Washington’s secretary of state says video games are ‘soft power’

Images by Mouse family and Siarhei

At a Glance

• Washington secretary of state Steve Hobbs praised video games as exemplifying “soft power” at SLICE and PAX West.
• Soft power refers to a country’s use of cultural and economic to influence other countries in lieu of military force.
• Soft power can be a bridge between cultures—but what’s the risk of it becoming a domineering force?

Washington stateSecretary of StateSteve Hobbs made the rounds during PAX West and Seattle Loves Indies and Creators Expo (SLICE) with a fascinating pitch for game developers: we know video gamesare a driver of economic activity—but what if they also can be used as a means of “soft power” in geopolitics?

This pitch may be something of a surprise to many developers used to discussing politics in games in through the lens ofartistic expression, or as acontroversy-inviting third railthat could offendcertain audiences. To hear a politician walk up and praise your work as a geopolitical tool could be flattering or terrifying depending on your perspective.

To make this topic more complex, somescholarsand activists characterize the pillars of cultural soft power as being more akin tocultural imperialism—an argument that may be quite compelling if you’re from a country that is used to having foreign culture projected onto it, as opposed to doing the projecting.

So how can developers unpack Hobbs’ message and what it means for their own work? To explore that topic, it’s worth digging into the history of soft power, and to view it in the context of its polar opposite: hard power.

Soft power promotes culture and commerce, hard power promotes conflict and coercion

We can thank scholar and former assistant secretary of defense for international security affairsJoseph Nyesfor popularizing the phrase soft power. He coined the phrase in the 1980s and shared it with the world in a1990 Foreign Policy article. “A state may achieve the outcomes it prefers in world politics because other states want to follow it or have agreed to a situation that produces such effects,” he wrote. “This second aspect of power—which occurs when one country gets other countries to want what it wants—might be called co-optive or soft power in contrast with the hard or command power of ordering others to do what it wants.”

And just to be clear—”ordering” other countries is often executed at the barrel of a gun or by threat of economic sanction.

Thedeployment of soft powerhas become a topic of debate inside Washington DC and across the globe, with experts identifying it as a key tactic inChina’s foreign policy strategy. And inside the video game industry, analystshave arguedthat the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund’s extensive video game investments represent a soft power campaign by the Saudi government.

At SLICE, Hobbs laid out this contrast through his own experience as a former US Army officer and current lieutenant colonel in the Army National Guard. He served in Kuwait and Iraq, and his kids have served overseas as well. If countries have good relations thanks to an exchange of culture and trade, families like his don’t have to fear losing their loved ones on a battlefield thousands of miles away.

“Right now we are in global competition. It is another Cold War,” he said. “That is one of the reasons why I love this creative industry. As someone who has served overseas and been in wars… I don’t want to go war.”

“If there’s a way for you to reach hearts and minds through your games, to make this world a better place so people can understand one another, to create change through those countries that are restrictive—I think that’s a good thing.” He recalled a tale he heard from a member of the visitingGames From Poland delegationabout how growing up in the Cold War under Soviet occupation, they listened toVoice of Americaradio broadcasts that shared American music and culture with a part of the world forbidden from accessing it.

Voice of America—and its projection of Western culture into Soviet states—is a perfect case study to examine Hobbs’ pitch. It’s beenpraisedfor promoting freedom and democracy around the globe, andcriticizedas operating as a lever for promoting the US government’s agenda under the guise of independence. But if it’s such an effective tool, why did the Trump Administration—which Hobbs took a few well-timed jabs at during his speech—try to slash funding for the program?

According to author, sociologist, and occasionalGame Developer contributorKatherine Cross, it’s because the Trump Administration has prioritized boosting hard power—military action such asextrajudicial drone strikes in the Carribean,a coup d’etat in Venezuela, and aninvasion of Iran—at the expense of soft power. “We are living in a moment where the people in power in this country are deeply despising of many of the things that do make the US great,” she explained in a conversation on the PAX show floor. “They are the people whodismantled USAID, they are the people dismantling theForest ServiceorNOAA. They are degrading our research capabilities at theNIHand theNational Science Foundation, and so on.”

“They are also disdainful of our popular culture. These are the people who looked at Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey and said it’s ‘woke’…they cannot accept that the best things that the United States produces are that are peaceable, that are expressions of creativity, expressions of the bestknowledge-based professions, are real and worth having.”

Cross took Nye’s theory of soft power a step further, and pointed out how prioritizing soft power projects backwards onto a country’s labor force—informing what types of jobs are promoted as vital to a country’s interests. “Soft power was supposed to be… a way of literally softening geopolitical competition in a way that also provided an enormous amount of work for creatives, artists, and knowledge workers to say the culture you produce is part and parcel of making your nation’s mark on the world stage.”

She pointed to other nations ramping up their soft power projects by promoting creative economies such as Turkey, Japan, and South Korea, as overseas examples of this point. “I would obviously much rather have Japan producing its enormous and beautiful cultural output than mass-producing warships.”

Video games as soft power can boost economic investment in the game industry

Before crossing paths with Cross, we happened to bump into the secretary of state in the middle of a visit to the Games From Poland booth and had a moment to press him on his theory of video games as soft power. He echoed Cross’ points, pointing to Polish developer CD Projekt Red as an example of exporting Polish culture through games like CD Projekt Red’sThe Witcherseries, which draw from Polish history and introduced the world to the original books written by Andrzej Sapkowski. It’s a full-circle moment of cross-cultural exchange for Poland, which once took in US culture through the Voice of America programs.

“Unfortunately we’re in a situation where our current president is reversing that [exchange],” he said. “But I think if we keep on doing this and helping the video game industry and game sin general, it would just help with soft power,” which he described as being “not as competitive” as hard power in international relations.

He also characterized soft power as being “not as competitive” for countries vying for power on the world stage and emblematic of what democracies can accomplish that authoritarian regimes can’t. “The great thing in a democracy is we have the ability to be creative, and authoritarian regimes can’t,” he argued.

When asked about countries that might consider soft power to be an encroachment on their culture, he pointed out that such nations have fought back not by turning to hard power, but producing culture of their own. And it’s the United States that for the moment is retreating from this arena of competition. “If you look around, even though some of these countries might feel threatened, I think they’re putting more of their effort into soft power and creative industries because they really respect it.”

“Here in the United States I think that’s turned a little bit. We’ve seen money being pulled back from the arts. We’re seeing attacks against creative stories—hopefully the pendulum will swing back to where it should be. But I don’t think these countries are doing it because they’re trying to protect from American influence or any other influence—I think they’re just doing it because they’ve got a great thing going for them.”

And for developers still wrapping their heads around what it means to be a piece of a country’s soft power policies—Hobbs pointed out there’s a correlation between companies that invest in culture and those that forgo it.

“The great thing in a democracy is we have the ability to be creative,” he said. “Authoritarian regimes can’t.”