Will the Scottish Referendum Doom ISIS?

This week, Scottish voters rejected the opportunity to declare independence from the United Kingdom with 55.3% favoring to continue the union with the UK that has been officially been in place since 1707. Rejecting independence save Prime Minister David Cameron's authority as leader of the United Kingdom. Many analysts predicted that Cameron would be removed from his post if the Scots chose to secede and that Cameron would lose his credibility as Prime Minister. Surely, Scottish independence would have sent Cameron's administration spinning and scrambling to salvage its rule.

Such scrambling would force Cameron to become less active in talks for a global coalition to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). First, Scotland houses all of the United Kingdom's nuclear submarines, and its independence would force the relocation of these, threatening the safety of the United Kingdom and NATO. Moreover, many Scottish separatists supported withdrawing from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization upon independence, weakening the group as it prepares to deal with the growing threat of ISIS as more violence appear imminent. United States President Barack Obama knew that Scottish independence would doom his plan to stop ISIS, tweeting the day before the referendum, "The UK is an extraordinary partner for America and a force for good in an unstable world. I hope it remains strong, robust and united."

Some intelligence experts postulated that ISIS was aware of the referendum's importance, too. The British professor Anthony Glees, a respected intelligence analyst, claimed that ISIS chose to execute Scottish humanitarian aid worker David Haines one week before the referendum to undermine the authority and credibility of Cameron.

The referendum comes during the same week as France's first airstrikes in Syria to combat ISIS and the Australian Federal Police's arrest of 15 ISIS-linked terrorists who allegedly planned to behead innocent civilians in highly populated areas. This was the largest counter-terrorism operation in Australia's history.