A couple of seconds within a two-and-a-half hour television interview propelled French President Macron on the front pages of international media, as the one who claims he persuaded President Trump to change his policy in Syria. Macron repeated four times that "we convinced him” to maintain US troops in the country and to limit air strikes to the regime’s chemical weapons sites. This publicly made statement is more than a diplomatic gaffe. It also, and above all, reveals that the French president is tempted by a rather naive approach to relations with America, the same that had, time and time again, led Britain into an impasse.

The concurrence between Brexit (expected to revitalize a European defence on which London has always imposed strict limits) and the election of D. Trump in the United States (shedding light on the risks and uncertainties stemming from a situation of dependency) seems to have an almost seismic effect on the architecture of European and transatlantic security.

In the wake of the British referendum, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden noted, "We would have preferred a different outcome."[1] A few days later, Secretary of State Kerry said that it was still possible to "walk back" on Brexit.[2] Neither the disappointment nor the hope that the situation could still be reversed came as a surprise from the American side. Indeed, over the last six decades, Washington spared no effort to put, then keep, in the EU their favorite ally. The reason is simple. As explained by the U.S. Embassy in London, the European Union is "the world’s most important organization to which the United States does not belong". In order to make its voice heard, the U.S. needs their "man inside" or, in diplomatic terms, "the expression within the EU of common U.S.-UK attitudes through UK membership".[3] Except that British voters opted for the exit...

In 1975, at the time of the first British referendum on whether the United Kingdom should leave or remain in what was then the European Communities, a caricature of the Canard enchaîné depicted Prime Minister Harold Wilson in bed on a voluptuous, but visibly bored Europa who pleads: “In or out, my dear Wilson, but stop this ridiculous back and forth.”[1] It was more than forty years ago ... Four decades during which the UK has carefully kept their notoriously “semi-detached position” vis-a-vis Europe.

Should the SNP’s (Scottish National Party) anti-nuclear stance be a problem for an independent Scotland eager to keep its membership card in NATO ?* In short, not really. Calling for the removal of UK nuclear weapons from its territory and becoming a non-nuclear state is not a priori inconsistent with membership in NATO. Reminder: 20 member countries out of the current 28 do not possess and/or host any nuclear weapons on their soil.

The dynamic of relations between the United Kingdom and the European Union cannot be understood in its totality and in its specificity without taking into account the role played by the United States, particularly through the relationship that London would like to believe "special." Be it directly, indirectly, or even sometimes paradoxically, the American/Atlanticist tropism of the British political and media establishment is at the root of many of their positions considered as skeptical or downright hostile vis-à-vis the European integration.

The special position of the UK in the European and transatlantic security field will be one of the key defining elements both for the attitude of other States vis-a-vis a possible Scottish independence (would or would not they prefer to see London weakened even if just temporarily), and for their appreciation of the policies pursued by an independent Scotland (would they be in line with, or different from, those of Whitehall). Looking at the possibility of Scottish independence from a transatlantic-European security perspective implies examining three different albeit closely related subjects:

UK’s accession would mark the beginning of a dilution process at the end of which “there would appear a colossal Atlantic Community under American dependence and leadership, which would soon swallow up the European Community”. The prophetic words of General de Gaulle, in 1963, have not ceased being confirmed ever since.

European-American structural tensions – breeding for decades and becoming acute with the end of the bipolar era – were merely brought onto surface by the Iraq crisis. Beyond the official pseudo-vision and occasional visions represented by German hesitations, the two genuine, concurring visions about Europe, transatlantic relations and the international order are advocated respectively by the British and the French.