Since becoming president, Barack Obama has emphasized soft power, suggesting that an over-reliance on military force has alienated many of the United States’ friends and allies without achieving much in return. But many Republicans, and even some Democrats, accuse him of overcorrecting (...). For all their finger-pointing, both parties have, in reality, come to embrace an intermediary approach—what can best be called “energy power.”

Last week, a report from a committee of the House of Lords offered a brutal judgement on British and European policy toward Russia. Europe went “sleep-walking” into the crisis in Ukraine, said the report, and Western countries had lost the “robust analytical capability” to understand Russia. The truth about UK policy toward Russia, however, is much worse.

Europe will be "in deep trouble" if it continues to rely only on soft power, given the threats it now faces from the east and south, according to the Belgian commander of the five-nation Eurocorps headquarters.

Diplomats and scholars now have the opportunity to gather and analyze vast quantities of data. Data has allowed us to explore how social media users responded differently to a variety of international broadcasters in the wake of the use of chemical weapons in Syria and the actions of conservative cyber-activists in Iran.

Norwegian Muslims plan to form a “ring of peace” around a synagogue in Oslo this Saturday as a gesture of solidarity with the Jewish community in the Scandinavian country.

The enlisting of digital diplomacy in Russia's national propaganda efforts has caused some diplomacy scholars and practitioners to wonder if Russia isn't ruining digital diplomacy for the rest of us.

China plans to spend 360 million yuan (HK$454 million) on expanding its overseas cultural centres this year - nearly double last year's amount - amid government efforts to bolster its soft power abroad. But observers are sceptical whether the centres, which are different from the Confucius Institutes, can improve the nation's image overseas, especially given similar efforts have attracted criticism.

As his fame as an author and humorist grew, Mark Twain increasingly gained access to the most glittering palaces and persons in the world.(...)He was, as he was fond of saying, “not an American, but the American,” and during his many trips abroad he functioned as a one-man diplomatic corps, employing his characteristic blend of self-deprecation and understated wit on foreign people everywhere.