A. Iain Johnston has the lead article in the latest issue of International Security. It's available for free right now, and it's quite the doozy. Entitled "How New and Assertive is China's New Assertiveness?", Johnston picks apart the claim made by many (including your humble blogger) that China's post-2008 foreign policy represented anything all that much out of the ordinary.

This week will see the Korean Association of International Studies and the Korea Foundation host an international conference on the role of middle powers in the 21st century. The significance of the conference being held in South Korea is twofold ― it marks Korea’s prominence as a source of innovative and influential scholarship on middlepowerism, and it marks Korea’s growing acceptance of middlepowerism as a national role.

The young culinary student learned paella thanks to exchange cooking classes put on by UNIFIL’s Spanish contingent in south Lebanon. The five-week course seeks to broaden the culinary expertise of a dozen or so hospitality students in addition to teaching some of the Spanish UNIFIL members Lebanese dishes.

Water-related conflicts arise largely due to inadequate resource management and poor governance. Traditional Cultural Diplomacy would thus prove beneficial in terms of providing clear and accurate information, diffusing mistrust and tensions, and improving communication between riparian states. Improved dialogue between countries would allow for the assessment of mutual benefits of cooperation, and consequently assist the process of converging national water agendas.

U.S. Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Tara Sonenshine rejected the idea that relations between the U.S and Russia are deteriorating and said social networking should be used to forge better ties during her visit to Moscow.

The move to set up representative offices, despite decades of severed diplomacy and strong mutual distrust before 2008, will make life easier for the millions of tourists and investors who hop across the 99-mile wide Taiwan Strait from China to Taiwan. De facto consulates also would be the highest-level official presence by one side on the other.

Educational exchange programs remain one of the strongest links between two countries. Over the last twenty years, thousands of Georgians have come to the United States for education, and over 3000 Georgians have participated in a U.S. professional or academic exchange programs.

In Indonesia, smart power is also increasingly gaining in attraction and popularity. On several occasions, the Indonesian Military (TNI) elite has used the term to explain how the defense force must cope with future multidimensional threats and challenges.