How would divided Scotland respond to military conscription?

Last week, I pondered on these pages if the disintegration of global security meant we’d soon be considering the awful prospect of conscription. Fast-forward to this week and conscription is now a major British talking point.

On Wednesday, General Sir Patrick Sanders, head of the British Army, said citizens must prepare to take up arms in any future war against Russia as our professional military is just too small. The government had to rule out a return to National Service. 

But the genie was freed. The private fears of many senior members of the armed forces were out there.

Now, some might see this as army brass rah-rahing for another war. That seems unlikely with Sanders. His tenure as chief of the general staff is almost up. Sanders appears motivated by genuine fear of looming conflict.

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The thought of Donald Trump returning to power and throwing Ukraine to the Russian wolves is a very real possibility. The result? Putin empowered, and Eastern Europe vulnerable. Trump is no pal of Nato. Europe may end up standing alone.

Sanders isn’t some lone voice. Dutch naval officer Admiral Rob Bauer, who chairs Nato’s military committee, says it’s “not a given that we’re in peace”. We must prepare for “conflict with Russia”.

UK Defence Secretary Grant Shapps spoke of the move “from a postwar to prewar world”. Boris Pistorius, German Defence Minister, says of any Russian attack “our experts expect a period of five-to-eight years in which this could be possible”.

So with senior military commanders and leading politicians all sending shivers down our spines, could conscription really return?

Well, in any future major war, it seems likely. British army numbers – thanks to government mismanagement – are at their lowest level since the end of the War of Spanish Succession in 1714. 

US Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro says Britain needs to shape up militarily. Logic seems to dictate conscription as a distinct future possibility.

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However, Britain isn’t a nation enamoured of conscription: 64% oppose compulsory military service. Social media is awash with folk posting satirical videos about ‘dodging the draft’. Germany, however, favours the return of conscription.

Evidently, throw Scottish independence into the mix and the thought of conscription becomes combustible. Independence movements and conscription aren’t natural bedfellows.

Indeed, the threat of conscription in Ireland during the First World War put rocket boosters under the Republican movement, helped secure Sinn Fein electoral victory, and led to bloodshed and eventual independence.

We need to be frank and admit that a small minority of Scottish independence supporters simply despise Britain. The notion of dying for the UK would be toxic.

We’ve already seen Putin’s useful Scottish idiots – from the extreme nationalist fringe – denounce Nato and Ukraine.

Forgive the metaphor, given talk of global conflict, but conscription would become the frontline in the culture war between unionists and nationalists over Scotland’s future.

Indeed, in the event of conscription we might even see echoes of America’s Vietnam War experience when young people crossed the Canadian border to escape the draft.

It would be entirely plausible that a hardcore section of independence supporters – as well as many young Scots of all political persuasions and none – might consider crossing the sea to ‘neutral’ Ireland as an alternative to conscription.

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These scenarios are unlikely, but worth the thought experiment. After all, who imagined, even as the Ukraine War began, that BBC Question Time would be debating conscription as it did on Thursday?

As any soldier knows, ‘forewarned is forearmed’. So better to discuss these matters in the light of peace, than when possible war casts a shadow over our wisdom and logic.