The Pentagon's role in public diplomacy was strongly endorsed by panelists at a Heritage Foundation forum here yesterday. “Influencing the enemy’s will to fight is as old as warfare,” argued Colonel Matt Venhaus of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict. “Sending teams out to embassies to support public diplomacy is one way we do that.”

In the northern reaches of Somalia and the country's presidential palace, a well-equipped military force is being created, funded by a mysterious donor nation that is also paying for the services of a former CIA officer and a senior ex-U.S. diplomat. The Associated Press has determined through telephone and e-mail interviews with three insiders that training for an anti-piracy force of up to 1,050 men has already begun in Puntland, a semiautonomous region in northern Somalia that is believed to hold reserves of oil and gas.

The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington and its escorts are heading for the waters off the Korean peninsula, in the aftermath of the flare-up between North and South Korea. This is very much gunboat diplomacy 21st Century-style.

Up to 950 Canadian troops will train Afghan army recruits from 2011 to 2014, maintaining a particular focus on solving the "huge problem" of low literacy levels, Defense Minister Peter MacKay said on Tuesday.

That China and the United States are in a race to gain sway over countries possessing vital natural resources, not only in Africa but across the developing world, is hardly news...Yet while the two powers approach the question of influence from different starting points, they are also increasingly overlapping in the way they develop their soft power—particularly in the use of their navies.

Indian Army personnel are holding an annual joint military exercise with their American counterparts involving airborne specialist operations in sub-zero temperatures in Alaska.

Senior militia fighters loyal to a notorious Afghan warlord have been flown to Australia to train with elite special forces as part of a covert strategy to strengthen military operations against the Taliban.