While governments can do important work to promote peace, tolerance and understanding can come only from people, and not government bureaucracies, Under Secretary of State for Public Affairs and Public Diplomacy Judith McHale told South Asian Seeds of Peace participants at the State Department.

In Afghanistan, where women have traditionally been treated as shut-ins and worse, 29 Afghan women are taking a daring step: They are the first volunteers to undergo training to serve in the all-male Afghan national army.

Yesterday at the Aspen Ideas Festival, cosponsored by the Aspen Institute and The Atlantic, I spoke on a panel focused on "Smart Power" with a heavy emphasis on the Afghanistan War.

While there has been much discussion over the U.S. military strategy in Afghanistan, there hasn't been much of a public conversation on U.S. diplomacy there. Daniel Markey of the Council on Foreign Relations talks to Renee Montagne about diplomatic efforts in Afghanistan.

But no one, no matter how brilliant, can achieve the impossible. And the problem in Afghanistan is the impossibility of the mission. The United States is pursuing a nation-building strategy with counterinsurgency tactics – that is, building a nation at the barrel end of a gun.

In a nation with abysmal healthcare, delivering high-quality emergency treatment is a powerful weapon — even though crews can treat only a fraction of those in need.

No matter what you think of Gen. McChrystal after the Rolling Stone article and the fiasco that ensued, he knew how to work in Afghanistan. Here are a few things he got right.

During their well-scripted news conference at the White House, both Karzai and President Obama said they favored a process of outreach to the Taliban. And both presidents endorsed, as a start, the "peace jirga" that Karzai will host in Kabul in several weeks.