[AshamedCaptain]

> Scottish independence would further those interests still.

> Catalan independence weakens Spain and by extension NATO.

Why? Does any of these actually want to leave NATO?

Or is this just a generic conservative position "change causes political instability, political instability bad therefore change bad"? ?

[recuter]

Divide et impera

I am not a conservative. Your attitude itself is an example of the division and political instability.

The SNP (love them or hate them, I don't care): "an independent Scotland would prioritise the speediest possible safe removal of nuclear weapons."

Say this populist party has its William Wallace moment, now what is left of the UK will have to disentangle itself militarily. It will certainly be a politically heated moment in time, I'm sure you're aware of Russian interference in these things if nothing else as agents of chaos - Voilà.

It is certainly easier to agitate an independent small country to force the Brits to move their nuclear subs.

You can be all for Scottish independence conceptually, morally, whatever - and still be concerned about the whole board.

[tremon]

an independent Scotland would prioritise the speediest possible safe removal of nuclear weapons

This is disingenuous without giving the context of that quote. The UK's nuclear submarines are stored in Scotland, near Edinburgh (the Forth estuary). The Scottish people don't want those nukes there, both because of the inherent danger these missiles pose, and because it paints a target on their head.

The SNP's position is that if the English want to keep their nukes, they should keep them in England. That's what "removal" refers to here, it is not about forcing the English to disarm.

[recuter]

If you read my comment carefully that is exactly what I said..

[AshamedCaptain]

Yes but your argument loses quite a lot of value, since I hardly see a reason for "destabilization" just for wanting some nuclear subs out.

[recuter]

GP: "Balkanization is the wet dream of several national adversaries (speaking generically)"

Response: "But the balkan countries want to join the EU, which is anti-Brexitesque which is the thing that I oppose and wish to grind my axe about. Checkmate!"

Me: "What he is talking about is that there are world powers that benefit from a unified Europe with strong central authority and those that don't."

Response: "You're a conservative!"

Me: "I am not a conservative. This is about divide and conquer. It is easier to take on multiple smaller adversaries that are preoccupied with in-fighting.

For example, I am neither pro nor against Scottish independence, but as part of that process the main political party involved has stated it will attempt to remove nuclear subs from its newly controlled territory - which will harm the British defence posture - for populist reasons and to the sole long term benefit of their adversaries"

Response: "This is disingenuous! It isn't about forcing the English to disarm, just to move!"

Me: "I said move.."

Response: "OK, fine you said move. But! Your argument loses quite a lot of value, since I personally don't understand the negative impact of moving subs"

I give up comrade.

[AshamedCaptain]

And yet you still didn't explain the negative impact of moving (_not_ removing) subs other than generically saying "it will harm the British defense posture". Why?

I am not calling you a conservative -- few people can be defined with a single word -- but you do have a conservative position here: you just keep repeating an argument that boils down to "change is bad because of change". You even fail to see that you are not really elaborating on the reason, which only adds to the feeling of bias.

It's not like these borders are written in stone. It's not like balkanization in Europe will actually lead to a less powerful european govern structure -- it may actually lead to a more powerful EU; without large-population states monopolizing it, smaller states have one less reason to mistrust EU-centralized government. I even mentioned in another comment this was actually the real goal of the early pan-european people, and not what we have now.

But it's all hard to predict. What I'm not going to do is to say that all of this is bad "because it is change".

And these arguments about the omni-present "enemy state actors" contributing to almost practically every cause (except, apparently, the cause of preserving the status quo. a status quo which is not really that great and which almost certainly ends very bad for us. why would foreign actors want to meddle with that?) quickly get tiresome.