Discussion Paper 1: An Independent Scotland’s Foreign Policy

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This is a draft outline of a Scottish foreign policy. The final paper will figure as a section of the comprehensive 2029 Independence for A Purpose manifesto. Where decisions on policy are indicated, these should be taken as preliminary.

It will take some time for an independent Scotland to develop a foreign affairs office department and engage with almost all countries. Decisions in the long-term will have to be made on where to place embassies and consulates, taking trade, political relationships and the geopolitical map into account when doing so. This paper seeks to deal with the early decisions that will have to be made, based on assessment of priority relations with other states where our state interests dictate that we do so.

Discussion and comments are invited from those who subscribe to the Yes United website, IFS activists and others in the movement. Comments and suggestions should be sent directly to Jim Sillars at : sillarsj@aol.com as designated co-ordinator.

Introduction

The language here is blunt. The post-1945 independence movement has gone through stages: staying alive, brief episodes of success, suffering from the catastrophe of 1979, recovery, becoming established in 1999, celebrating dominance through the SNP at Holyrood. A characteristic in all stages was the movement in protest at Westminster governments. That did not change with devolution. If this movement is to win independence, which will require it to reach well beyond its core, it will have to think and talk at a higher level – at state level. That is not as easy as it sounds.

Since 1999 we have been in a devolution mindset. Having as Scottish Government has seen us and our leaders address the world. What we say in the context of devolution has the luxury of carrying no consequences. That is a difficult habit to let go. But let it go we must, and face choices that, given our protest history, many will find unpalatable.

It is essential that we move to a new paradigm and engage in statecraft, something the Scots have not addressed as a nation for 319 years.

Statecraft involves the assessment of one’s own power, how far it extends into other states and regions, the allies created and worth keeping onboard, its limitations as well as its potential, and that of possible adversaries and any allies they may have. It also requires a cold-blooded calculation of one’s own true state interest, and action if any such is contemplated based on knowledge of the world’s people, their histories and heir many complexities.

Cart before the horse?

It may seem premature, placing the cart before the horse, in setting out a foreign policy this side of independence. But that is not so, because when we approach our objective of becoming a European state, others who have a strategic interest in Scotland will have a stake in that. They have to be taken into account. The signals we send to them on foreign policy, and on defence, while seeking independence will determine whether they are hostile or neutral to our objective.

It is unlikely that any state with strategic interests in Scotland will be openly supportive of independence, so pre-independence foreign policy should aim at neutrality on their part. We are a movement trying to become independent, trying to establish the conditions to becoming a state. That means thinking like a state. And thinking like a state means understanding that other states, with vital interests in our decisions, will overtly or covertly seek to shape those decisions if they think their interests are threatened.

The natural reaction of a proud Scot to that proposition is to take offence and express outrage; declaring that independence is our business and our business alone. That must be resisted, because it is not true. If the prospect of policies with independence threaten the strategic security interests of important states and institutions in the Europe-North Atlantic region, they will take sides against us, and seek to make it difficult to get the requisite substantial majority we must obtain to succeed in gaining sovereignty. That is the price of our geographical position. We need today to take a lesson from history. Those in leadership positions in the 1979 referendum on whether Scotland should have an Assembly, were aware of CIA involvement because the USA felt Faslane would be threatened if such a body was set up.

It is important also to present Scotland to our European neighbours, whose institutions we shall need their agreement to enter, as sui generis, and not as the vanguard of a European separatist movement. We have to explain to them that Scotland’s history is of centuries of undisputed sovereignty as a nation recognised internationally; something that makes us different, very different, from others seeking constitutional change. If we can think like a state, we shall see that there is no advantage to our nation by linking our position to others who are in devolved relationships with their central governments. Put bluntly, Scotland is not another Catalonia, Wales or Ireland.

Until now we have lived as a devolved component of the British state, where what has been said by parties and groups in the movement on international matters, and about other states, carries no weight or influence with them. We are free to strike any pose we like because as a non-state we do not matter.

Independence will create a state, and what we say and intend to do as that state will matter to others. So, the first foreign policy that has to be made is NOW, by which we telegraph to those others that we shall come as a rational partner, fully cognisant of the regional and geopolitical architecture into which we want to fit, with policies compatible with their security interests.

The principal factors in state-to-state relations

Power is the major factor in international relations, and how it interacts with the other five factors – resources, geography, state interests, spheres of influence and size – determines an individual state’s relations with other states. Understanding those realities, along with the principle that we have no friends only interests, must shape the foreign policy (and defence policy) of an independent Scotland.

Having “no friends only interests” does not mean that the Scottish state will not have friendly relations with others with whom we share the values of democracy, the rule of law, the concept and practice of free speech, and adherence to conventions promoting human rights.

It would be a mistake, however, to believe that alignment between democratic states, or indeed between authoritarian states, takes them to a level of intimate connection where state interests become subordinate to the idea of a friend.

The rhetoric used by heads of government and other senior politicians can give the impression of “friend” before all else. That language is deceptive. If alignments take place it is because they are in the states’ interests and for no other reason. Should states’ interests change, the language will change.

There are many examples of which South Vietnam and Afghanistan are classic, of where years of assurances of support for friends against wicked enemies ended abruptly when the US decided it was no longer in its national interest to maintain the fiction.

In Afghanistan when the US administration decided it was no longer its interest to remain there, it did a deal with the Taliban without consultation with its NATO allies whose troops were fighting by its side, or the Afghan government it had helped set up. Both Biden and Trump were implicit in that.

The reality of the US-UK “special relationship” is instructive. Millions of words have poured forth on both sides of the Atlantic in speeches, lectures, meetings, books and articles lauding the “special-friend” relationship. It was never true. In 1943 the Quebec Agreement, given the UK scientific contribution to the development of the USA nuclear weapon programme, stated that in future all nuclear information gathered in the United States would be shared with the UK. In 1946 the US McMahon Act, aimed at protecting US state interests on security, shut the door on that. When the UK failed to develop its own missile system to deliver a nuclear warhead, it got Polaris (now Trident) on condition it be maintained by the Americans, thus ensuring ultimate US control. President John F Kennedy, in a private conversation in the Oval Office accurately defined the relationship as the need to describe the UK as a partner, when in fact it was America’s Lieutenant.

In Europe especially, the Scottish state will be in close friendly relations with most other states, and the language of friendship will flow like wine. But those who handle future Scottish foreign policy must always bear in mind that state interests will always be present.

Scottish Foreign Policy Priority Areas

Scottish foreign policy will develop over time, but early priority decisions will be needed in relation to allies and our economic position within Europe.

Scotland’s geography puts it in the spheres of influence of powerful states with whom we need friendly relations in the arena of European regional security, and for our need to access large trading markets. We are talking about NATO and the EU/EFTA single market.

It is a major foreign policy decision, for security reasons, to seek/accept membership of NATO.

Of equal importance is a decision is to seek entry, for economic reasons, to either EU or EFTA/EEA

NATO. This alliance identifies one near-hand adversary – Russia. NATO proclaims it is a defensive alliance, Russia asked why has it advanced towards its territory. Therein lies a tale of errors on both sides. Whatever those errors may have been, they have brought us to where we are: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, NATO assistance to Ukraine, Russia mapping critical undersea communications between NATO states, NATO and EU further assistance to Ukraine. Result: increased tension, with Russia defining NATO as its main adversary, and NATO doing the same with Russia.

That is where we in Europe are, and Scotland’s geography makes us a vital component of NATO’s security. Scotland is a northern maritime nation, in an even more important strategic position than hitherto now that the Arctic has joined the Atlantic and the Pacific as geopolitical regions in which the Great Powers have an interest. Our land makes us an unsinkable aircraft carrier from which NATO can deny Russia access to the Atlantic sea- lane supply- chain from North America to Europe, by blocking the Denmark Strait and other exit points from the North Sea. The submarine base at Faslane adds to our importance to NATO.

NATO is a political organisation, whose decisions are based on consensus, but the terms of the treaty that created it show the reality: the USA is the ultimate decisionmaker. Any member state, except the USA, can withdraw from NATO, but it must give notice to the United States alone. There is no provision for the United States to give notice of withdrawal to any other member. Withdrawal of the USA can only come through Section 1250A of the US 2024 National Defense Authorisation Act, which states withdrawal cannot take place “without the advise and consent of the Senate or an act of Congress.”

Since its inception the United States has dominated NATO due to taking on the giant share of expenditure, providing vital military equipment, the nuclear deterrent, military personnel and intelligence, along with holding the position of Supreme Allied Commander of all forces of the member states when they are acting as components of a NATO deployment.

NATO has military forces, but it does not have a NATO- military- force under the political command of the Secretary-General and the North Atlantic Council of member states. Each member state retains its own armed forces which report to their governments. What it does have in the military sphere is structures that enable inter-state military cooperation, agreed inter-force deployment policies, and a common military doctrine when all are engaged under the NATO title. This “national force” construction was in evidence when in the NATO Kosovo deployment, the British 3 Star General, reporting to his own government, refused to obey an order from the 4 star US NATO Supreme Commander to block Russian access to an airfield. He said he wasn’t going to start World War III.

The Trump Intrusion

President Trump’s accusation that European members of NATO (and Canada) have been having a free expenses ride from America is true. That part of his legacy will remain long after he departs office. The European pillar of NATO will be required to contribute, in terms of conventional weapons power and military personnel, much more than in recent years in order to allow the United States to draw down its contribution of conventional forces for redeployment to the Pacific. Future US administrations will seek a NATO where there is a better balance between it and European partners, especially the larger powers.

Donald Trump’s intrusion in NATO matters , with his whims, fancies, changing moods, stream of insults, threats of punishment, does not reflect long- term United States policy towards NATO. Although Europe is no longer number one on America’s security list as it was in the Cold War, with the Indo-Pacific taking that place, that does not mean NATO and Europe have ceased to matter to Washington, as the National Defense Act and the statement by General Grynkewich’s to the Senate Armed Services Committee show (see below).

The question that has emerged from the Trump intrusion is not so much whether the United States will remain in NATO, but will it actually fight alongside its European partners if any of them are attacked? Until Trump it was taken for granted that under Article 5 of the NATO treaty immediate American involvement would be taken. NATO’s 2025 Hague Declaration reaffirmed Article 5. Yet, close attention to the ambiguous wording of Article 5 raises continuing doubts about whether the United States would fight or deploy other non-military measures.

ARTICLE 5

“The parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against all and consequently they agree that, if such armed attack occurs, each of them in exercise of the right of individual or collective self- defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed forces, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to retore and maintain international peace and Security.” (emphasis added)

When Article 5 was being drafted the British Foreign Secretary, Ernie Bevin, wanted a specific commitment to military action by all member states in the event of an attack on one. But the US did not agree as its officials sought “flexibility” within the treaty which would allow for other means as well as military action.

Whether the USA would join in a fight is one question, but there is another: whether the USA could stand aside in Europe and its credibility as an Ally survive elsewhere is another? Japan and South Korea would have an interest in the answer.

European members of NATO are now examining ways to act if the US did not commit its combat military. Fortuitously, a NATO decision taken at the summit in Wales in 2014, coming into full force in 2018, is the concept of the Joint Expeditionary Force. There is as yet only one JEF: UK, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Netherlands, aiming to defend the Baltics and northern Europe. Similar constructions could emerge for other parts of Europe, giving the guarantee of swift action that is implicit in the JEF.

The EU is no substitute for NATO

France, for a long time, has sought to find an alternative to NATO based on the EU, but has never succeeded. Spain’s Foreign Minister has now taken the same position as France, claiming that Trump’s conduct shows Europe cannot trust the USA on Chapter 5 of the treaty. The EU replacing NATO as a means to guarantee Europe’s security looks attractive, but there are reasons why it has not happened, and will not happen.

The EU does not cover all Europe’s states who are in NATO. Norway, for example, with its border with Russia and its position vis-à-vis the Arctic, is vital to the defence of Sweden and Finland, both EU states.

The EU is a large organisation never structured for military-security as distinct from having an economic/political purpose. EU decision making is slow, with a complex system of majority voting, which is not simple majority voting but also involves calculations on the number of states involved in a decision. Nothing in its make-up or method of reaching final decisions is geared to the kind of action required to give effect to engagement in a military conflict.

There is another substantial reason why it would be difficult for the EU to create a political and military structure superior to NATO. A multi-state military alliance can only function effectively with a supreme commander, and a supreme commander can come only from a state recognised and accepted by all others as the top dog in the pack. In NATO that top dog is the USA. In the EU there is no obvious undisputed military leader. France is a permanent member of the UN Security Council, and the EU’s only nuclear weapon state. But Germany has the stronger economy, and will be the stronger in military force terms. Who would give way to the other with the appointment of supreme commander; and, given Europe’s history, would it be possible for one to emerge with universal acceptance?

Trumpism Trumped by the Reality of US State Interests

NATO has given way to the Indo-Pacific as the US first concern, but it remains a major US foreign and defence policy commitment because of sound state interests. The USA needs military bases in Europe for operations in the Middle East, Arica and parts of the Indo-Pacific region. Russia remains an adversary, and doubles down as such as the Arctic and its resources has now emerged as a new area of tension between the two. When Finland joined NATO, it increased Russia’s border with the alliance by 833 miles, a strategic problem of defence for the Kremlin to the advantage of the USA as a member of the alliance.

There is also the fact of United States investments to be protected. The USA has invested over $6 trn in world regions, half being in Europe. This and the other reasons given is why the 2024 National Defence Authorisation Act contains S1250A; and why in his statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on 12 March 2026, General Alexus G. Grynkewich United States European Command and NATO supreme commander, set out why continued membership of NATO is a strategic necessity for the USA. He did not speak as NATO supreme commander, but as head of EUSCOM whose area of responsibility “ covers 53 sovereign nations and city states, 24 territories, three oceans and 11 seas, and includes 30 of the 32 North Atlantic Treaty Organistion (NATO) allies.”

He explained “Key to USECOM’s success is aligning our operations, activities, and investments to harness Europe’s unique strategic advantages – its geographic location, collective military capabilities, and economic capacity – to protect vital U.S. interests and increase burden sharing so that our Allies can assume primary responsibility for the conventional defense of Europe. USECOM can ensure the region remains a platform for U.S. Homeland defense and Joint Force power projection, and that NATO remains a combat-credible, force- multiplying Alliance capable of sustaining defense and defeating aggression against Allies in Europe and North America.”

Of special importance to Scots was the General’s view of US interests in its “northern flank – spanning from the Arctic, across the North Atlantic ,through Greenland, Iceland, United Kingdom [read Scotland] and Norway (GIUKN) Gap, and to the Scandinavian High North-encompasses key geography central to U.S. security and economic interests. Specifically, the Arctic is emerging as an increasingly viable and maritime approach to North America and Europe, attracting increased interest and activity from Russia and China.”

Trump’s verbal abuse of NATO is offset in the real world outside his Truth Social by the legislation enacted by Congress, and the measured, objective evidence given to the Senate Committee by General Grynkewich.

Relations with England….And Others

Facing the choice on Faslane and Trident

Scotland will not become independent the moment the people vote for it. It will be necessary to disentangle our nation from the present ties with England, and this will require a transition period during which there will be negotiations on a Scottish-English Treaty, setting out the terms of separation. Given the importance of England as Scotland’s largest export market, some 60 per cent of our goods and services, the achievement of a Free Trade Agreement is one clear objective. On the other hand, remaining in the UK customs union would not be to Scotland’s advantage.

The Scottish negotiators will require a political and technical brief. This will require an objective analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of Scotland’s position vis-a-vis England, and similarly England’s position in relation to Scotland. The technical brief will encompass a wide range of issues including whether we shall have debt share obligations, and matters affecting our trade with the market south of the border. Approaching negotiations it will be wise for the Scots to signal an intention of establishing good relations with our neighbour on this island, and cooperation on security within the envelope of NATO, because the atmosphere created will matter.

As we share an island with England and many Scots will continue to reside there, as will many English people continue to reside in Scotland, it is sensible to seek good relations: something that will require reciprocity. Two states living on the same island, both members of a larger alliance, will have common security concerns, and residual legacy-security matters to resolve, not least the question of the future of Faslane as the base for the Trident nuclear weapon. This will not be solely a Scottish-English subject. NATO has a stake in this.

Within NATO member states there are three nuclear powers: USA, UK and France. Only the USA and UK are NATO’s nuclear powers. France’s nuclear weapons are not committed to NATO. Thus, given the question mark over whether the USA would actually commit its nuclear arsenal to Europe and thereby maintain the deterrent posture, that leaves NATO’s European members, post independence, with only one certain nuclear deterrent – the England one.

It is not in independent Scotland’s interest to be seen, or act, as a major immediate disruptor of NATO’s European based deterrent. The NATO nuclear deterrent at Faslane is a matter of major strategic importance to NATO. The relocation from Faslane cannot be done swiftly, and NATO will expect that Faslane will remain the base for the nuclear-armed submarine force for a period of time. How long that time will be is a matter for discussion between NATO, Scotland and England, and will figure in the treaty negotiations. The issue of Trident in the context of NATO will give Scotland’s negotiators leverage.

It is a mark of the unreadiness of the movement for independence that no serious work has been done until now on what will need to be negotiated in a Treaty, and who the stakeholders will be either wholly or in part Involved in those negotiations. Yet, the outcome of the Treaty will be almost as important to the success of independence as the vote for independence itself. Work is now underway on the negotiating brief.

Others in the British Islands

Proximity, shared sea, trade, similar small nation status, mean that good relations with Ireland should be a Scottish objective. We should commit to membership of and the maintenance of the Common Travel Area. The CTA at present covers the UK, Ireland, Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey. It enables citizens of each to travel freely and live and work where they want. Other nationalities seeking to travel within the CTA area are subject to national immigration rules.

EU-EFTA-EEA (European Union-European Free Trade Association – European Economic Area Agreement)

The question central to engagement with a multi-state organisation is how much sovereignty a state is willing to trade in order to join? The answer depends on whether the advantage gained outweighs the disadvantage. Scotland will gain sovereignty on independence day, and will then have to decide how much of that sovereignty it gives away in joining organisations within the international order. That will make Scotland no different to any other sovereign state.

Of priority concern will be our relationship with Europe. Advantage and disadvantage are inherent choices in any assessment of where Scotland should locate itself in the European economic context.

The EU, a very large market of over 500 m people, is near at hand, and it is logical that Scotland should seek access for its business base to its internal market with the least possible administrative friction. There are two ways to accomplish this: joining the EU as a member state, or joining EFTA as a means of becoming a member of the EEA, and thus gain access to the EU single market.

THE EU. It would be naïve to believe that there will be a simple re-entry for Scotland on the basis that existed before the Brexit break. The EU is not a philanthropic organisation whose door is open without cost. It has 27 member states each with its own state interests which the centre- the Commission – has to take into account when dealing with a new applicant.

The Scotland applicant would not be able to alter any of the EU treaty rules and obligations. We, for example, would adhere automatically to the Common Fisheries Policy which would have direct consequences for our fishing and processing industry. It is possible the EU, as it tried with Norway through the EEA, would seek to extend its competence to the North Sea oil and gas resources. It would be prudent to assume such a move by the EU given the renewed importance of energy security in its calculations now.

The EU is not only a single market but a customs union, and while membership would take Scotland within the terms of its trade agreements with other states such as the recent one with India’s growing market, it would exclude us from membership of the Trans Pacific Partnership, a trade pact in a growing region of the world.

Opponents of EU application have made a point about the long length of time an application would take from being lodged to completion, although it is doubtful given Scotland’s importance to NATO EU states, if we would be pushed to the back of the queue as some suggest. Time taken might not be such a problem, given two things: that we were previously inside and therefore can easily comply with the rules; and our importance as the unsinkable aircraft carrier and location of a key submarine base.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to easy entry would be the attitude of Spain, anxious not to give Catalonia a precedent to build upon in its pursuit of independence, by it taking Scotland as an example. Hence the importance previously stated for presenting Scotland as sui generis.

In making our assessment of EU membership it is necessary to admit that one of the problems facing that organisation is its size, something of particular importance given that membership includes the customs union, which means it can only speak with one voice in its trade and economic relations with other states and state-organisations like the WTO. To get to the point of that “one voice” because of the number of its members, and their different state interests, it is slow in action. One of the advantages of small states in the international arena is that they can be nimble, but small states within the customs union of the EU do not have advantage of that status.

EFTA-EEA

Joining EFTA does not require the same trade-off of sovereignty as does membership of the EU as it is not a customs union, and its members are much freer on home affairs, foreign and non-EU trade policy, and in exercising sovereign control of, in the case of Norway and Iceland, their seas and the resources therein.

EFTA and the EU established the European Economic Area by treaty in 1992, giving the EFTA states Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein access to the EU single market. Switzerland, a member of EFTA, has its own arrangement with the EU. It is often said that the EFTA-EEA states simply comply with EU single market rules without any say in how they are made. That is not strictly true. Articles 99 and 100 of the EEA treaty ensure that from the start of EU Commission consideration of new single market rules, the EFTA states are consulted throughout the proceedings.

However, it is not the case that by becoming a member of EFTA Scotland would automatically gain membership of the EEA and thus enter the EU single market. Just as membership of the EU requires the agreement of every EU government and ratification by each EU states’ parliaments, the same rule applies to any new EFTA state seeking entry to the EEA.

A small state like Scotland, on the face of it, as an EFTA member should have no difficulty in being accepted into the EEA. But as with the EU, there is the question of how Spain would react. This is where diplomacy and presentation could play a part in easing the position with Spain’s concern about accepting a precedent that might aid Catalonia.

EFTA nominating Scotland as a new EFTA signatory to the EEA, as distinct from a Scottish stand- alone application, would place us in the wider diplomatic context of EFTA-EU relations making it difficult for any one EU member state to object.

Which road to the single market? In terms of the trade-off of sovereignty for economic gain, EFTA as a road to the EU single market via the EEA seems best for Scotland. That would not close the door to full EU membership if that was an eventual choice, as, from the EU point of view, the transition from an EEA member to EU member would be relatively easy.

The United States

Like it or not, Scotland is within the sphere of influence of the United States, and is a market our business exporters need access to. Good relations with the USA is in Scotland’s state interests. Whatever he may think, Donald Trump is not the United States, and we should look beyond Trump when assessing where its interests lie. Nothing we say before independence, or do in the early stages after independence should threaten the interests of the United States. That should be a firm principle of our foreign policy.

That principle does not mean that Scotland should agree with America on every subject or endorse every action its government takes. The expression of opinion, or actions that one side or the other is not happy with, are in the area of state-to-state dialogue quite different from actions that directly bear upon a vital state interest.

Before independence the movement should make a deliberate effort to establish links with both Democrat and Republican members of Congress, and with influential media journalists and academic commentators.

In the USA, Scotland should not only have its embassy in Washington DC, but in its early years locate Consul Generals in New York, San Fransico, Texas and Boston.

China

China is now a trade and military superpower. Scotland is not in it sphere of influence, but no state can ignore its importance in world affairs, and can avoid having a policy that takes account of the reality that is China.

For “China” we must read the “Chinese Communist Party” because it is the party that rules; and that party is Marxist-Leninist for whom its number one priority is preservation of the party and its permanent hold on power. The CCP is a highly disciplined organisation. It has wrought a remarkable transformation in the Chinese economy, going from a basket case some 60 years ago to the world’s manufacturing giant. It has done so with economic reforms without political reform. It is not a Soviet Union rotting from within.

China has a population of 1.4bn. The CCP membership is 100 million, with 300m others, family, business, work, academia connections, with a direct stake in its continuation in power. Its top leadership emerges through a system in which they learn to govern at city, region, provinces before taking on national responsibilities. Although Mao sought to destroy the country’s links with its traditional past with the cultural revolution, he did not succeed. As well as its Marxist-Leninist character, the CCP is nationalistic and now draws on the country’s long history, including its ability to think in the long term.

The CCP does not do democracy, and elevates internal stability above any western notion of human rights. In its foreign relations it is pragmatic: it judges any relationship with another state not on the basis of that states’ political structures, but on how the relationship fits with China’s state interests as defined by the CCP.

The CCP has one outstanding issue to resolve from the 1949 successful revolution. – Taiwan, whose official title is the Republic of China. Any state wishing to deal with China on any level, trade or political, has to declare that it accepts a “One China” policy. There is always a caveat when a state, or an organisation like the EU, records such acceptance – a wish that a final settlement of the China-Taiwan relationship be obtained peacefully.

China-Taiwan relations are more complex in international law than most western views convey. The 1943 Cairo declaration, followed by its endorsement in the 1945 Potsdam declaration, name Taiwan (then called Formosa) as Chinese territory. Post the PRC 1949 victory, with the previous KMT government sitting in Taiwan and representing China as a permanent member of the UN Security Council until 1979, it looks like slam dunk for China’s claim.

But historic declarations are one thing, political developments quite another. The people of Taiwan have travelled from KMT dictatorship to a fully formed functioning democracy of 23.6m. This makes it, in relation to PRC China, quite different to Hong Kong, where the formula of “one country two systems” is not now quite what the former colonial power Britain thought it meant.

Hong Kong was never a genuine democracy while a colony, with no mature political institutions and politicians of wide experience and stature. The 2014 non-violent umbrella protests, and the violent 2019 ones were, as a result, led by young people who thought they could take on Beijing and win, and over-played their hand. The political institutional strength simply did not exist in Hong Kong.

But that strength does exist in Taiwan, and “one country two systems” could work if the will is there on both sides.

Scotland has no vital state interest in the China-Taiwan relationship. Our sympathies will lie naturally with Taiwan, but we shall have to recognise that PRC China is one of the Great Powers in a world where the Breton Woods rules-based order has been torn up by the United States. Scotland’s diplomatic relationship with China should be “correct,” not antagonistic, and we shall have to join most of the rest of the world in accepting, with the same caveat, the “one-China” policy.

Aid Policy

Scotland must commit to 0.7% of GDP as its aid budget. Before a decision on where Scotland’s aid is directed, it would be wise to take advice through consultation with Scottish aid organisations presently involved in different parts of the world.

The Commonwealth

Scotland’s membership of the Commonwealth will add one more small state to the 56 present members, drawn from all regions of the world. 33 of the world’s 42 smallest states are in the Commonwealth.

There are three specific things Scotland can do to contribute to the aim of the organisation to assist developing member states: provide a number of post-graduate places in our universities in the sciences, for students from the Caribbean, where historically Scots were involved in the slave trade; twin with Samoa, which has a proud Scottish connection through being the resting place of Rober Louis Stevenson; and offering the Commonwealth Sport Organisation a contract to hold a full Commonwealth Games every fourth year in Glasgow up to 2038. The latter would ensure that Scotland’s position within the Commonwealth was recognised as valuable. Holding the Games on a regular basis means that the first-time expenditure on venues (some already there) does not need to be repeated other than updating for subsequent Games, with the accommodation for athletes available for tourism lets in the intervening years. Scotland would gain from massive publicity every four years.

The Geopolitical World Order Scotland Will Enter

In shaping its foreign policy once priority areas have been addressed in the first stage of independence, Scotland will encounter a world whose geopolitical structure and distribution of power has changed dramatically in the last 50-60 years. For centuries, as western states developed advanced technologies, weapons systems, maritime supremacy, and used these advantages to carve out empires in what we now call the global south, this European-US axis dominated the world politically, economically, and militarily. After the great disruption of World War II, that western dominance was consolidated in the power exercised by the United States. Although it had an ideological rival in the Soviet Union, it had no rival in production, quality of its products, trade, the issue of credit to other nations, and the universal use and power of its currency.

While others in 1945 emerged from World War II weakened and diminished in power and wealth, the USA came out of it as a manufacturing giant and the premier financial power. Even before the war ended it was able to bend the non-Soviet world to its will, leaving them no alternative but to join the institutions it constructed and signing up to the rules it laid down at the Breton Woods conference of 1944. The USA as the Hegemon was born, and the world entered an epoch of American imperial power. Within the USA elite, they saw their country as the Rome of the 20^th Century.

That epoch is over. The rise of China, contesting the Hegemonic role of the USA is the obvious sign of a global shift in power of a kind that only happens when one epoch ends and another begins. But China is not the only story. India, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and others, are all on an upward trajectory gaining economic and political power and influence in the world. The new epoch is founded in the nations of the Indo-Pacific.

Europe and the other North American States of interest to Scotland

Europe

The major powers in Europe, Germany, France, UK, and perhaps Italy, in relation to the rest of the world, are no longer as influential as was once the case, either in terms of hard power projection or soft power influence. The EU is a trade market giant, but the number of states it has taken into membership to reach that status, has not made it greater than the sum of its parts. Its mixture of state members by size, with their own state interests, makes it difficult to manage, speak with one voice, and use the power of its market. The Trump tariff assault on the EU is illustrative of that weakness. The USA dictated new tariffs on EU origin goods, while the EU gave the US a virtual tariff free pass.

Given the size of its market and that on trade with others it presents itself as one entity, it should be more influential on the diplomatic world stage than it is at present.

In the military sphere the EU as political institution has no clout, other than as a source of funding for Ukraine In its conflict with Russia. The weakness that has developed in the standing of the main European powers over the last 50 years is manifest in their reliance on American power in the NATO alliance. It is an open question whether the European members of NATO can create a better balance with America inside the alliance.

Canada

Canada is territorially large, blessed with substantial natural resources, but with a population of 40m. It is both an Atlantic and a Pacific nation, with potential. But it is and is likely to remain one of the middle-powers whose recognition of that status was spelled out by Prime Minister Carney at Davos in 2025. Since that speech he has travelled the world to meet with leaders of other middle powers, seeking to build coalitions of interest especially in relation to increasing trade between them.

How successful his policy will be in making the middle powers less open to the pressures the great powers of the USA and China can impose upon them by trade and economic pressures is uncertain.

Asia-Pacific

In 1975 China was a basket case. Vietnam was recovering from a devastating war. India was struggling to develop. Singapore was poor. Taiwan was underdeveloped. The rest of Asia was no better. The transformation of that region is breathtaking. China is a world superpower. India is on an ever upward trajectory. Singapore’s people are among the rich of the world. Indonesia and others now have significant economic and political importance. Taiwan holds the world’s leading chips.

Japan and South Korea, both formidable economic powers, are allies of the United States, and have looked to it for their security . So too do Australia and New Zealand. All four, however are asking the same questions as Europe about just how trustworthy the US now is. Each one has important trade ties to other states in the region. It is often overlooked that Russia is also an Asian power.

China is more open than most about contesting the hegemony of the United States, but all are recognising the new power the region is accumulating, welcome the multi-polar world system that now exists, and want changes to the rules-based system established by the Breton Woods conference.

All of them, even before the Trump weaponizing of tariffs, started to create regional trade groups, and joined in association with states outside the region to better balance their trade relations. Post-Trump tariff attack, they are doubling down expanding their engagement in these organisations.

A development in all parts of this region, which will have long- term political implications is the rise of a new middle class.

Africa

Africa is not a country. It is a continent with 54 states.. North of the Sahara desert four states -Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia - fall within the spheres of influence of the southern EU member states. Egypt is reliant on American and Gulf states aid, and has a now longstanding ambivalent relationship with Israel. The Egyptian armed forces control around one-third of the economy. The level of poverty is high.

Sub-Sahara states have suffered from “old men” dictatorships, endemic corruption and in the case of some, looting of the state by governing parties. In the early post-colonial period some states, in all parts, became proxies for either side in the Cold War, with dictatorship by old men allied to one or the other side. Religion, both Muslim and Christian, play a role in this part of Africa. Conflict and military coups is part of the African scene, holding back its potential. Sudan is an example. It has desert, but it also has huge areas of the best soil in the continent, able to be irrigated by the blue and white Nile flowing throw it. Sudan, if in peace, could feed half of Africa on its own.

But all is not gloom. A factor that will influence the future is that, as in Asia-Pacific, there is a growing middle class in many states, and a growing business class allied to and drawn from a young population that is seeking change, and is showing the capability of getting it.

Africa states are escaping from their colonial pasts, and have set up their own distinctive political and development institutions. Where previously the orientation was towards the west, particularly in sub-Saharan regions, China is seen as a better strategic and economic partner. As one African political leader explained, “the west comes and gives us lectures on human rights, while China asks if we want a railway?”

Middle East

This region presents a mixture of states and, as in the six GCC members, monarchies in which families are in complete control. The region is regarded as strategically important to the two Great Powers, the USA and China. Scotland has no strategic state interests in the region, other than the effect their oil producers’ decisions have on the price of oil, and the rupture to international trade that arises out of the inherent instability that marks its place in the international order.

The British state’s hegemony was destroyed by the 1956 Suez misadventure, to be replaced by the United States in the Gulf, and competition between it and the USSR in other parts of the region, specifically Turkey, Egypt and Syria. The USSR is no more, but Russia, still with an interest, is no longer a major player. If it were not for Israel, reading the US media and its pundits, it is easy to get the impression that Uncle Sam would wish to get his feet out of a region which gives it nothing but grief.

But Israel is there, and America’s middle east policy is tied to that state like glue – at least for the medium term.

States other than those with a strategic interests in the region are drawn in because the Israel-Palestinian friction, and violence employed, raise matters of human rights and international law that cannot be ignored.

Scotland will wish to support a two-state solution, and will be encouraged by voices within our nation to recognise a Palestinian state as the UK has done. There is moral value for the Palestinians in us doing that, but one has to question its efficacy for the Palestinians when we (UK at present) and other “recognition” states take no action when Israel’s government uses its settlement groups to expand in Palestinian land with the open admission of making a two-state solution impossible.

The conduct of Israel in Gaza and in the West Bank has drawn sanctions from some states on individuals, and indictment in the International Criminal Court on Israeli ministers. That has had no effect upon the Israeli policy. To date Israel has been able to act with immunity because of the unconditional backing of the United States. However, opinion on Israel has shifted significantly in America. It remains to be seen whether the people of Israel and their leaders fully understand what this could mean in the not so distant future.