Throughout history, international relations have primarily been analysed through the instruments of power. Military strength, economic resources, technological innovation, and political influence have shaped the behaviour of states and defined the balance of power between nations. These instruments remain essential components of global affairs. States require security capabilities, economic resilience, and diplomatic institutions in order to protect their interests and pursue their objectives.

However, power alone cannot fully explain why societies cooperate, why alliances endure, or why conflicts emerge. Behind every political relationship are human beings shaped by memories, identities, values, traditions, and perceptions. The deeper question is therefore not only how power is exercised, but where the point of leverage exists through which societies can develop understanding and cooperation.

This is where cultural diplomacy acquires its strategic importance. Cultural diplomacy represents an Archimedean fulcrum of international relations: a point of leverage through which culture can transform understanding, identity, and human connection into meaningful cooperation.

Beyond Trust: Culture as the Foundation of Human Identity

The importance of cultural diplomacy extends beyond the creation of trust between nations. Its deeper significance lies in its relationship with one of the most fundamental aspects of human existence: identity.

Human beings are not defined solely by their political citizenship or economic role. They are shaped by language, traditions, historical memory, family narratives, values, symbols, and collective experiences. Culture provides the framework through which individuals understand where they come from, how they relate to others, and how they interpret the world around them.

Culture is therefore more than an expression of identity; it is one of the foundations through which identity itself is created. It influences the way individuals communicate, understand relationships, interpret social situations, and perceive their place within society.

This helps explain why cultural connections often remain powerful across generations, including among diaspora communities throughout the world. In countries such as the United States, many individuals whose families migrated generations ago continue to maintain connections with their ancestral cultures. They preserve traditions, celebrate cultural occasions, support community institutions, and seek knowledge about their origins.

The persistence of these connections reveals a fundamental human reality: origin represents more than geography. It represents memory, belonging, continuity, and meaning. A person's cultural background influences more than what they know; it influences how they understand the world and their relationship with it.

This does not mean that individuals are defined by a single identity. Human beings develop multiple identities through family, education, professional life, citizenship, and personal experience. Yet the cultural foundations inherited through family and community often remain an important part of their worldview.

This is the deeper power of culture.

Culture, Identity, and the Limits of Integration

The importance of culture also helps explain why integration policies sometimes achieve limited results when they focus exclusively on external adaptation.

Language acquisition is essential. Participation in economic and social life is essential. Understanding laws, institutions, and civic responsibilities is essential. Yet integration involves more than learning external structures. It also involves the complex relationship between inherited identity and the society in which individuals live.

Culture influences values, expectations, traditions, and ways of understanding human relationships. A person may learn a language perfectly and participate successfully in society while maintaining deep connections to their cultural origins. These connections are not necessarily barriers to integration; they are expressions of the enduring importance of culture in human life.

The challenge for modern societies is therefore not to eliminate cultural identity, but to create societies in which different cultural backgrounds contribute to a shared civic environment.

The objective of integration should not be cultural replacement, but cultural understanding.

A successful global society does not require individuals to abandon their histories. It requires societies to develop the capacity to understand, respect, and engage with different cultural experiences.

Culture and the Architecture of International Relations

This perspective changes how cultural diplomacy should be understood. Traditional diplomacy primarily engages governments, whereas cultural diplomacy engages societies. It reaches the deeper foundations through which communities understand themselves and others.

Through education, academic cooperation, artistic exchange, scientific collaboration, and dialogue between peoples, cultural diplomacy creates connections at the level where perceptions and attitudes are formed. Its influence often extends beyond immediate political objectives because it addresses the human foundations upon which political relationships ultimately depend.

A treaty may establish a relationship between states, but a cultural connection can establish a relationship between peoples. Political agreements can often be negotiated within a limited timeframe; meaningful relationships between societies require patience, continuity, and sustained engagement.

Yet once established, these relationships provide the foundation upon which political cooperation can endure.

Culture Is Not Separation: The Difference Between Cultural Identity and Nationalism

The recognition of cultural identity should not be confused with the rejection of openness or the promotion of division. Culture is not a wall separating societies; it is the language through which societies understand themselves and communicate with others.

Cultural diplomacy does not seek to reinforce isolation or create competing identities. Its purpose is precisely the opposite: to create opportunities for different cultures to encounter one another with greater understanding.

A world without cultural awareness does not become more united. It often becomes more fragmented because misunderstandings increase when societies fail to recognise the historical, cultural, and emotional foundations that shape human behaviour.

Respect for cultural identity is therefore not an obstacle to international cooperation. It is one of its foundations.

Historical Lessons: Culture as the Foundation of Reconciliation

History provides numerous examples of culture creating the conditions for political transformation.

The reconciliation between France and Germany after the Second World War demonstrates this principle. Treaties, institutions, and political agreements were essential to European integration, but reconciliation required a deeper transformation in how societies perceived one another. Educational exchanges, youth programmes, cultural cooperation, and people-to-people initiatives contributed to rebuilding relationships between former adversaries.

The European project was therefore constructed not only through economic and political arrangements, but also through a gradual transformation of collective perceptions.

The same principle was visible during the Cold War. At a time when ideological rivalry divided East and West, cultural, scientific, and educational exchanges maintained channels of communication between societies. These interactions did not eliminate geopolitical competition, but they preserved understanding and human connection during a period of profound political division.

These examples demonstrate an important principle: culture does not replace diplomacy. Rather, culture creates the conditions in which diplomacy can succeed.

The Global Age and the Return of Culture

The twenty-first century is often described as an age of globalisation. Technology, migration, trade, and communication have created a world in which geographical boundaries are increasingly permeable. People study abroad, work across continents, establish international families, and participate in global networks.

Yet, paradoxically, the more interconnected the world becomes, the more significant questions of identity and belonging become.

Globalisation has not dissolved culture; it has made culture more visible.

As individuals encounter an increasingly complex world, many seek connection with the histories, traditions, and communities that provide meaning and continuity. The search for origins is therefore not a rejection of globalisation; it is a human response to the need for belonging in an environment of constant change.

This explains why cultural identity remains powerful among diaspora communities across the world. Generations after migration, many individuals continue to maintain connections with their ancestral cultures because origin represents more than geography. It represents memory, values, family narratives, and a sense of place within human history.

Culture addresses one of humanity's most fundamental questions:

Who are we?

Why Cultural Diplomacy Matters in a Fragmented World

This question has direct implications for international relations. The modern world faces challenges that require cooperation across borders: climate change, technological transformation, migration, global health challenges, and economic inequality.

Yet cooperation becomes difficult when societies misunderstand each other's identities, values, and historical experiences.

Cultural diplomacy provides a way to engage with the deeper foundations of human behaviour. It recognises that nations are not simply collections of economic interests or political institutions; they are communities shaped by stories, memories, traditions, and aspirations.

Contemporary examples demonstrate this continuing relevance. International educational exchanges bring young people from different societies into direct contact. Scientific partnerships unite researchers across political divisions. Cultural institutions operating internationally create spaces where societies encounter one another beyond governmental relations.

These initiatives may appear modest compared with military alliances or economic agreements, but they operate at the level where long-term relationships are formed.

To understand another society, one must understand the culture that gives meaning to its worldview.

The New Strategic Reality

The great strategic question of the future may therefore be less about who possesses the greatest material power and more about who understands the forces that shape human motivation.

Military and economic power remain essential components of international relations. However, in an interconnected world, influence increasingly depends on the ability to engage with identities, narratives, and cultural realities.

The countries and institutions that recognise the power of culture will be better positioned to build partnerships, reduce misunderstandings, and create sustainable cooperation.

The Archimedean insight therefore acquires a new meaning in contemporary international relations: the world is not moved only by force; it is also moved by meaning.

Culture remains one of the deepest sources through which individuals and societies construct meaning, identity, and purpose.

The Strategic Leverage of Cultural Diplomacy

If culture shapes identity, and identity influences behaviour, then culture represents one of the deepest forms of influence in international relations.

The strategic significance of cultural diplomacy lies precisely here. It does not seek to impose values; it seeks to create understanding. It does not eliminate differences; it creates the ability to engage with differences peacefully.

Cultural diplomacy is therefore not simply an instrument for improving a nation's image abroad. It is a means of engaging with the deeper forces that shape human perception, motivation, and relationships.

The future of international relations will depend not only on who possesses material resources, but also on who understands the human foundations upon which cooperation is built.

Finding the Point from Which the World Can Be Moved

Archimedes searched for a point from which the world could be moved. International relations today face a similar challenge: identifying the forces that allow humanity to address shared problems despite political, social, and cultural differences.

The answer cannot be found in power alone. It must also be found in meaning.

Culture provides that meaning. Cultural diplomacy provides the connection between cultures.

The greatest challenges of the twenty-first century will not be solved only by increasing the instruments of power, but by understanding the human foundations upon which cooperation depends.

Cultural diplomacy begins at that foundation. It recognises that before nations can cooperate, people must understand one another; and before people can understand one another, they must encounter the cultures, histories, and experiences that give meaning to their lives.

The lever is cultural diplomacy.

The fulcrum is culture itself.

And from that point, the world can move.

• Independent