Big brother doesn't always know best

When the US government of Barack Obama came out in favour of Scotland remaining part of the United Kingdom, it was something I welcomed but was denounced by Scottish Nationalists as meddling in 'internal affairs'.  The same response has been drawn from EU-phobes campaigning for the UK to leave the European Union after many briefings that Washington D.C. prefers this country to remain in the 28-member club.  There is something deliciously Beijing-style about the complaints on the impingement of sovereignty from these two groups.
Ash Carter, the US Defence Secretary, it is reported today, has made an intervention in the debate about whether to retain Trident as part of the UK's 'defence' capabilities.  In his words, Trident enabled Britain to “continue to play that outsized role on the global stage that it does because of its moral standing and its historical standing.  It’s important that the military power matches that standing and so we’re very supportive of it.  We depend upon the United Kingdom, the United Kingdom depends on us, that’s part of the special relationship. We build Joint Strike fighters together, we build Trident missiles together.”
Now, I'm not going to criticise the US for taking a position on this - the fierceness of the argument has made them sit up and listen rather than just take the UK for granted that it will renew.  In both, the Scottish and EU cases, the US was acting from selfish reasons that, from my perspective, just happened to chime with the best in the national interest (or nations' interest).  Here, though, Carter makes the same vague arguments as those in this country, except he's not as brazen to say that Britain will be undefended as he knows the US nuclear umbrella protects all in NATO, nuclear- and non-nuclear-armed.
Contrary to Carter, Trident actually diminishes Britain's role because it means there has to be cutbacks to other service branches.  One of our two new aircraft carriers has to be mothballed and neither has a full complement of an air arm.  Aircraft carriers (and auxilliary vessels), sufficient numbers of troops that can enforce governmental policy-making, an air strike capacity - these are the instruments that allow the UK the military power to match its moral and historical standing.
The much vaunted special relationship is a one-way avenue since the USA helped divest the UK of the latter's empire to replaced by the former's informal empire.  But without really explaining why the UK needs Trident, Carter said something important - "We build Joint Strike fighters together, we build Trident missiles together."  That's the nub of it - Carter is acting as cheerleader for his own military-industrial complex, where there would be job losses if Britain did not retain Trident.  Also, the USA would have to increase it burden marginally of patrolling the North Atlantic corridor as the UK became a 'freerider' like every other NATO apart from France, which has a genuine independent nuclear deterrent - how the US would dearly love the French to adopt a British model of dependence on the US.  But that's not in France's interests and nuclear weapons where the US has the final say on their deployment is not in Britain's interests either.