Scotland will renounce weapons of mass destruction and then saunter into the Nato nuclear alliance. So eager will be the EU to fling open its doors that it will skip the formalities, and Edinburgh will pick and choose among the terms of membership. The world, in other words, cannot wait to welcome an independent Scotland into its warm embrace. So says Alex Salmond, leader of the Scottish National party, as the nation prepares to vote on separation.
Things are not quite like that, of course. Many European governments fear that a vote for Scottish independence will give succour to separatist movements across the continent. They have little interest in making life easy for a new breakaway state.
The US has made no secret about its fears of what the break-up of Britain will mean for the cohesion of the western alliance. Nuclear deterrence is at the heart of the organisation’s strategic concept. As Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the outgoing secretary-general, observed this week, each of the 28 existing member states would have to sign up to the admission of an anti-nuclear Scotland.