GEORGE Kervan’s Monday article was all over the place, but not in a good way (Scotland should think twice before joining new arms race with Russia, May 2).

Nato membership and participation in nuclear deterrence are not synonymous. Scotland can join Nato as one of the number of non-nuclear-possessing/hosting countries. As is the policy.

Scotland hosting nuclear weapons would be in direct contravention of nuclear non-proliferation policies and treaties and is not a realistic scenario in any case.

Storing other Nato munitions, as already done, is quite enough to provide Nato credentials.

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Self-government supporters are fond of citing Scandinavian parallels, performance and aspirations. Scandinavia is currently opting to strengthen defence spending, and joining Nato.

No notice is taken of the fact that notably neutral countries not in Nato, such as Switzerland, Sweden and Finland, have taken pains to make themselves militarily secure.

I would argue that having sound defence, while living next to a historically imperialist and aggressive neighbour, is an unstated argument for removing any lingering temptation to imperialist nostalgia for Pax Britannica.

It is incumbent on someone arguing that 2% too high a figure to allocate to defence to put forward their alternative proposal. So how much is it, George? It smells like nothing short of zero would satisfy the writer. Good way to ensure immediate loss of potential votes from a very large tranche of the electorate.

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The argument that Scotland does not have much in the way of defence industry is a another defeatist piece of negativity. Much more of war and war prevention will be fought out in cyberspace, and Scotland does have the IT makings. If Turkey can lead in drone warfare within a few years, Scotland can do the equivalent.

Posing as the voice of sweet reasonable pacificism is a bit of virtue-signalling chest-beating, halo-polishing, feel-good naivety, and detached-from-reality populism.

“Look at me”. The article is the equivalent of those who would have people in Ukraine handing out flowers to the invaders.

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Geopolitics are real and it is unrealistic to rely on the rest of the world being virtuous. Evil exists, unfortunately. Scottish airspace and waters as well as the land need to be seen to be valued and protected.

I also see it as morally indefensible to advocate encouraging others to pit their lives and wellbeing against the might of oppressive regimes, whilst arguing against taking precautions against those same dangers.

When living in a world unfortunately also inhabited by some very nasty authoritarian and unscrupulous powers, it is well to follow the cautious policy of “Walk softly, and carry a big stick” and in conjunction with like-minded colleagues.

Brian Innes-Will
via thenational.scot

SO George Kerevan advocates that “progressive groups in the West should be helping similar movement in Russia and Belarus to overthrow their regimes”!

Geez, I thought that the US CIA and their military joint chiefs of staff had been doing this for decades – trying to invade Cuba and overthrow its leaders; invading Panama and Granada; interfering in the governments of Venezuela, Nicaragua, Chili, Mexico and many other South American states. Starting a war against Vietnam on an imaginary torpedo incident. Invading Iraq on a false claim that they had weapons of mass destruction.

Does George Believe that we can trust America? The joint chiefs of staff in the past wanted to nuke China, Cuba, North Korea and Iran. THAT KIND OF HELP, GEORGE???

Roy Linton
via email

PERHAPS now is a good time to remind ourselves that the Scottish Government is not a world leader when it comes to incompetence/corruption, as the BBC appears to think. I’m sure any comparable statistics would demonstrate the exact opposite.

BBC Scotland demeans itself with its increasingly desperate misinformation. Its deafening silence on the Baroness Mone episode, while it feasts on that relating to Natalie McGarry, is utterly despicable.

Alastair McLeish
Edinburgh

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BBC Scotland News seems to have lost all sense of shame in its attacks on the SNP and the Scottish Government. On Tuesday evening their top story was an interview with Jim McColl in which he used the word “lie” to refer to something the First Minister had said. This being two days before the local elections, just ask yourself how Laura Miller and Glen Campbell managed to contrive an interview with Mr McColl. There were no other events that could justify such an approach.

Alasdair Forbes
Farr, Inverness-shire

HOW right John Edgar is about the faux Churchill of our Prime Minister (Letters, May 4). As Mr Edgar so rightly indicates, a wee look at British imperial history would not go amiss. The arch imperialist Churchill did indeed say, “We will fight them on the beaches...” but I rather think he did not mean the Royal Navy tackling flotillas of Ukranian women and children fleeing from war in leaking inflatables landing on the beach at Margate.

As far as the rest of Churchill’s great speech goes, I sincerely hope that the people of the nation he addressed will fight this corrupt government in the fields and in the streets and on whatever may be considered the landing grounds.

Churchill would never have been party to the wilful undermining of democratic expression being undertaken by this neo-fascist administration.

Ken Campbell
Doune