I am suspicious of the phrase “21st-century statecraft”. I am suspicious because I can't define it...Is it a new kind of state-run broadcaster, a digital Radio Free Europe? Is it a new kind of public diplomacy...

I was intrigued to see several recent calls for bids by the U.S. Agency for International Development for programs that would, among other things, train young Arabs how to better use the Internet and other digital technologies for political activism, advocacy, greater transparency and accountability, and other such democratic practices.

What started as a transatlantic video chat between students at Hampton High School and students in the Republic of Georgia in the former Soviet Union has now become an opportunity to build stronger economic and cultural relations.

Since then, the State Department has brought the issue of online freedom to the table in its diplomacy around the world and joined with Internet providers and social media companies to foster public-private partnership in Internet freedom.

Two dozen countries representing 80 percent of the world’s commercial energy consumption on Tuesday announced initiatives to build more efficient appliances and buildings, “smart” electric grids and electric vehicles.

Many academics warn against relying on new forms of media like Wikipedia or Facebook for reliable information. However, an initiative at the State Department is taking advantage of these very platforms to improve agency performance and transparency.

The technologies that came to the fore in Haiti are not new. They include everyday technologies -- mobile phones, online mapping tools, GPS, and social networking. What is new is their use in the humanitarian context at the scale seen in the global response to Haiti's catastrophic quake.

Public diplomacy (PD) -- which the State Department defines as "engaging, informing, and influencing key international audiences" -- is not rocket science. All too many academic theories about PD are incomprehensible, pompously-expressed "concepts"...