Earlier this month the United Kingdom government launched an inquiry into the country’s soft power – that is, its tools of attraction and cultural influence. Soft power is an elusive form of influence in international relations, but it can be gained in various degrees through diplomacy, democracy, commitment to international rules and norms, culture, what a country produces, the media and education. 

This new inquiry into the U.K.’s soft power offers Australia an opportunity to revive its own soft power review. Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) launched a similar inquiry in August 2018. It received over 130 submissions from interested organizations and held numerous consultations throughout the country, before deciding to shelve the process. DFAT’s reasoning: “Following the onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the Government concluded that we should not continue with a review process that was no longer as relevant to the significantly changed global environment.” 

Soft power is obviously a nebulous and subjective thing. Despite attempts to measure and rank countries’ soft power through indexes like the Soft Power 30, what people consider attractive differs from person to person and region to region. 

Australia has often........

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