With the Scottish economy worth, 175 billion pounds, 201 billion euros, 280 billion dollars, and having a military budget at 2% of GDP, or 3.5 billion pounds, 4 billion euros, 5.5 billion dollars. Just how many ships, planes and troops could an independent Scotland have, how good would Scotlands military be?
Here's a country that does just that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Army http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Navy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Air_Force http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Home_Guard budget 5.5 billion USD 25,000 active personal, 22,988 reserves and 38,000 militias.
No look at what Sweden spends in nominal terms, over 30 billion. Sweden isn't in the Euro, pound or US dollar. The closest thing to the Scottish budget is Ireland and Finland put together in Euros. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Defence_Forces http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Defence_Forces Some Scottish think they could have 20,000 troops, 40 F35's and a number of frigates, I doubt that very much.