For a field that is predicated on communication, we public diplomats don’t always do as good a job as we could in communicating what is public diplomacy to the public that we serve.  As such, it remains an ongoing challenge for the field to create awareness of what public diplomacy is and what it entails.

With great fanfare, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton launched a Quadrennial Development and Diplomacy Review (QDDR)—modeled on the Defense Department’s Quadrennial Defense Review—which promised a new era in foreign relations. In the President’s 2010 budget, State and USAID were the clear winners (with defense spending a clear loser).

The world of diplomacy has been changing so fast in the past 20 or so years because of technology. Public diplomacy is also an important part of an Ambassador’s job. It is the way we present our country to the public. It has been shaped around the advancement in communication technologies and has gained great momentum in the past few years thanks to social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter.

Standard & Poor's downgrade of U.S. debt, along with the political battle over the debt ceiling and a faltering U.S. economy, will siphon away the time President Barack Obama has to deal with foreign policy issues. CFR's James M. Lindsay says that while the United States remains the world's dominant power, the downgrade strengthens the hand of those who argue that it is "in terminal decline."

The morning after devastating riots swept across London, hundreds of people gathered in Twitter-organized crews to sweep up broken glass, clean vandalized buildings and show the world — and themselves — that their city is about more than mindless destruction.

In a sphere often dominated by celebrities and lighter fare, the presence of a prayer campaign is a bit unusual. At the heart of the #prayforlondon tweets is the Evangelical Alliance, the largest body serving Evangelical Christians in the UK. It called for a prayer vigil in the Gaumont State of London at 7 p.m. Tuesday. Christians were invited to join in prayer for those afflicted by the riots shaking the country.

Over the weekend, Dr. Jill Biden led a delegation to Kenya to view firsthand the situation on the ground. Dr. Biden wanted to do this trip to highlight the crisis in the Horn of Africa and help mobilize both an American response, but also a global response to a crisis that is acute but to also underscore the fact that there is a lot we can do about it; that we can get assistance to people...

Al Jazeera English has squashed several planned rebroadcasts of “Shouting in the Dark,” an hourlong documentary about Bahrain’s crackdown on pro-democracy protesters that abrought complaints from Bahraini authorities. The episode illustrates the thorny issue of independence for Al Jazeera, which is financed by the emir of Qatar and is perceived by some people to be a diplomatic tool of the country.