If the United States hopes to maintain a level of influence in the world commensurate with its economic and military strength, it must modernize and dramatically improve some of its soft-power foreign policy tools. Many of those tools have proven ineffective, and fail to reflect the transformational changes in the past two decades prompted by technology, connectivity, and global markets.

An Obama administration program secretly dispatched young Latin Americans to Cuba using the cover of health and civic programs to provoke political change, a clandestine operation that put those foreigners in danger even after a U.S. contractor was hauled away to a Cuban jail. Beginning as early as October 2009, a project overseen by the U.S. Agency for International Development sent Venezuelan, Costa Rican and Peruvian young people to Cuba in hopes of ginning up rebellion.

The blunt, unsparing language — among the toughest diplomats recall ever being aimed at Israel — lays bare a frustrating reality for the Obama administration: the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has largely dismissed diplomatic efforts by the United States to end the violence in Gaza, leaving American officials to seethe on the sidelines about what they regard as disrespectful treatment.

Bringing a stable source of electricity to Kandahar, the cradle of the hardline Islamist movement and once a base for its leader Mullah Omar, was a top U.S. "counter-insurgency priority" as Washington pursued its policy of winning "hearts and minds". But regular power in the city is still years away, and when the United States finally ends subsidies - currently running at just over $1 million a month - in September 2015, Kandahar could lose around half its severely limited electricity supplies, Afghan power officials and U.S. inspectors say.

From August 4-6, 2014, United States President Barack Obama will host the first ever US-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington, DC. The summit will be attended by more than forty African Heads of State, along with other business and social leaders, at a time when Africa is often described as one of the fastest growing regions of the world. 

The Turkish Prime Ministry released a report outlining Turkey's humanitarian aid to Gaza and Iraq that amounted to over $8 million. The country's state-run aid agencies and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are spearheading efforts to help victims of Israel's constant bombings in the Gaza Strip and people displaced by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) offensive in Iraq.

Korea and China have maintained a close relationship since 1992, when they reestablished diplomatic ties that had been severed after the Communists came to power in Beijing in 1949.  Historical and cultural bonds over two millennia underlie their ties, which are evolving into a more mature, substantive and multidimensional partnership based on their growing geopolitical and economic interdependence.

Narendra Modi is the first Indian prime minister visiting Nepal in 17 years, although the two countries share an open border and claim to have a close relationship.  One of the most contentious issues between the two has been sharing and developing trans-boundary water resources.