Why Culture and Sport are becoming Strategic Power Tools
28 november, 2025
Yesterday, SSE Sport Initiative, SSE Art Initiative, and the SSE Center for Security and Resilience hosted a lunch lecture with journalist and author Martin Gelin on soft power - the ability to build influence through attraction rather than coercion.
The discussion explored how culture, art, language, and sport increasingly function as strategic assets in geopolitics. From the fall of the Berlin Wall and the era of Cool Britannia to today's large-scale investments in culture and sport by authoritarian states, one message was clear: it is not always the strongest who wins, but the most attractive.
Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.
Archibald MacLeish, UNESCO
The conversation concluded with a simple yet uncomfortable question: Can democratic societies afford to continue treating soft power as a luxury rather than as strategic capital?
Thank you to everyone who joined an important and inspiring conversation.
