State propagandists - if far from all policy-makers - have long understood the political power of language learning. (...) Most major states figured this out years ago. Democracies like France, the UK and Germany have publicly funded institutes around the world teaching their languages and cultures. This is part of what diplomats call soft power, the drive to boost global influence by co-opting rather than coercing, by friendly persuasion rather than force.

Beijing appointed a senior propaganda official as its culture minister yesterday, making him one of the spearheads of the government's drive to project China's soft power abroad.

Turkey and its government are under siege of a massive smear campaign that began right after the Dec. 14 operation, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has said, vowing they will take necessary measures to counter such attacks through public diplomacy. 

The idea of Russian “soft power” became fashionable, but it was very different to European “soft power”. So-called Russian soft power was just “softer power”, including any means of coercion not involving tanks. It was, in the English phrase, “softly-softly” power, or “covert power”, the type of behind-the-scenes influence encapsulated in the Russian phrase kuluarna polityka – politics in corridors, not just away from public influence, but without formal record.

Geoffrey Robertson and Amal Clooney helped Greece fight for the return of the Elgin Marbles. Britain refuses to listen, but has shocked the art world by secretly loaning one of the antiquities to Russia.

Russia under President Vladimir Putin doesn't rely much on soft power to get its way abroad, in the same way it doesn't do much liberal democracy at home. It does, however, do manipulation, and Europe is only just waking up to how much and how well.

Much of American public diplomacy, like much of the rest of U.S. foreign policy, is reactive. When a crisis erupts, policymakers respond as best they can to limit the damage. In this social media era, they are often outpaced by those who are better prepared to use new communication tools to deliver their messages.