Is the UK's role on the world stage a decades-long story of managed decline, including the orderly withdrawal from a once vast empire? Or is it the story of a medium-sized power whose standing in the world reflects the new global reality?

Peng Liyuan, the celebrity wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping, has played a key role in successfully projecting the Communist giant's soft power abroad through her public diplomacy, according to a study on the country's first lady.

When writing about digital diplomacy, scholars tend to focus on its present practice and future potential. Yet we may also benefit from exploring its past and identifying the processes and events that have contributed to its evolution. 

What is Israel’s next move against Iran? The question is a complex one to answer, and partly deals with the question of how Israel deals with its primary ally going forward – the United States.

Yet it seems that the Chinese are the most devoted students of Nye. In fact it is not too much of an exaggeration to say the Chinese have become obsessed with soft power.

Lebanon and Jordan now have the highest number of refugees worldwide. And with the humanitarian crisis continuing, a leading British think tank on foreign affairs suggests Britain should allow 10,000 Syrian refugees to settle in the UK to enhance Middle East relations — despite Britain's controversial role in its foreign and military interventions in the region.

For Australia, a key focus of its foreign policy should be how to balance its economic ties with China and its cultural ties with the United States; appeasing both without getting in the middle of an ugly tug-o-war that forces Canberra to take sides.