And all of this may in the end be an attribute of America's vaunted soft power - our foreign policy is not made in a hermetically sealed environment by wise-men-for-life but rather rises from the give and take of our democratic process, which at the end of the day is open to all.

Many Indian analysts accept their country is unlikely to make good the economic and developmental gulf that separates the two regional rivals, but say that India's "soft power" and "cultural influence" is an advantage.

There used to be a saying about the Chinese: “They work while we sleep.” In the field of public diplomacy, it is absolutely spot on...Thankfully, the House Foreign Affairs Committee is determined to expose the Chinese public diplomacy offensive. Hearings on “Public Diplomacy with China” will be held by the Foreign Affairs Committee at 2:30 pm Wednesday.

It is a message designed to entertain and to engage a particular audience: those without much knowledge of history and not particularly interested in current events but who can be easily reached by new media and easily counted in audience surveys.

South Korea has successfully individualized itself in Asia by forming a mainstream culture that has increasingly isomorphic qualities in the Eastern Hemisphere. This also coincides with the government’s public diplomacy strategy of successfully promoting Korea as a brand.

Yesterday, there was a tweet that a senior official at the State Department described public diplomacy as like “old-school American propaganda.”  This resonated with many because it seemed to affirm a discrimination at State against public diplomacy and bureaucratic cannibalism.