“This is part of one of the most important things that we do, which is cultural diplomacy, and we have a programme already in the embassies which brings together a very robust and dynamic partnership between US embassies and missions around the world and artists and galleries and cultural institutions,” she [Leaf] said.

Now a collection of unlikely diplomatic tools – more than 200 of Albright’s pins and brooches – is on display at the Truman Library in Independence. “Read My Pins: The Madeleine Albright Collection” is on display through Feb. 22.

“The Mideast is stunningly complicated,” said Albright, secretary of state from 1997-2001, in an interview. But her candid confirmation of how hard it is to understand the upheaval wasn’t limited to the region. The diplomatic disquiet is global, which Albright said was a condition of a post-Soviet world.

When President Obama and European allies meet next week, they can begin forming a meaningful response to Vladi­mir Putin’s adventurism. This new strategy should note that Putin’s view of the world is rooted in dangerous fictions. Churchill said Russia was a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Under Putin, Russia’s rhetoric can be described as a fantasy inside a delusion wrapped in a tissue of lies. 

The United States doesn't have to trust Russian President Vladimir Putin, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Sunday on "Face the Nation," over his tentative agreement to help identify Syria's chemical weapons, place them under international control and ultimately dismantle them was "the only way to solve" the country's raging civil war.

Since the 1950s, when Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and Dave Brubeck embarked on State Department-sponsored tours around the globe, jazz has been a quasi-official part of U.S. diplomatic efforts. Jazz musicians were sometimes welcome in parts of the world where other Americans were not, and Armstrong was commemorated in a musical play as “the real ambassador."

Tom Carter... felt it was appropriate to honor Albright and “highlight the role of jazz as a diplomatic tool” in the same year that the institute worked with UNESCO to establish the first International Jazz Day. “Madeleine understands the importance of jazz not only as an art form but as a means of bringing people together around the world,” Carter said in a telephone interview.

Concerned that the foreign aid budget could be cut as Congress deals with a mounting fiscal crisis, influential voices from government and philanthropy are calling attention to the benefits of – and need for – "smart power."