Nato solidarity

Gill Turner asks (Letters, 3 October), how Nato can be considered a nuclear alliance when 26 of the 29 members do not have nuclear weapons.

The answer is that all members, whether they have such weapons or not, sign up to an overall defence policy, and that includes the use of nuclear weapons if the situation requires this to happen.

So, you may not have nuclear weapons yourself, but you sanction their use by others if the overall Nato command deem it necessary for your protection or the protection of one of your fellow members.

In addition, all Nato members are required to provide whatever logistical support is required in such a conflict. This may mean Nato command using your territory or equipment in overall support of an operation.

As such a conflict may arise extremely quickly, it is the overall Nato command who make these decisions, and they can make them because they know that members, including you, have signed up to a defence plan that sanctions their use if the situation requires it.

Viewed through the Scottish independence prism, as these things invariably are now in Scotland, an independent Scotland with Nicola Sturgeon in charge will still want to have the protection of a nuclear deterrent, and if she has signed up to Nato, she will have no veto over the use of nuclear missiles should that circumstance ever arise.

We could, therefore, still be in a situation where nuclear weaponsareusedinourname.

If you want to avoid the hypocrisy of this situation, we should remove ourselves from Nato. Alternatively you accept the situation we currently have and use our influence to ensure that such a situation never arises.

There have been four Scottish defence secretaries in the past 25 years and a Scottish Nato Secretary General, so we can influence the bigger picture for the better and prevent these things happening.

VICTOR CLEMENTS Taybridge Terrace, Aberfeldy