[The EU] allows for members to deal with major cross-border issues such as migration and criminality and trade more effectively... It is a prime example of "soft power"; it has brought peace and stability.

What does it mean that China's has become a global force? And more importantly, how have they actually accomplished that?
The quick answer? Through business dealings rather than military alliances, and a superb infographic from the Heritage Foundation offers a rarely seen snapshot of that.

India's different approach...stems to a large degree from the fact that it is politically, economically and even culturally more akin to Latin America than communist China is. Increasing frictions with China are a big reason for the region's increasing interest in dealing with India. Washington, of course, is also happy ...the U.S. considers New Delhi less a threat to its interests in the hemisphere than is Beijing.

Through the meeting of cultural heritage for these countries and with the blessing of science and technology, everyone can now open wider horizons and a promising future through working together with a spirit of friendship and humanity, he said.

“The challenges of a changing world and the needs of the American people demand that our foreign policy community -- as Steve Jobs put it -- think different,” Clinton said. “We have to position ourselves to lead in a world where security is shaped in boardrooms and on trading floors, as well as on battlefields,” she said.

The strategic partnership lays considerable emphasis on people to people ties. The two sides have agreed to simplify the rules to facilitate people to people exchanges. India appears to be taking a cooperative security approach to deal with security issues, combining hard and soft power options.

One of the main reasons why they are successful in America is because of our system. Governor Brown and his allies in Sacramento should advocate an American foreign policy that reorients itself to the soft power of exporting American values and know-how so the Sotomayors, Brins, Omidyars and Zakarias in Puerto Rico, Russia, Iran and India can find success at home.

Given the financial fiasco in the EU in the past two years, EU partisans now seem to be significantly overrating the appeal of membership to prospective candidate nations. Yet that message does not appear to have penetrated the thinking of either Western political leaders or pundits in the policy community.The EU is still the great brass ring of European politics, but it is now a tarnished brass ring.