
The Type 26 frigates will not come to an independent Scotland. The UK will, for every reins, scale up its own contraction and infrastructure. It will cost but they will be in a better and more secure ace when it is done – and they will have to look to their future security – as we would have to do.
Warship IFR raises the issue of the regeneration of the Portsmouth shipyard which BAE has very recently chosen to close. It notes that Portsmouth could not have the physical capacity to deliver the full quote of Type 26s. so current smaller yards would have to scale up to take the slack.
The economy of the continuing UK would benefit substantially in GDP, in employment, in capacity, upskilling, in infrastructural development, from such investment – which would be a blend of private investment with state subsidy. All of this would also put them in a keener position to compete for foreign contracts. They would effectively have green field new yards.
Scotland would lose its skilled workforce which would have to go south for work, and seed the new skills being ramped up there – on account of our own decision to fly solo.
Naval personnel
A second concern for Scotland’s navy is with the personnel to staff it.
Warship IFR points out that the filling of the White Paper’s estimate of a 2,000 strong navy is openly calibrated on the assumption that Scots serving in the Royal Navy will want to transfer out of it and into the new Scottish service.
The difficulty here is that this will not universally be the case. It may not even be the case with the majority. The journal points out the superior attractions for servicemen of serving in the larger and better equipped navy, globally deployed – and therefore the source of much wider experience in every way.
Conclusion
The conclusion of the piece is measured: that Scotland would ‘end up with only a token navy, in the process seriously weakening both UK and NATO security.’
Note: The full Warship IFR article, entitled ‘The perils of divorce and the custody battle’ – is here: Warship IFR April 2014
