The Scottish Conflict, code-named Operation Highlander, was a thirty-six day military engagement in June and July of 1997, between the Republic of Scotland and a joint NATO force. The conflict's roots were in the growing distance between the Scottish military dictatorship of Gen. Sean Connery, who had been in power since 1976, and the Americans and to an even greater extent the English due to diplomatic tensions in the early and mid 1990's. The catalyst for the invasion occurred after Connery seized the American embassy in early May as well as a local NBC-affiliated press office in Edinburgh and executed three of its reporters publicly under accusations of spying. After negotiations to free the embassy hostages failed and two of them were executed as a show of force by the Connery regime,