The use of sport as an instrument of foreign policy is nothing new for the U.S. government. [...] The Sports Diplomacy Division of the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs employs only five staffers and spends only .0001 percent of the Department budget. And yet, it has still managed to recruit some of the country's most celebrated athletes to the cause, and its programs have reached thousands of people in more than 100 countries over the past 15 years.

The problem with “America First” is that it describes an attitude, not a purpose. It substitutes selfishness for realism. It implies that nations can go it alone, that we stand for nothing beyond our immediate self-interest, and that we should give little thought to how the rest of humanity thinks or lives. It suggests that if we are strong enough, we can prosper no matter how much chaos, disorder or injustice surrounds us. America First leads to the diplomacy of narcissism. And narcissism is as unhealthy for nations as it is for people.

Tweets, of course, do not speak. They are lines, no more than 140 characters, broadcast to the world, lacking the context of a 40-page policy paper or even a full paragraph tossed off during a backyard barbecue. And the utterings of the next president often prompt a slew of questions about how they relate to policy or international diplomacy and whether they promote falsehoods or increase global instability.

Originally given to the United States as a goodwill gesture from China during the restoration of relations between the two nations in the early 1970s, the current family of giant pandas remain here on long-term loan.

As the new Minister of Foreign Affairs, His Excellency, Godffrey Onyema, assumes office at the Tafawa Balewa House, Abuja  expectations are high on the future of the nation’s foreign policy and diplomacy. Nigeria needs a new foreign policy direction to remain relevant  both in Africa and on the world stage in the fast changing sphere of international diplomacy.

Is India’s Narendra Modi administration guilty of reducing the country’s strategic foreign policy discourse to a pedestrian level so much so that New Delhi has turned into an object of ridicule in the international diplomatic circle? 

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.

The leaders of France and Germany were carrying a new peace initiative to the Ukrainian and Russian capitals Thursday, amid a flurry of high-level diplomacy to end what French President Francois Hollande called a war on Europe's edge.