I've seen calls for work from the Pentagon's DARPA research lab, cycled through Harvard and MIT, that sought to meld brain and cognitive science with literary theoretical analysis in an attempt to smooth and scientifically validate precisely these soft power entities.

I agree with you that there is no getting around it. There is a lot of work going on in these areas, a ton of money and expertise being thrown into "softer" attempts to control narratives.

I should mention that these calls for work and the research they produce are explicitly described as necessary for projects in foreign theaters.