While this is understandable and necessary, it would be a mistake for government to abandon soft power in this unstable moment, or to view geopolitics as an “either-or” trade-off between hard and soft power. At this very moment, we are seeing a USA burning through it’s soft power capital at breakneck speed and, with its recent closing down of old capabilities from cultural diplomacy in the State Department and US AID ceasing operations, it has fewer means to put into rebuilding (should it decide to do so). Indeed, the complexity of global geopolitics means that the UK must be even more strategic. As a middle power that relies on alliances to pursue its goals and interests, it is essential and ensure it draws on all of its international capabilities to navigate choppy international waters. That must include soft power as well as defence.

Hard power alone cannot achieve a nation’s goals

The case for increased defence spending is not in dispute here. NATO commitments matter, and the UK is right to take them seriously. But the idea that hard power and soft power pull in opposite directions fundamentally misunderstands how influence actually works.

Military capability provides deterrence. It does not, on its own, build the coalitions needed to use it, sustain it, or legitimate it in the eyes of the world. Those coalitions matter because no serious objective, whether sanctioning an adversary, securing shipping lanes, or holding a diplomatic line, can be delivered by the UK alone, and with UN multilateralism visibly fraying, the work of assembling partners falls increasingly to states themselves. The government’s own emphasis on flexible, issue-based partnerships with new strategic allies depends on exactly this groundwork: cultural and institutional engagement that opens doors long before harder objectives are on the table. Coalitions are built on relationships and on years of cultural presence, diplomatic credibility, and the kind of institutional trust that cannot simply be procured by government contracts.

When the strikes on Iran began, Prime Minister Starmer joined the leaders of France and Germany in condemning the Iranian counter-strikes and calling for a resumption of diplomacy. The UK’s positioning as an independent voice for de-escalation, only carries weight if the UK is perceived as a principled and engaged actor in the region.

That perception is built through long-term engagement, by the government but also by soft power institutions: the BBC, the UK’s universities teaching future leaders around the world, and other forms of, often unheralded, cultural exchange that build up trust and understanding. These are the channels through which diplomacy actually functions. Trust accumulated over years keeps lines of communication open in a crisis, widens the space for compromise, and gives counterparts a reason to listen when hard conversations begin. Even if the UK had reached defence spending targets of 3.5% of GDP, we would still be relying on soft-power levers to help push for a diplomatic solution to the conflict.

The UK’s adversaries are not pulling back from soft power

The UK remains in a strong position thanks to historic soft power, but the gap between the UK and adversaries is closing. Other nations recognise that warfare in the modern age is increasingly hybrid, with information playing a key role. When the BBC pulled Arabic radio services out of Lebanon it was quickly replaced by Russian state media. A recent report by the Public Accounts Committee estimated that Russia and China spend between £6-8bn a year on international state media, and that trust in these sources has risen markedly.

Adversaries increasingly treat the information environment as contested ground, where the aim is not to persuade but to disrupt and degrade open systems. UK institutions work under different constraints, bound by norms of transparency and editorial independence. Russian and Chinese state media are not. A UK that cannot defend its own information space will struggle to be heard abroad.

The 2023 attack on the British Library illustrates the importance of the UK’s institutions, and the increasing conflict over information. One of the UK’s most significant cultural institutions suffered what has been described as one of the worst cyber incidents in British history, carried out by the Rhysida ransomware group, believed by researchers to be operated by Russian-speaking actors. The attack shows that UK soft power institutions matter enough to be worth targeting, and that the information environment they inhabit is actively contested. Whether the attack was state-directed or simply tolerated by a government that looks the other way when its criminals target Western institutions, the effect is the same.

The British Council’s Trends in Soft Power 2020-2025 report, which tracks the soft power investment and strategy of twenty-five leading economies, also found that the United States has undergone substantial retrenchment. USAID has formally ceased as a standalone agency, Voice of America staff have been placed on administrative leave, and there have been significant reductions across public diplomacy programmes. The gap ceded by the United States will be filled, but not necessarily by a friendly nation. The UK faces an opportunity here, but so too do our adversaries.

The strong benefit to cost ratio of soft power

Given the importance of soft power, it is worth stressing the point that the relative cost to government is exceedingly low when compared to hard power. The BBC World service has an annual budget of £400m, of which only a third comes from direct government funding. Given the estimated 300m weekly users of the world service, the cost per user is only around 44 pence.

The British Council operates on a comparable scale, receiving £163m in government funding in 2024-25 and generating £1bn for the UK economy. Against the cost of a single defence procurement programme, these are modest sums. Many of the UK’s soft power institutions have little-to-no government funding, yet play a key role in building up the nation’s soft power. These organisations could also benefit from more clear direction from government on its soft power goals, and how they can play a role.

For a government simultaneously increasing defence spending and managing genuine fiscal pressure, soft power offers something that is increasingly rare: substantial strategic return for relatively modest investment. That arithmetic makes the case for protecting these institutions and placing them in a central position to generate soft power capital.

The government must continue its good work on soft power

The government has, to its credit, recognised what is at stake. The most recent funding settlement for the BBC World Service saw the FCDO increase its funding by 8%. In January 2025, the Foreign Secretary and Culture Secretary launched the UK Soft Power Council, with the stated aim of developing a national soft power strategy. By July 2025 the Council had discussed a draft strategic framework, including proposed goals and outcomes. However, the strategy remains unpublished as of April 2026.

The institutions that carry UK soft power abroad have been direct about what they need. The UK Soft Power Group, which BFPG and the British Council co-convene, and which brings together organisations from the Premier League to the Wellcome Trust has called on government to provide clarity on strategic priorities, long-term planning horizons, and develop predictable funding mechanisms.

Publishing a strategy is not a be all and end all for soft power. However, it is an important signal, to our institutions, allies and adversaries that however much hard power may be the “currency of the age”, without soft power, this currency devalues considerably.

The post Soft power is the edge in a hard power era appeared first on British Foreign Policy Group.

April has been a busy month for the BFPG, with four events spanning across the full breadth of foreign policy issues and engaging everyone from diplomats to politicians to academics to students.

We were delighted first to host His Excellency Sir Andrew Mitchell, British Ambassador to Germany, for a private roundtable to discuss UK-German and wider UK-European relations. We also had the opportunity later in the month to hear from Shadow Foreign Secretary Dame Priti Patel, who spoke at an in-conversation with our Chair David Landsman to discuss the wide-ranging foreign policy challenges facing the UK.

We have been proud to see the BFPG/BISA undergraduate network continue to produce fascinating events, including a panel discussion at the University of Manchester on Latin America, and an event at the University of Warwick on the future of UK-EU relations with His Excellency Pedro Serrano, EU Ambassador to the UK. If you are an undergraduate with an interest in international relations, geopolitics and foreign policy, then you can find out more or sign up to the network here.

Elsewhere, our Director Evie Aspinall has been promoting the work of the BFPG and the role of the public in foreign policy, speaking on a panel on national resilience and cyber security at the National Growth Debate.

Latest Analysis

Following the public intervention of Lord George Robertson criticising UK defence spending, Director Evie Aspinall argues that the key issue for defence spending isn’t how to do it militarily, but how to do it politically.  – READ HERE

As King Charles’ visits the United States, we explore what the visit will mean for UK-US relations, and why, once it was announced, there was never any realistic prospect of cancellation. – READ HERE

The post BFPG’s March 2026 Review appeared first on British Foreign Policy Group.

The event was chaired by UGN committee member Julia Brown (University of St Andrews). Other speakers included:

– His Excellency Pedro Serrano, EU Ambassador to the United Kingdom

– Professor Hussein Kassim, Professor of European Public Policy and Administration, University of Warwick

– Jannike Wachowiak, Researcher, UK in a Changing Europe.

– Professor George Christou, Professor of European Politics and Security, University of Warwick.

Many thanks to all those who attended and contributed to a fantastic event.

You can sign up to the network, or find out more, here.

The post BISA/BFPG Undergraduate Network event: The future of EU-UK relations appeared first on British Foreign Policy Group.

BFPG Director Evie Aspinall is quoted by Time Magazine discussing King Charles’ upcoming address to the United States Congress. She reflects on his mother Queen Elizabeth’s speech in 1991, and what to expect from the King’s address.

You can read the full article here.

The post Revisiting Queen Elizabeth II’s Historic Address to Congress—and How It Sets the Stage for Charles – Time Magazine appeared first on British Foreign Policy Group.

As King Charles III prepares to address a joint session of Congress this week, the familiar pageantry of a British state visit is being deployed with an unusually heavy burden. Officially, the trip is a celebration of the 250th anniversary of American independence and the long-standing friendship between the two nations. But beneath the surface, the atmosphere is anything but celebratory. 

King Charles will be only the second British monarch to take the podium before Congress, following in the footsteps of his late mother. However, while Queen Elizabeth II’s 1991 address which took place in the optimistic glow of a post-Cold War world and the immediate aftermath of the Gulf War, King Charles’ address is set against the backdrop of friction and volatility. 

The most immediate tension is the Iran war, a conflict that has fundamentally strained the transatlantic alliance. President Trump has pushed the UK and Europe to support its war in Iran, while the UK has tried its best to distance itself, with the Prime Minister declaring that it’s “not our war”. The UK has allowed the use of its bases only for defensive attacks, and has sought to use its diplomatic levers to de-escalate tensions and re-open the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump has branded the UK’s response a “tragic mistake” as he makes increasingly provocative jibes about Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and threatens to rip up the recently agreed UK-United States trade deal.

With Trump distracted by Iran, and frustrated by what he sees as a failure of Europe to support him in the Middle East, the divide between the UK and the United States on Ukraine has grown wider, with Trump once again threatening to leave NATO. 

It is therefore unsurprising there have been calls by politicians and commentators in the UK for the visit to be cancelled, with many fearing the visit – designed to appeal to the President’s love of pomp and ceremony – rewards his behaviour.

But the reality is that once the visit was offered, there was no going back. Short of Trump actually leaving NATO or invading Greenland, rescinding the state visit was never on the cards. The damage that would do to an already fragile relationship with a man with a delicate ego, who holds significant military and economic leverage over the UK was never worth it. The UK is not in a strong enough position for diplomatic grandstanding, and the King and Keir Starmer both know it. 

So for the next week or so, King Charles will have to just grin and bear it. And the goal is clear, survival. Avoid deeply embarrassing moments, smooth over the friction between Trump and Starmer, and keep the channels of communication open by sheer force of Royal personality. 

The King’s speech will therefore be a carefully calibrated dance of diplomacy. Expect a speech designed to reassert the importance of the transatlantic relationship, and which speaks in clouded terms about the importance of democracy, unity, stability and collaboration. The underlying subtext though will be a polite, regal plea: Please stop destroying the global order, and please, just for a moment, be nice to us. 

Will it make much of a difference? Probably not. President Trump, particularly in his second term in office, has proven himself to be a deeply volatile character with little regard for the rules based international order. But in a moment of major geopolitical uncertainty the UK is, rightly, using every diplomatic tool it can, to mitigate the impacts of the worst excesses of the Trump presidency. Cancelling the visit could have caused a crisis, and even if there are only minor gains to be made, the UK should make the most of any opportunity to protect its interests. 

So don’t expect any big announcements from this state visit. Or any material, long term change in fracturing UK-US relations. Just hope that it goes off without a hitch and that it buys us, even just a moment, of light reprieve.

The post A Careful Diplomatic Dance: What to Expect From King Charles’ Visit to the United States appeared first on British Foreign Policy Group.

As the King set off for the United States, BFPG Director Evie Aspinall appeared on The Pulse with Francine Lacqua to discuss the visit, wider UK-United States relations, and the conflict in Iran.

You can watch the interview here.

The post BFPG Director Evie Aspinall speaks to Bloomberg TV about King Charles’ visit to the United States appeared first on British Foreign Policy Group.

BFPG Associate Fellow Michael Martins is quoted by Politico discussing the tensions in the relationship between Keir Starmer and Donald Trump ahead of King Charles’ Royal visit to the United States.

You can read the full article here.

The post What Britain wants from King Charles’ trip to Trumpland – Politico appeared first on British Foreign Policy Group.

BFPG Director Evie Aspinall is quoted by Time Magazine discussing how the Royal visit to the United States can help to strengthen bilateral ties between the UK and United States.

You can read the full article here.

The post Why U.K. Lawmakers Have Called for King Charles’ Visit to the U.S. to Be Canceled – Time Magazine appeared first on British Foreign Policy Group.

The event was chaired by UGN committee member Aliza Dufournet. Other speakers included:

Claudio Navarro Gonzalez — Teaching Associate in the Department of Economics at The University of Manchester.

Dr Ignacio Aguilo — Senior Lecturer in Latin American Cultural Studies and the Co-Director of the Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the University of Manchester

Isaac Lopez Moreno Flores — PhD researcher in Development Economics and Policy Management at the University of Manchester

Mariana Hernandez-Montilla — PhD researcher In Development Policy and Management at the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester

Many thanks to all those who attended and contributed to a fantastic event.

You can sign up to the network, or find out more, here.

The post BISA/BFPG Undergraduate Network event: The politics of Latin America appeared first on British Foreign Policy Group.

Thank you to Dame Priti and her team for enabling such great conversation, and to everyone in the audience for their insightful questions.

The post In Conversation with the Shadow Foreign Secretary appeared first on British Foreign Policy Group.