But small, desperate countries can have surprisingly radical politics, as Scotland has already shown.

And while the United Kingdom would be busy reorganizing its entire defense posture and capacity to reflect its new circumstances, its capacity to project any kind of military or diplomatic power internationally to resist any of these developments would be virtually nonexistent.

The Kremlin will fund and signal-boost anyone who would undermine the strength of the Western alliance, from Scotland to Catalonia to any and every nationalist political force in Europe that is opposed to Washington and the European Union.

China will be coming in with the money, capable of outbidding everyone else on that front and with an already established and refined method for checkbook diplomacy designed to ensnare its “trade partners” and bend them to Beijing’s geopolitical designs. If China were to fund and build a major port in Scotland as it did in Sri Lanka and Djibouti, that would already be a critical hole in the United States’ North Atlantic defense umbrella.

Culturally, Scotland leans much more toward the European social democratic model than the Anglo-Saxon political and economic model, so there would be inherent resistance to real and perceived expectations of the United States from a close economic relationship.

Moreover, it seems extremely unlikely that the United States would, or indeed could, from a political point of view offer direct monetary benefits in the way China would.

So basically Scottish independence is gonna be good for everyone.