The recent revelation by Sir Paul McCartney of a guitar lesson with an Irish actor may appear trivial. It is not. This is a data point in a larger pattern: the sustained projection of British cultural power via music exports.
For a defence analyst, this is a strategic asset that no adversary can match. The Beatles alone generated an estimated £1.3bn for the UK economy in 2019, a figure that dwarfs the entire annual budget of some state-funded disinformation campaigns.
Cultural influence is a force multiplier. It shapes perceptions, creates diplomatic openings, and undermines adversarial narratives. The moment McCartney sits down with an actor, he reinforces a network of soft power that hostile states have spent decades trying to replicate.
The threat vector here is not the lesson itself, but the complacency it breeds. We assume this dominance is permanent. It is not.
Russia’s state-sponsored RT broadcasts and China’s Belt and Road cultural initiatives are closing the gap. The UK should treat every McCartney interaction as a strategic pivot, not a celebrity anecdote. Each lesson, each recording, each licensing deal is a data point in a long game of cultural influence.
If we are to maintain our edge, we must operationalise this asset. Failure to do so is a failure of strategic foresight.
