So like a debtor who decides that it's easier to ask for a raise than chop up his credit cards, Team Obama decided to focus on boosting American power, not reducing American obligations. The Bush Administration, they reasoned, had leveraged only military power. Obama would deploy "soft power" too, the power to attract rather than coerce.

US President Barack Obama’s long-awaited visit to Indonesia this coming June 14 has once again been postponed. His trip to the country has now been canceled three times since he came to power. Public disappointment, if any, seems sensible because his trip to Indonesia is not seen simply as a state visit. Rather, it is seen as a “homecoming” to Jakarta, where he spent four years of his childhood.

Over the past year, the Obama administration has been reaching out and listening to Muslim communities around the world, focusing on a “new beginning” based on mutual interest and respect that President Obama called for in his June 4, 2009, speech at Cairo University in Egypt.

The Obama administration's first National Security Strategy emphasizes a multilateral approach to solving international problems in contrast to the Bush years. But it is an adaptation of traditional thinking rather than a completely new approach.

The Obama Administration, which is making maximum use of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter in governance, feels these are "effective tools" that can enhance diplomacy.

Syrian President Bashar Assad said Monday that the United States has lost its influence in the Middle East due to its failure to contribute to regional peace, in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Republicca.

President Obama’s speech at West Point Saturday is the most sweeping statement yet of his plan to create a national security policy emphasizing education, clean energy, green jobs, anti-climate change measures, the granting of full American constitutional rights to accused terrorists, and “engagement” with America’s enemies.

America's Extended Hand presents a comprehensive overview of how the Obama administration thinks about public engagement, how it has attempted to reorganize the government to deliver on that vision, and how it has performed across a number of crucial issues (including Muslim engagement, Afghanistan and Pakistan, Iran, China, democracy promotion, and combating violent extremism).