For years, Hosni Mubarak and other Arab leaders relied on a straightforward mantra: “It’s me or the Islamists.” American presidents and other Western leaders shuddered at the word “Islamists” and embraced their thuggish allies. What could be worse than Islamists?

U.S. public diplomacy followed that pattern. Over the years, there was some splendid rhetoric from Condoleezza Rice, Barack Obama, and a few others, but the “public” at which public diplomacy was aimed was always carefully limited to exclude the Islamist community.

The Chinese government is encouraging domestic publishers of foreign-language periodicals to target the overseas market as part of the country's strategy to boost its media presence abroad, a major step to build China into a big player in the world media and publication market and make the cultural sector a pillar industry in the country.

Art is often the vehicle of choice in building bridges in cultural diplomacy. The “Ahh” moment is one of appreciation when our imagination has been captured. Cultural diplomacy can take the inherent power of art and transform it from an “Ahh” moment of appreciation found in one cultural setting to an “Aha!” moment of delight and wonder in other cultural settings.

In previous Culture Posts, I talked about the goal of developing an “in-awareness” approach to culture in public diplomacy. In the comments section, as well as other CPD posts, important observations have been raised about the challenges of cultural diplomacy. Developing a stronger “in-awareness” approach may be the key to designing and implementing rewarding cultural diplomacy initiatives.

In this post I discuss the idea of thinking about culture as a concrete noun as one way to develop awareness.

Culture as a Concrete Noun

The conspicuous failure of American hard power — in Iraq and Afghanistan — obscured the way American soft power has flourished over the past decade. For a while soft power was undercut because the U.S. reputation was tarnished, but the Arab awakening has demonstrated how powerful American-driven social media are in opening up closed societies.

During the confrontation, the CIA also conducted revenge attacks in Pakistan; as following differences between American State Department and the CIA, at the occasion of almost every high level meeting between Pakistani and American authorities, the CIA carried out a drone attack. American premier agency effectively undermined public diplomacy of its own government.

The U.S. force size in Asia-Pacific will increase...not to prepare for some Cold War-style showdown with a rising China... Obama seems to mean it when he talks about America's "Pacific Century," and putting a military presence there is a great way to extend U.S. hard as well as soft power.

40 aspiring musicians from the same institution are all set to present Mozart Magic in India...Interestingly, the costumes for the performance have been designed by Indian designer duo of Parvesh & Jai and comprise traditional dresses kings and queens once wore.