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Scotland - NATO Relations

Following a vote for independence, the Scottish Government will notify NATO of an intention to join the alliance and will negotiate a transition from being a NATO member as part of the UK to becoming an independent member of the alliance. Scotland would become one of the many non-nuclear members of NATO. NATO membership is in Scotland’s interests, and the interests of Scotland's neighbors, because it underpins effective conventional defense and security cooperation.

NATO’s ‘open door’ policy states that "no European democratic country whose admission would fulfil the (Washington) Treaty's objectives will be excluded from consideration”.

Following a vote for independence, the Scottish Government will notify NATO of the intention to join the alliance and will negotiate the transition from being a NATO member as part of the UK to becoming an independent member of the alliance. Scotland would take a place as one of the many non-nuclear members of NATO.

Scotland would be part of collective defence arrangements, giving the people of Scotland the same security guarantees that they enjoy today. Within this framework of mutual defence Scotland will be able to deliver a more responsible defence posture better suited to Scotland’s strategic needs and interests. But in 2012, Malcolm Chalmers states, "A Scotland in NATO would have to endorse a Strategic Concept that states that ‘as long as there are nuclear weapons in the world, NATO will remain a nuclear alliance'".

Kate Hudson, General Secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, wrote in response that the "assertion that remaining outside of NATO would be ‘stepping out of the European mainstream’ is wrong and must be challenged. Other EU states with similar sized economies and populations – and good relations with the UK - including Sweden, Austria, Finland and, perhaps most relevant, Ireland, remain outside of NATO.... NATO continues to maintain tactical nuclear weapons across Europe against the wishes of ‘host’ countries, threatens other states with nuclear weapons – as it did with Iraq in the build up to war in 2003, and engages in destructive foreign military interventions that lack support in the UK – whether in Scotland, Wales or England."

Plans by the SNP leadership to keep Scotland in Nato after independence were branded “offensive” by Green leader Patrick Harvie on 08 October 2012. At his party’s conference in Glasgow, he took a swipe at the policy U-turn, suggesting people who want independence as a way of removing Trident from Scottish waters would be feeling let down. He said: “The idea that we sign up to a nuclear alliance, the implication of which is to ask other countries to deploy nuclear weapons on our behalf, and then have a debate about whether they should be moved from the Clyde, is a nonsense."

A new report ‘Human Security in an independent Scotland: new thinking for new challenges’ by NATO Watch Director Dr Ian Davis, was released 15 October 2012. The report, produced by the Highland-based NATO Watch, suggests a positive way forward for all those electors who have, thus far, indicated their support for an independent, non-nuclear Scotland – inside NATO. “An established majority supporting a progressive and independent non-nuclear Scotland could then proceed to decide if their best interests would be served by applying for NATO membership or deciding against it”, Dr Davis said.

"Remaining outside NATO may suit the purists, but is it practicable and would it likely be more or less effective in the longer term? Opinion polls indicate that the majority of the Scottish electorate would prefer to remain in NATO."