Barack Obama is a smart guy. So why has he spent the last four years executing such a dumb foreign policy? True, his reliance on “smart power” -- a euphemism for giving the Pentagon a stake in all things global -- has been a smart move politically at home.

During our panel discussion in Charlotte on the future of arts and arts education in America, former Secretary of State Madeline Albright spoke about cultural diplomacy, a critical foreign policy tool. She also noted how the arts helped shape international political dialogue both formally through U.S.-sponsored jazz and dance and other art forms, and informally by every day actions.

Zingerman’s Roadhouse executive chef Alex Young is among the first group of American chefs and culinarians to be tapped for the American Chef Corps, part of a wide-ranging new State Department program called the Diplomatic Culinary Partnership.

Kosachev did not reveal any detailed plans about the reorganization of the agency, but the gist of change was immediately clear: Russia plans to begin actively using soft power, and Rossotrudnichestvo will be charged with conducting these new politics....Dmitry Medvedev explained to the assembled delegates why this move is important.

WASHINGTON – The personal touch was the focus of a USC public diplomacy forum here last week, the first in a series of 2012-2013 USC public diplomacy programs in the nation’s capital.

A U.S. diplomat thinks that now is the time for Seoul to focus on further raising Korea’s global profile as an attractive tourist and investment destination because the Korean wave or “hallyu” knows no bounds.

The public face of diplomacy was at odds with the harsh criticism in the Chinese media that greeted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on her visit to Beijing.

The Washington Post reports that the James Beard Foundation is teaming up with the State Department to launch the Diplomatic Culinary Partnership Sept. 7, hoping to "elevate the role of culinary engagement in America’s formal and public diplomacy efforts."