Airpower diplomacy, also known as building partnerships by the U.S. Air Force, offers some distinct advantages over any alternatives. Best thought of as the non-kinetic application of air, space, and cyber power, airpower diplomacy is a form of soft power that’s useful in strengthening existing relationships and developing new ones—while protecting American interests.

Consider how Washington’s new era of austerity and restraint has reduced U.S. foreign policy: Bush started wars and, after having exhausted the alternatives, engaged in massive nation-building efforts...With Obama, it increasingly seems like we are just in it for the killing.

That doctrine relies on downplaying "hard" power capabilities and relying more on "outsourcing" U.S. security concerns to international institutions like the United Nations, negotiating with military competitors (think: the New START nuclear agreement with Russia) and embracing "soft" power initiatives (think: diplomatic "engagement" with Iran).

It's a country where Shah Rukh Khan remains hugely popular. If you walk around the streets of Bali, inevitably someone will ask you if you have seen Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. The soft power of Bollywood is tangible in nooks and crannies of this vast country.

EU embassies all over the world, reflecting the soft power of the EU, which, despite the ongoing euro crisis, is still very much building up the EU brand as a global superpower. The idea of a separate foreign policy for any of the 27 member states has now been made almost completely irrelevant in the context of a common, tightly coordinated EU position.

U.S. embassies in Africa have created new models for public diplomacy, models which are already producing significant advances. Wharton... described the “Kampala model” of public diplomacy...at the U.S. Embassy in Uganda, according to the Secretary, PD is in the lead.

Diplomats and officials use the music of the oppressed to connect with disaffected Muslim youth.

This is part of a larger international cyber diplomacy effort, that the State Department is undertaking that’s weaving all of these different aspects of cyberspace together, and that includes everything from...internet freedom, to economic issues and governance issues on the internet, to cyber security issues...this basket of issues is now a foreign policy imperative or a foreign policy priority.