I'll admit it: my first response on seeing this thread was "oh no, not again..."
But, despite a profound distrust of policy wonks built up over decades of interacting with too many of them, it has to be acknowledged that this is actually a very good document. It asks all the right questions, and is obviously extremely well researched.
And while it overtly seeks to pick holes in the SNP's stance on defence, with a considerable measure of success, the result is an oddly balanced document. If the SNP have any sense they will read it carefully, and seek to learn leassons from it as things move towards the vote. And the thing about the SNP is that they do seem to have a fair measure of common sense, an especially uncommon commodity among politicians. I expect to hear echoes of this document from odd places before the referendum campaign goes much further.
At the end of the day, however, it seems fair to ask whether this document, however good it is, is going to make any difference one way or the other in September 2014. I doubt it. The author says in his conclusion: "voters need to be presented with the clearest possible picture of what they are voting for." Voters will vote, one way or the other, for something much more fundamental than one side's policy on this, or another's policy on that.
And for any Scot that does care deeply about defence, while, as this document ably points out, the SNP policy is paper thin, it's not as if the UK Government is doing much better, is it?
At the end of the day, as I suspect I've said before in another similar thread, the outcome of the referendum will have far more to do with the quantum of dislike for Cameron and his UK government than the quantum of support for the SNP.
Last edited by Kluseau; 9th Jul 2013 at 21:20.