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Let’s face up to the facts – the majority of Scots want to be independent. They really do – whatever way they vote come Thursday. And this is dead clear from the poll of polls: which shows the Unionists winning to keep us together by only one per cent. Let’s be honest: that one per cent lead is not really a majority for the Union. That one per cent lead is all the No Campaign could muster for the Union, despite throwing the entire arsenal of City of London financial fear at Scotland. Those terrifying threats of collapsing banks and mystery currencies and runaway businessmen – well, they have only convinced a mere one per cent of Scots we are better together.It's clear that without fear, there would be a Scottish majority ready to go. And that means the current Union 1.0 looks illegitimate. That works the other way too: any sudden surge for the No Campaign  would hardly be lead to a legitimate Union either.

From what I can see, both options currently on the table look set to make millions angry. So what options are there that would work out in a way that made the most Scotsmen and Englishmen happy? The main argument coming out of Scotland is they want to be a nation again – they want the symbolic side of independence – and they want complete freedom to build the more social Scotland the way they have always wanted. They hate neo-liberalism. And I’m convinced the majority of Scottish voters would choose to go if they knew there was a safe way to maintain a currency Union with England. And it’s fair to say: England doesn’t want to pay for this socialism

Now what do they want down South? The real English thinking about why Scotland leaving is bad for England – though people seem unwilling to say it outright – is that severing the Union is a huge blow for our stature in the world.  This is something to take very seriously. The wars happening right now in Eastern Europe and the Middle East are every bit as geopolitically significant as the collapse of the Soviet Union. And a weak, wounded Britain is exactly what Vladimir Putin and the Islamic State would want. Do Scots want that? I think no.

For decades, Britain’s contribution to the threat of global Armageddon has found a home on the tranquil shores of Gare Loch, where soaring green mountains plunge into murky gray waters plied by sporty kayakers, weekend yachtsmen — and nuclear-armed submarines.

But if Scotland votes “yes” in an independence referendum next month, the submarines could ­become nuclear-armed nomads, without a port to call home. Washington’s closest and most important ally could, in turn, be left without the ultimate deterrent, even as Europe’s borders are being rattled anew by a resurgent Russia. Former NATO secretary general George Robertson, a Scotsman, said in a speech in Washington earlier this year that a vote for independence would be “cataclysmic” for Western security, and that ejecting the nuclear submarines from Scotland would amount to “disarming the remainder of the United Kingdom.” The pro-independence campaign promptly accused Robertson of hyperbolic scaremongering. But the possibility that Britain could become the only permanent member of the U.N. Security Council without a nuclear deterrent underscores just how much is at stake far beyond these silent bays and verdant ridgelines when Scotland’s 5 million residents go to the polls Sept. 18.

Leaders of Scotland’s secessionist movement say their independent nation would be a nuclear-free zone within four years of breaking off from Great Britain. The vow is a popular one among the movement’s left-leaning voters, and the campaign has distributed fliers with instructions for “how to disarm a nuclear bomb” that begin and end with voting for independence. At the moment, that argument is losing out to those who advocate sticking with the United Kingdom — and with nuclear weapons. Polls show an approximate 10-point advantage for the unionist camp.

Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan told CNBC on Friday the U.K. vote to leave the European Union ushers in a period that's even worse than the darkest days of October 1987. Britons voted by 51.9 percent to quit the 28-country union, shocking markets that had priced in a win for the remain camp. "This is the worst period I recall since I've been in public service," Greenspan said on "Squawk on the Street." "There's nothing like it, including the crisis — remember October the 19th, 1987, when the Dow went down by a record amount, 23 percent? That I thought was the bottom of all potential problems. This has a corrosive effect which is not easy to go away."

The former Fed chairman said that the root of the "British problem is far more widespread." He said the result of the referendum will "almost surely" lead to the Scottish National Party trying to "resurrect Scottish Independence." Greenspan said the "euro currency is the immediate problem." While the euro and the euro zone were major steps in a movement toward European political integration, "it's failing," he said. "Brexit is not the end of the set of problems, which I always thought were going to start with the euro because the euro is a very serious problem in that the southern part of the euro zone is being funded by the northern part and the European Central Bank," Greenspan said.

Even with that in mind, the European Central Bank is limited in what it can do because these fundamental problems like the stagnation of real incomes don't have easy solutions, Greenspan told CNBC. "There's a certain amount that monetary policy can do, but our problem is fundamentally fiscal," he said, adding that this is true in the United States as well as "every major country in Europe." Part of the problem is that the "developed countries are all aging very rapidly," which is leading to a higher ratio of government spending in the form of entitlements, Greenspan said. The 90-year-old Greenspan presided over the Federal Reserve for 19 years, starting with the administration of President Ronald Reagan through that of George W. Bush.

Russia has invited all NATO member States and the NATO leadership to attend a security conference in mid-April, said the Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov. The invitation comes against the backdrop of deteriorating relations between members of the Atlantic Alliance and Russia. Meanwhile, during a recent symposium, experts warned about the risk of a military escalation that includes the use of nuclear weapons, whether it be wanted or unwanted.  Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said on Thursday that NATO cannot be the sole guarantor of freedom and security in a modern world, reports the Russian Tass news agency, Antonov added that some countries now are trying to impose their policy and position on others and that latest developments show how imperfect the world is.

In 2008 NATO and the UN signed a Secretariat Coordination Treaty that implies that NATO has become the de facto military enforcement instrument of the international body, even though NATO is not representative of UN members or their individual rights or policies. The signing of this treaty was largely omitted by most media. Russia has since the reunification of Germany repeatedly complained that it perceives NATO’s eastwards expansion and the deployment of anti-missile systems directed against Russia along its borders as a potential threat and as a violation of the agreements which led to the reunification of Germany. This position has, among others, been stressed by the last Soviet leader Michael Gorbachev. It was confirmed by the former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas who stressed that the understanding that NATO would not expand eastwards was by all sides understood as “the essence of peace”.

The dispute was to some degree mitigated by the Russian – NATO cooperation within the NATO’s “Partnership for Peace” program which has largely been suspended since the eruption of the conflict in and about Ukraine in 2014. The Tass news agency quotes Antonov as saying that: “Some countries and even associations, such as the European Union, venture to define who and how should behave themselves on the international arena. If anyone voices another stance, which is different from that of Washington, Brussels and Ottawa, then they try to punish this country. … This is what is happening in regard to Russia today.” Antonov stressed that there today is a lack of confidence between the countries and that it would be difficult to mend the international security system which has been seriously undermined by the actions of the United States and its allies in the international arena. He added, however, that the potential of Russian – U.S.’ relations has not yet been exhausted although he never, in his entire diplomatic career that relations had been has difficult as they were today. Antonov stressed that the Ukrainian crisis affects security throughout Europe.