Why Scotland will not be immune from the shock of a Trump victory

The Herald on Sunday sat down with Professor Peter Jackson, Scotland’s leading expert on global security, to hear his analysis of what a Trump win would mean for Scotland, Britain, Europe, America and the world.

His conclusions are chilling. Jackson holds the chair in global security at Glasgow University, and is the founder and co-director of the Scottish Council on Global Affairs.

“What’s at stake is whatever is left of the post-Cold War rules-based international order,” he says.

“Trump and those around him want to completely rewrite the rules and place America in a very different position. Trump’s approach to foreign policy is transactional: if I’m doing something for you, what am I getting back? 

“He’s not interested in the Holy Grail of American leadership – the US role in the world since the Second World War. He doesn’t see that as a benefit.”

Nor is Trump attached to America’s “traditional allies”, although during his first term he viewed Britain more favourably. “However, with the new Labour government – especially after this ridiculous nonsense about Labour advisers helping the Kamala Harris campaign – Britain may be lumped in with the rest of Europe’s nations as a country which needs brought into line.”

While Trump isn’t particularly ideological, those around him are. “The America First people see the golden age of politics as the 1890s, the era of the robber barons with very few regulations. They’re culture warriors interested in turning the clock back to when there was no talk of women’s rights and everyone knew their place in society, and there was a clear hierarchy. 

“It’s a historical and anachronistic, as the heyday of the white American factory worker was from the mid-Second World War to the late 1970s – but this nostalgia-suffused vision is important to those around Trump.”

Trump’s assault on a rules-based order “attracts” the “enemies” of the West: China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Jackson isn’t saying the current order is perfect. The West has dominated other nations and “broken the rules happily, for example, over Iraq, which in some ways is the original sin undermining the unravelling of the post-Cold War order”. However, the post-war world order “did provide a measure of commercial, political and economic stability”.

The West’s support for Ukraine has been to “defend this order. Trump doesn’t see any virtue in this order. He’s openly attracted to strong leaders with contempt for rules. He’s quite happy to remove the last significant moorings and send us off in a less stable direction”.

Professor Peter Jackson, director of the Scottish council on global affairs and chair of global security, University of Glasgow. Photograph by Colin Mearns

Ukraine
Trump’s threats of “whacking” tariffs on trade with China will destabilise global commerce. “It’ll cause not ripples, but waves of instability. Supply relationships and commercial accords between states will be threatened, if not completely undermined. It’s unfathomable. It won’t be good.

“Britain couldn’t have picked a worse time to go out on its own as a global buccaneer. Being closer to the European single market would give us a stable mooring in the storms that are coming should Trump win.”

Trump will “try to impose a settlement on President Zelenskyy which will put Ukraine in a very invidious position – the conflict will be frozen with Russia in possession of huge swathes of Ukrainian territory, and Ukraine and its economy devastated and just waiting for the next Russian move to end Ukraine’s status as an independent power. A buffer state with a puppet government is probably on the cards if Trump has his way”.

Europe isn’t in “a position” to replace American support for Ukraine. Trump, who threatened to encourage Putin to attack US allies, also presents a danger to Nato. Though given the power of the US Senate, Jackson thinks it’s unlikely he will be able to walk away from the alliance.

“Putin has been hanging on waiting for the election.” There has been Russian interference in the election. The Kremlin is “clearly trying to back a Trump victory”. Ironically, Iran is interfering for a Harris win, and China “is just interested in sowing discord and undermining confidence in America’s political system and democratic processes”.

Jackson notes that Russia has simultaneously been running a campaign of sabotage and assassination across Europe, including plans to murder the head of Germany’s biggest arms company. Tensions and risks are worse than during the Cold War, Jackson says.

However, “in the short-term Russia is in no position to invade” another European nation. Russia would be “in real trouble if it tangled with the Finnish army –even the Polish army”. However, in the long-term “Russia will recover”. It’s then, if America were “on the sidelines” under Trump, that Europe “would have to worry”.

While Trump might be constrained from leaving Nato by Congress, his presidency would certainly undermine “the credibility of Article 5” – the Nato pledge that each member defends the other. “A Trump administration, with so much uncertainty around Article 5 and America’s commitment to fulfil its obligations, might destabilise things in ways that would mean European societies become more militarised and we’d have to give up things we’ve taken for granted.”

Referring to conscription, Jackson speaks of fears for his own children and grandchildren. “These are the things that I f****** worry about,” he adds. “I don’t think people fully understand the consequences of the developments in international security.”

Jackson calls himself a “Cassandra” – the mythical Trojan princess cursed to foretell the future but never be believed.

DOnald Trump in Scotland. (Image: Picture: Colin Templeton)Scotland
WAR between Russia and Europe “is definitely possible in the medium to long term”. Any war is “probably eight to 12 years” away, but says Jackson, “the threat is very real”. A Harris win, however, might destabilise Putin’s regime, allowing Ukraine to keep fighting, creating anger among ordinary Russians.

Britain would have to “cleave closer to Europe” over defence, security and foreign policy if Trump wins as we’d drift “further away from the special relationship. This would be a major restructuring of Britain’s place in the world away from the transatlantic relationship, which has always given Britain a measure of independence as the bridge to Europe”.

Scotland won’t be immune from the shocks of a Trump presidency. SNP policy will find itself under intense scrutiny. Jackson notes that matters would come to a head should support for independence start rising again and there’s a push for another referendum. Rising support, he believes, would be predicated on future policy decisions made by a Westminster government upsetting the Scottish electorate.

The SNP has a policy of an independent Scotland joining Nato but also removing Trident. Jackson believes that it would be difficult for an independent Scotland to attain Nato membership if it was intent on removing Trident, due to the instability that would create in the alliance, at a time when Trump is in the White House and there’s war in Ukraine. Britain, together with France, provides the only nuclear deterrent on the continent.

Jackson notes that America’s “intelligence community and security establishment” are horrified at the prospect of Scottish independence “creating a hole in the fence” when it comes to Nato. Until 2012, the SNP supported leaving Nato, although that’s no longer the case.

“The SNP has sorted its Nato problem, but I don’t think it’s sorted its Trident problems. That would still have to be negotiated and, in the world we’re talking about, doing something rash to Britain’s nuclear deterrent would be unbelievably irresponsible.”

Trident removal would “no question” play into Russian hands. “It would diminish the credibility of Article 5, and that’s just the opposite of what we need for European security.” Trident removal “would be deeply corrosive to European security”.

If US commitment to support European allies under Article 5 were in doubt thanks to a Trump presidency, Scotland removing Trident would increase panic. “An effective and completely operational Trident is hugely important to the UK’s force posture and Nato force posture. 

“So this is the dilemma that [supporters of] Scottish independence would need to wrestle with. In my view, there are some persuasive arguments for independence but international security probably isn’t one of them. Trade, yes. The security of Trident is of fundamental importance.”
Independence, he said, cannot be seen to “undermine European security. That’s why if you speak to the Lithuanians, Latvians or even the Finns they hate the idea of Scottish independence”.

An independent Scotland would be strategically important for security in the Arctic, and the “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing system. Scotland’s geography makes it “absolutely vital for early warning. Scotland has this position that’s more important than people realise in terms of intelligence gathering strategically”.

Jackson added: “Within the wider Holyrood establishment, I don’t think they understand how completely integrated Scotland would need to be in Nato if independence happened.”

Removing Trident if Trump were president would come amid “an international order that will have been weakened, if not be in disarray. It will be a lot less stable than it is now”.

There are diplomats, Jackson says, who “understand the argument for independence, but only still very much as an independent Scotland embedded in Nato”. Scotland’s position in terms of the Arctic impacts US, UK and European security.

The best, most “sane”, policy for the SNP during any future debate on independence is to make Trident removal a “bargaining chip” to help smooth Brexit-style negotiations with London, rather than an immediately achievable aim. Scotland should consider “leasing Faslane in the short-term on the understanding” that Trident would be “relocated” at some point in the future.

Jackson says Russia unquestionably “interfered” in the 2014 referendum. However, since then, Kremlin disinformation operations have become “much more sophisticated” and now incorporate AI. Jackson believes Scotland would experience a “fire hose of disinformation” if there were another referendum, adding: “It’s in Russia’s interest to weaken the UK overall.”

Given that leading figures in the Yes movement have appeared on Russia Today – the Kremlin’s propaganda channel – including former First Minister Alex Salmond who fronted his own show, Jackson noted that from an international perspective “the legacy and the history of the SNP isn’t encouraging”.

Trident

Middle east
BEYOND Europe’s boundaries, a Trump win would mean America adopting a “hardline position towards Iran”. While the Biden administration has been “increasingly willing to explore restarting talks about alleviating sanctions in return for credible assurances that Iran won’t weaponise its nuclear capabilities”, under Trump “that will end on day one”. Trump has said he “would resort to any measures to prevent Iran gaining nuclear weapons”.

Jackson says it’s important to watch Iran carefully in the event of a Trump win. Tehran’s national security policy has been to use proxies like Hezbollah, the Houthis and Hamas – which Jackson labels a “medieval death cult” – as a “first line of defence against possible encroachment or an offensive by Israel”. 

However, as “the appalling murders” by Hamas in October 2023 show, “proxies aren’t easy to control”. There are now “elements within Iran’s Revolutionary Guard wanting to go to war with Israel. Watch carefully what Ayatollah Khamenei does in the aftermath of the US election because it could result in the whole region going up in flames”.

That could “send oil prices skyrocketing” especially if Saudi Arabia were drawn into a regional war and its refineries targeted. “It has terrifying possibilities for the world economy.” It’s just one reason why Jackson wants “the Democrats to win”.

Israel would become an even more “important ally to the US than it is at the moment”. Trump would “green light” a continued Israeli war against Hamas and Hezbollah. Jackson says the Biden administration “keeps hitting a brick wall in trying to bring about a ceasefire” as Israeli leader

Benjamin Netanyahu “knows that after the election, Israel might be in a much stronger position and therefore there’s no incentive to agree to a ceasefire”. Trump wouldn’t “put any pressure” on Netanyahu to negotiate. “He would just back Israel and see its campaign as completely serving US interests.”

Jackson noted the irony of some American Muslims backing Trump as they oppose issues like transgender rights. However, it “underlines the importance of the culture wars” for some voters. Many in Trump’s base “yearn for the old days when men were men, women were women, and people had their place”. 

He adds: “The culture wars have fundamentally weakened the resolve of Western democracies to stand up for democratic liberties, freedom of the press and freedom of expression – the best things about liberalism. We’ve been weakened partly as we’re open societies and vulnerable to disinformation.” Russian interference has been used to ramp up internal dissent in Western societies around culture war issues.

A Trump win would delight “conservative nationalists” in Europe like Hungary’s authoritarian Viktor Orban, or the far-right AfD in Germany and Marine Le Pen in France. Refugees are already a “target for conservative, nationalist, authoritarian movements in the UK and across Europe… This backlash is transnational”. The networks demonising refugees as “a threat to our way of life” are also transnational. “They’ll be reinforced by a Trump victory, there will be international political consequences.” In America, Trump has promised mass deportations. 

Trump’s rhetoric matters too. He’s called opponents “vermin”. Jackson adds: “Trump has tested and eroded the norms of acceptable political discourse and behaviour. It was mimicked in some ways by Boris Johnson. The discourse of the Conservative party would have been unimaginable 20 years ago – the things Suella Braverman or Kemi Badenoch say, weirdly both children of immigrants. But then you only have to look at Latino support for Trump.”

Donald TrumpImmigration
INCREASED tensions around immigration ramped up by Trump internationally may threaten “European solidarity in the face of Russian challenge. Orban is quite openly pro-Russian, much of the German right is openly pro-Russian.

What we could see if we don’t stand up for what we believe in is an erosion of the things that have been central to European political culture since 1945 – what we’ve fought for – which is liberty and democracy against authoritarianism and autocracy”. Europe would be defeating itself “from within”.

The impact of a Trump presidency on the climate scares Jackson. He notes that “there’s a dynamic between climate degradation driving conflict, famine and migration”, adding: “Turning around global climate policy has been agonisingly slow and inefficient.” But Trump would “put the brakes on” what small achievements have been made.

“Trump is surrounded by climate sceptics, he’s openly critical of sustainable sources of energy.” When it comes to the environment and the effects of a Trump presidency, Jackson says: “I’m sadly not optimistic.”

Trump could also set an example to other populists regarding less regulation for business and the economy. Jackson notes it was deregulation under Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in the 1980s which caused “inequality to intensify across the Western world”. 

The “losers” from Thatcherism and Reaganomics were ordinary workers in Britain and America who saw “their quality of life and prospects so degraded ever since. It just created absolutely fertile ground for Brexit and opportunistic populists like Nigel Farage and Donald Trump, or Boris Johnson. It’s so ironic that these are the people who benefited most from deregulation yet they pose as champions of the people who have been f***** over by it”.

It feels like “the era of gaslighting” Jackson believes. Trump sees China – unlike Russia – “as a global economic rival and enemy without question”. 

However, it’s unclear if Trump would “be keen to support Taiwan” should China threaten the island.

The policies of President Xi Jinping “are more of an enigma that many of us are willing to admit”, although he has shown “a lot greater willingness to engage in threatening behaviour towards Taiwan. There are a lot of people in Washington who think a war in the Taiwan Straits by 2027 is a distinct possibility”.

Jackson adds: “Even more than a Russian threat to Europe, the greater short-term threat to world peace is in the Taiwan Straits.” Ukraine has “provided a salutary warning about embarking on invasions. Taiwan will fight. Taiwan is the greatest global flashpoint, but I’m not convinced that a Trump administration would consider fighting a war to protect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Taiwan”. A Chinese invasion would be much more difficult than Russia’s assault on Ukraine as it would be an amphibious attack.

Can the West still consider America an ally if Trump wins? “It won’t be the same kind of ally,” Jackson says. “The credibility of America’s presence and support for European security will be diluted, if not undermined altogether.”

Fascism
US Supreme Court justices picked by Trump during his last period in office have handed the presidency almost unlimited powers without legal consequence. Trump’s team also plans to fire many federal employees and replace them with MAGA loyalists. This is what’s known as Project 2025. There are fears these developments could even allow Trump to pull out of Nato, against the wishes of Congress, and particularly the Senate.

Jackson says this could “begin the process of degradation of fundamental American political institutions, but the judiciary is more than just the Supreme Court. Judicial disputes have to move their way up to the Supreme Court. The Project 2025 idea of just replacing en masse key officials within the machinery of government with loyalists will probably take longer and be more difficult than they understand”.

Jackson says any attempt to “dismantle” the powers of the legislature and the judiciary for “an authoritarian regime to emerge would take time”. One key development to watch for would be any attempt to remove the constitutional prohibition on a president serving more than two terms. That, says Jackson, would show “the direction of travel”. However, Trump would be nearly 85 by the end of any second term and “it looks as if there’s some cognitive decline already. He gets mixed up a lot, although he still has amazing stamina for a man of his age”.

Jackson comes to the question of whether Trump or those around him are fascist. Some of the world’s most eminent historians have branded the MAGA movement fascist, including Yaleprofessor Timothy Snyder, who is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Committee on Conscience. The historian Robert Paxton, recognised as the global expert on fascism, has similarly condemned the MAGA movement.

“It comes down to how you understand fascism,” says Jackson, who is an expert on extremism in the interwar years. Trump displays some of the “hallmarks of fascism”, specifically “authoritarian populism, hostility towards immigration, a tendency to identify minority groups and scapegoat them, attack them and make them a focus for collective animosity”.

However, he notes: “One hallmark of fascism that’s not there yet is the pursuit of war for its own sake – war as something that’s worthwhile because of its invigorating, energising, purifying and cleansing power. I don’t see that. So I would probably rate Trump and the MAGA movement as authoritarian populism rather than fascism. For me, a lot of what fascism was about was war as a means of national greatness. The America First agenda is in some ways the opposite of that.

“But not to call him fascist doesn’t mean that he’s not a massive threat to American democracy and Western democratic principles, processes and institutions. I think he is.”

Jackson says that Trump’s use of propaganda seems lifted straight from the pages of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. “It’s terrifying the extent to which it seems to be a blueprint for the way Trump is campaigning: tell a lie, tell it big, repeat it again and again and again. It doesn’t matter how big it is or whether you can prove it or not, just beat people over the head with it repeatedly and it will serve its political purpose.”

Jackson accepts that he might be “splitting hairs” in how he defines fascism, but adds: “Trump is as much a danger to liberal democracy as the fascists.” He suggests that “fascism might have been a movement of its political time. To say a modern movement is fascist might be a little anachronistic, but there are many smart people like Tim Synder and Bob Paxton – people I admire a lot – who disagree.”

Certainly, Trump’s politics are “oligarchic”, Jackson believes – on the side of the super-rich and prepared to give them vast power over ordinary people. Elon Musk, for example, has been promised a place in a Trump administration. Jackson notes again echoes of America in the 1890s in the agenda of MAGA leaders.

“They want a free hand to unmoor politics from the social policies that emerged over the course of the 20th century so they’re not beholden and can make as much money as they want without any responsibility to society. They want to roll back regulation so they have the freedom to behave however they like.”

He adds: “Trump might be a fascist or he might not. He might also just want to be able to run America the way he ran his businesses – just firing anyone he wants and saying ‘I want this to happen, I don’t care if it’s illegal, just get it done’ and then go golfing and let someone else worry about implementing it.”

Democracy
THE bottom line is: under a Trump presidency “the consequences for Western liberal democracy – which is already under such strain, and facing systemic global challenges – are terrifying”. Jackson says that rather than fretting about World War Three, the “more imminent danger is the breakdown of democratic consensus in European societies, which was something we saw in the 1930s”.

Although wary of “historical analogies”, the politics of today “resonates with the 1930s” as hostile states like Russia and China want to rewrite the rules by which the world operates, and that creates the risk of war, only this time in a nuclear-armed world.

Is violence inevitable no matter who wins the US election? Jackson notes the Democrats have said they will accept the result if they lose in order for a peaceful transition of power. “But it’s very clear that this is not the view on the other side of the aisle. Whether or not there will be the kind of violence that happened on January 6 [during the attempted Capitol coup] I don’t know.”

Jackson thinks it’s “way more likely” that MAGA members in the House of Representatives and state legislatures will be used “to undermine the election – so there’s a failure to recognise and approve election results all across the United States. That’s probably something we’ll be looking at. If Trump loses there will be lots of litigation, lots of examples of electoral college failure and refusal to certify results.

“That will be fundamentally corrosive to American democracy. That’s probably the big short-term threat – this idea that elections no longer have legitimacy.”

Could democracy itself start to collapse across the West? “I don’t think so,” says Jackson. “As was the case in the 1930s, when there’s an economic crisis and systematic and endemic economic dislocation, it generates a lot of dissatisfaction. But I pray the situation will right itself, I’m an optimist. I think that Trump will lose.”

Jackson adds that there’s much talk of the US polls being inaccurate. However, even if he does lose, “Trump will get at least 80 million votes – and that’s after January 6. It’s just unbelievable, it defies belief that people are willing to risk everything by putting the American political experiment in the hands of this person who has shown himself hostile to democratic institutions and processes”.