Throughout the Cold War the defence of the British homeland was underpinned by a need to maintain sufficient naval and air force assets in Scotland to protect the county from a Soviet threat in the northern ocean and the skies above.  as a result, the Scottish land mass was a floating aircraft carrier, with fighters stationed at RaF Leuchars and RaF Lossiemouth and Nimrod maritime reconnaissance aircraft based at RaF Kinloss. at the same time, the Royal Navy stationed ships at Rosyth and Faslane.  With the regular downsizing of the armed forces all that has changed and Scotland s role has diminished. In last year s hastily conceived Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) Scotland lost the bases at Leuchars and Kinloss. Shrinkage has also left the navy s surface fleet at its smallest in modern times.  Some idea of the problems caused by that shrinkage can be seen in last week s arrival of a Russian naval battle group in the Moray Firth, investigated by HMS York, a destroyer based in far-off Portsmouth.  The carrier admiral Kuznetzov and its escorts claimed to be sheltering from a storm that hit whi