In practical terms, Wales doesn’t need a military – If we were to focus purely on Wales’ domestic defence and national security needs (and we didn’t want a force capable of deploying overseas) then most of that could be undertaken either by the police (in tandem with the other uniform emergency services), or a small, standalone, highly-trained paramilitary unit.

Geography screws Wales over in many ways, but in terms of defence, we’re in one of the safest parts of the world: tiny airspace, tiny maritime zone, two friendly maritime powers nearby (England and France). Even on issues like counter-terrorism, the police are more useful.

While we would need a way to address threats, Wales having a full-blown military would be a decision led more by foreign policy – and wanting to play a full part in organisations like NATO and the UN – than any practical need at home.

It would save a lot of time and money – Whilst defence isn’t the biggest contributor to Wales’ “national deficit”, within the UK, Wales proportionally contributes a large sum of money towards UK defence spending (between £2.5-2.9 billion a year as of 2023-24⁴). It’s an easy target/”low-hanging fruit” to cut back on in terms of independence.

Also, establishing a military from scratch would be a lot of work. It would probably take up to a decade for Wales to be in a position to deploy a military overseas (i.e. on a peacekeeping mission). Scaling that back and focusing on an alternative model – or making the most of what’s already there (i.e. police, reservists, emergency services) – may make more sense practically and financially.

The moral/pacifist argument – Of course, this will divide opinion. I don’t agree, but there will be a sizable proportion of people in Wales, particularly from the non-conformist tradition and peace movements, who would be happy if Wales didn’t have “an ability to wage war”.

Warfare, spending money on arms, and maintaining armed forces, are likely to be incompatible with the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act, for one⁵ – unless specifically exempted.

Maybe there are better ways of guaranteeing security and defence. Sometimes the most effective means of defence are actions every single one of us can take: non-violent protest, non-cooperation, general strikes, passive resistance, direct intervention that falls short of lethal force (i.e. martial arts). Taken together, this has been called civilian-based defence⁶.

It could hamstring our foreign policy – As noted, foreign policy is a big driver of defence policy. This can be in both soft power (disaster relief, peackeeping, humanitarianism, state “pomp”) and hard power (obvious) terms.

The examples from earlier prove that countries don’t cut themselves off from the rest of the world if they don’t have a military. They aren’t automatic targets for invasions or attacks either. Some, like Iceland, are even members of NATO.

However, not having a military capability would take some soft and hard power options off the table and may limit what Wales can or can’t do to support our foreign policy goals (i.e. taking full part in UN peacekeeping missions).

There are certain tasks that can only be carried out by a trained military – Diplomacy should always be the first option to resolve conflicts, with force being the last resort.

Though putting it bluntly, there are plenty of bad actors out there who only understand violence and, like it or not, act in a way that should lead to them finding themselves on the wrong end of a bullet or missile. That would include protecting, for argument’s sake, a Welsh peacekeeping force working under a UN mandate.

Even those countries listed earlier as examples of “not having a military” still have some government or law enforcement agency capable of using military-like force when needed.

Defence freeloading – In a scenario where Wales doesn’t have a conventional military, we would probably expect England (and/or NATO) to do our defending for us if we were (for whatever reason) attacked or threatened.

Russia is already sniffing around undersea infrastructure in (or just outside) what would be Welsh territorial waters. Due to Ireland’s lack of fast-jet capability, the RAF effectively has to patrol Ireland’s airspace for them too.

Sometimes being a responsible independent country means doing things you don’t like, choosing options that are hard work and take a long time to realise. Getting high on our own farts for the sake of occupying the moral high ground would do more damage to Wales’ global reputation than pulling our weight when our allies and neighbours expect us to.