Iain Macwhirter: Why Scotland is on the frontline in the New Cold War

Evidence of the increasing internationalisation of the Ukraine conflict is all around. The West has declared economic war by seizing the assets of the Russian central bank and banning Russian exports. America and the UK are funnelling military supplies into Ukraine, while Vladimir Putin is seeking military aid and economic support from China. Putin is reportedly enlisting tens of thousands of mercenary troops from Syria to begin the storming of Ukrainian cities.

Russia has lost at least 7,000 soldiers and more than 230 tanks. Putin’s forces have failed to achieved air supremacy, thanks to the determination of the Ukrainian resistance on the ground, armed with British anti-aircraft rockets. Russian missile attacks are moving ever closer to the Polish border as it tries to impede the traffic of Western military and humanitarian supplies.

Britain is now sending troops to Poland and furnishing its military with Sky Sabre anti-aircraft missiles, in part to protect refugees and aid convoys heading for Ukraine.

At the time of writing, three million people have left Ukraine, the biggest refugee movement since the Second World War.

The European Union is seeking to become a military alliance. Germany is rearming seriously for the first time since the fall of the Third Reich. The peace dividend at the end of the last Cold War has become a distant memory.

The Baltic states are becoming fortresses fully aware that they are regarded by Putin as “fake countries” like Ukraine which are “really” part of Russia. Nato warships ships are conducting exercises in the Arctic to counter Russian naval activities to the north of Norway. This is where Scotland comes in.

Strategic location

SCOTLAND occupies one of the most strategically sensitive locations in the world. During the last Cold War, Scotland’s role was to act as gatekeeper of the Greenland Iceland UK Gap – the only route for Russian ships and submarines to access the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, surveillance of

the gap lapsed. It is about to become very live again. Scotland is waking up to the reality that we are still basically a very large forward Nato base.

We are host at Faslane to Trident-armed nuclear submarines, one of which is always on patrol. They aren’t going away any time soon. It seems inconceivable that an independent Scotland, remaining part of Nato as the SNP intends, would order the immediate removal of nuclear weapons from the Clyde. Nicola Sturgeon may believe that “the only thing nuclear weapons are deterring is proper help to Ukraine”, but Nato thinks they’re the only thing deterring nuclear war.

Russian energy

EUROPE needs to wean itself off Russian oil and gas as a matter of urgency. This means evaluating all non-Russian sources of hydrocarbons until the transition to renewable energy is complete, which is still some years off. Boris Johnson made very clear to the Scottish Tory conference that Nicola Sturgeon’s attempts to “keep it in the ground” are to be swept aside. Scotland’s oil and gas is much depleted, but there is still a lot of the black stuff out there, and the situation is pretty desperate.

The Prime Minister went cap in hand last week to the authoritarian, head-chopping rulers of Saudi Arabia to try to get them to release more of their oil. He failed. Oil lurked in the background as Britain paid Iran £400 million to release the hostage Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe last week. Iran has the world’s fourth-largest oil reserves. Oil is power once again. North Sea oil and gas has now to be seen as a strategic resource and even a Nato asset.

So, we’re in this up to our necks. No-one expects a Russian invasion of Scotland, but distance is no longer any protection. Politicians on the nationalist left insist that Scotland should abandon nuclear weapons – and oil – and become a neutral country like Finland. However, few people realise quite what Finnish neutrality means. It involves permanent preparation for war.

Under the Finnish doctrine of “total defence”, every citizen is regarded as a potential soldier and every male has to undergo compulsory national service or face imprisonment. Every Finnish apartment block has to have a nuclear bomb shelter in the basement. This country is armed to the teeth and on constant alert. In Helsinki, they joke that Finland isn’t trying to join Nato – Nato is trying to join Finland. “Finlandisation” is taking on an entirely new military meaning.

Indeed, as this crisis drags on, Europe itself is becoming “Finlandised”.

Modern history

HISTORY is happening very fast. Until last week, most analysts thought Russia would win easily in Ukraine. That Zelenskyy would leave, Ukraine would be partitioned, and relations would resume with Russia. The military historian Max Hastings insisted that the West had to “do a deal with Putin” to end the bloodshed. But the Ukrainians had other ideas.

As Nato leaders now look around the world for support they will increasingly come up against the greatest imperial power on the planet: China. While the West condemns itself for its colonial past, China has been busy building the neocolonial Belt and Road Initiative. This has turned much of the southern hemisphere into Chinese econonomic dependencies.

Russia and China may not be formal military allies but are clearly on the same side. China has not condemned the Ukraine invasion or agreed that war crimes have been committed by Vladimir Putin. China has repeatedly insisted on its right to annex the island nation of Taiwan, which it regards as part of China in much the same way Putin regards Ukraine as part of Russia. And it is not just China that is a problem for the West.

Resentment

THE invasion of Ukraine has revealed a deep well of resentment against Europe and America by countries thought to be neutral or allies. The Pakistani prime minister, Imran Khan, reacted with fury when asked to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“Are we your slaves?” he said, presumably alluding to the West’s colonial past. The Indian PM, Narendra Modi, has apparently sided with Moscow and is in discussions about buying Russian oil. Twenty-five African states have refused to condemn the war. In the Middle East, dictators like Bashar al-Assad of Syria are firmly on side. He benefited from the brutal Russian bombing of Aleppo in 2016, which blitz Putin is now inflicting on Ukraine.

In the battle for hearts and minds, the West is far from victory. Vladimir Putin has changed the world. As a result of his attempt to redraw the map of Europe in blood, he has created a new East-West divide. And Scotland is in the eye of the storm.