Britain is laying down its arms in the global culture wars

Yesterday the Financial Times reported that the UK government has been neglecting the Soft Power Council - the body established to help develop a new UK soft power strategy and to advise on international soft power campaigns - with deprioritisation of their work (including a drop in ministerial attendance).

The FT report focused largely on the political drama - who had allowed it to flounder, and the frustrations of some of its members. But as it was my paper with UAL that recommended the creation of the council in the first place, it feels like an appropriate moment to outline why this actually matters, and more broadly, why governments increasingly need to understand soft power, invest in it and, where appropriate, direct it.

Soft power - a term that was coined by the American political scientist Professor Joseph Nye, as “the ability to affect others to obtain the outcomes one wants through attraction rather than coercion or payment” - shapes geopolitics. At a time of unprecedented access to global news, opinion and culture, it is one of the defining forces of international relations.

As the writer Martin Gelin put it at a recent event at the Swedish Embassy, some soft power is organic - the history, culture and values of a place, built over decades, outside direct state control. But nations have long understood that soft power assets can also be nurtured, funded and strategically deployed.

The Cold War is perhaps the best-known example. Many people know that the CIA funded magazines, exhibitions, concerts and cultural programmes. This is often treated as one of the darker and more mysterious aspects of Cold War statecraft. But perhaps the explanation is simpler than it appears. 

Why would an intelligence agency concern itself with artists, writers and musicians?

Because its mission was ultimately about changing behaviour. It reflected an understanding that making the West attractive was itself a geopolitical project. That MTV could make the argument for democracy more effectively than tanks.

The argument for soft power was never that a jazz concert could replace military power. Instead, it was that culture shapes the environment in which politics operates. So whilst a single jazz concert does little, music and culture more broadly played an important role in the anti-apartheid struggle, helping sustain solidarity, mobilise support and keep leaders such as Mandela front of mind even while imprisoned.

Similarly, a single radio broadcast does not change the views of a generation. Yet through the 1980s and 1990s, it is estimated that a quarter of adults in the Soviet Union tuned into Western radio stations each week. Access to alternative information challenged official narratives and exposed listeners to different ways of thinking: a factor in creating the conditions that ultimately contributed to the Soviet Union's collapse.

Today we can see similar dynamics elsewhere. No K-pop song will bring down a dictatorship. Yet the broader Hallyu wave - encompassing music, television, film, fashion and beauty - has become one of South Korea's most significant geopolitical assets, underpinned by steadfast government investment and prioritisation. Defectors from North Korea increasingly report consuming South Korean media despite severe penalties for doing so. 

It is impossible to know precisely what long-term political effects this cultural exposure will have. But there is a reason that Kim Jong Un has described K-pop as a dangerous ideological threat and a "vicious cancer".

And such efforts are not confined to democracies. Russia has repeatedly been accused of funding media outlets and commentators in the United States sympathetic to its geopolitical ambitions. Readers can draw their own conclusions about their effectiveness in shaping American political opinion.

For me, the real question for our government is whether we believe our values are worth defending. If we do, we have to compete to get our argument heard in an increasingly crowded landscape.

The economic benefits of soft power are substantial. My work with UAL showed that Britain ranks first or second globally across most creative industries. This creates a virtuous cycle: an attractive country finds it easier to export its creative goods and services, while successful films, music, fashion and theatre make the country itself more attractive. That attractiveness then spills over into everything from tourism and education to consumer goods and investment.

But these economic benefits are almost a distraction from the key point.

Culture does not determine geopolitics. But it shapes how countries are perceived, which values are admired, whose stories are believed and, ultimately, whose interests prevail.

At a moment when Russia and China are investing heavily in shaping global narratives, Britain appears to be stepping back.

The Soft Power Council was a relatively cheap mechanism aiming to bring together some of the most influential figures across culture, sport, education and law to think strategically about Britain's place in the world. But its promised soft power strategy remains unpublished. Questions about the long-term funding of the British Council and the BBC World Service remain unresolved. The sums involved are tiny compared with almost any major defence procurement programme - the cost of a few Ajax vehicles, perhaps - and yet only sticking plasters are offered.

The global culture wars are raging: we are all competing for influence, legitimacy and power. Whether governments acknowledge it or not, they are already participants.

Britain possesses one of the most formidable soft power armouries in the world. At the very moment others are investing in theirs, why are we choosing to disarm by disinvesting in and deprioritising ours?