Sky's The Wargame is rearmament propaganda staged by arms-industry-linked elites to manufacture public consent for militarization
Source: Coll McCail. "The Wargame Is Wretched Propaganda." October 14, 2026. jacobin.com
The Gist
The author argues that Sky's The Wargame looks like a drama about defending Britain but is really a propaganda piece. Many of its star politicians and officials have financial ties to the arms industry, and the show pushes the public toward accepting more military spending, even though most people don't want it at the expense of public services. He thinks opponents of militarism should use this gap between elites and the public.
Conclusion
Sky's The Wargame is not neutral drama or a public-spirited warning but propaganda that promotes rearmament and higher military spending on behalf of the political, state, media and arms-industry establishment, and opponents of militarism should exploit the gap between this elite consensus and public opinion.
Premises
- A large share of the cast (about a third) are former politicians and securocrats with financial ties to the weapons sector, including Jim Murphy (lobbyist whose clients include Northrop Grumman) and General Sir Richard Barrons (co-chair of a defence consultancy), and Sky omitted these ties from the cast biographies.
- The show's narrative frames war as inevitable and Britain as dangerously underprepared, attributes Russian aggression to hostility toward 'our way of life' and 'British values' rather than to wider geopolitical dynamics, and presents higher military spending as the necessary response.
- The show stages cross-party elite unity, including figures with dissident or progressive credentials such as Nicola Sturgeon and Baroness Warsi, who shift toward prioritizing defence. This signals to the public that even progressive politicians back rearmament and delegitimizes antiwar and 'butter not guns' positions.
- The show portrays the public as an inconvenient obstacle to be managed (for example, suggestions to ban social media or take control of the airwaves), and polling shows fewer than a quarter of Britons support raising defence spending at the expense of public services.
- The show coincides with broader real-world moves to rearm and prepare the public (the BBC's 'psychologically ready' headline, the Liberal Democrats' civilian volunteer register, the Trident investment, Starmer's and Burnham's defence plans), which suggests a coordinated establishment effort to manufacture consent for war.
Assumptions
- Financial ties to the arms industry meaningfully bias the cast's views and the show's message, and the omission of those ties was deliberate rather than incidental.
- The show's message is intended to shift public opinion, not merely to dramatize a plausible scenario.
- Higher military spending at the expense of social spending is contrary to the public interest and to the interests of ordinary people.
- Russian aggression is not a significant genuine threat, or at least the show's framing of it exaggerates the threat and serves elite interests.
- Coincidence of timing and shared themes across media, politicians and government reflects coordination or aligned interests rather than independent reactions to the same security environment.
- Participants' changed positions (such as Sturgeon's) are better explained by elite or industry alignment than by genuine persuasion.