On Thursday, 4 million people in a northern outpost of Europe will vote to decide whether to break up one of the world's hitherto longest and most stable unions, the 300-year-old link between England and Scotland.
There has been plenty of reporting about how the vote in Scotland is "too close to call" and of the important local controversies such as whether it will be the end of the emblematic British Union flag or whether Scotland will keep the British queen and pound.
What is missing is a proper consideration of the wider, mostly destabilizing, challenges to the world order that an independent Scotland would threaten — not merely to the United Kingdom, but to Europe and the whole Western world. The drift toward a breakaway of Scotland certainly shows the poor quality of the British political elites in terms of intellectual ability, political integrity and decision making.