The panel highlights arenas not traditionally understood as strategic battlegrounds but that proved central to Cold War statecraft. The Olympic movement becomes a site where superpowers negotiated prestige, security, and ideological credibility. The Arctic emerges as a region where environmental rhetoric served both as a claim to moral leadership and as a cover for militarized and extractive ambitions. Humanitarian responses to refugee crises appear as carefully orchestrated demonstrations of national virtue designed to contrast American benevolence with Soviet repression. Brazil’s democratic transition illustrates how domestic political actors leveraged moderation and appeals to sovereignty to influence Washington’s stance during a period of shifting hemispheric dynamics.

By examining these diverse sites of influence, the panel offers a fresh interpretation of the late twentieth century as an era in which narratives, symbols, and moral claims were central tools of international competition. Rather than peripheral to the Cold War, soft power emerges here as a defining mechanism through which global order was contested and reshaped.