Starting in early March 2013 the Russian government launched a nationwide campaign of inspections of nongovernmental organizations, unprecedented in its scale and scope. The inspections were highly extensive, disruptive, invasive, and often intimidating...It is clear that the main objective of these inspections is to identify organizations the government deems “foreign agents” and force advocacy groups to either assume this false, misleading, and demonizing label or suspend their work.

Current attempts at virtual diplomacy have little government backing and are limited in scope. They are directed mainly at public diplomacy (PD), not official state-to-state channels. Some governments have attempted to change diplomatic conditions through virtual PD campaigns and the use of social media. But, crucially, the public does not decide to go to war, even in a democracy.

In February 2013, the interagency LGBT Working Group collaborated to host a half-day workshop at the U.S. Embassy for leaders from the LGBT community in order to better understand their needs and priorities and to inform them of policy changes and upcoming opportunities for U.S. Government support of their work.

On May 6, 2013, a delegation of Brazilian indigenous leaders visited Crowe & Dunlevy law firm’s Tulsa office to discuss Native American law, policy and legal history, as well as indigenous issues in Brazil. U.S. State Department Portuguese interpreters provided real-time translation.

Cheered on by a raucous crowd waving flags and chanting, a team of Iranian wrestlers defeated the United States, 6-1, in an exhibition match staged in New York’s Grand Central Terminal on Wednesday.

The conditions have been set and it’s now time to use the arts and cultural engagement at ground and grassroots level to further enhance cultural diplomacy and effectiveness of military security cooperation operations.

India has sought academic collaboration with various US institutions to leverage the full potential of the education sector to meet the increasing needs of both the countries, particularly in the fields of information and technology. "Our academic institutions have been slow to leverage the potential of technology for education. Knowledge networks that link research in the grand challenges of the world have also been slow to develop," Minister of India for human resources development, M Pallam Raju said yesterday.

“The styles of public diplomacy are now constrained by our fear,” says Richard Arndt, a veteran U.S. diplomat and the author of The First Resort of Kings: American Cultural Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century. ”Which after all is what terrorists try to produce, and which they've amply succeeded in.” Arndt says as the United States reestablished diplomatic relations with European countries after World War II, the goal was to build the most beautiful embassies possible.