Launched in 2013, the CPD Annual Review was developed to serve as a guide to understanding the global landscape of public diplomacy, its ebbs and flows, its triumphs and its shortcomings.

This lavishly funded PR program more than triples the strategic communications budget over last year’s ¥20 billion, essentially an admission that Japan has been losing the international war of words — and thus global support for its positions — during Abe’s tenure. Given that Seoul and Beijing have been playing hardball in getting their sides of the story out, Tokyo is responding in kind.

Signaling a new diplomatic push to refurbish its battered image and win friends and influence nations, Pakistan is sending Maleeha Lodhi, a high-profile envoy, who has asserted that "her prime focus will be creating a clear line on Kashmir cause," to the United Nations.

On January 21, Andrew Lack, the media titan who at different times has headed Bloomberg, Sony, and NBC News, was sworn in as CEO of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the federal agency that oversees the five official US government-supported broadcasters, including the Voice of America. (...) In recent years, the BBG has devolved into a widely acknowledged mess: bloated, demoralized, and inefficient. Reviving this tool of public diplomacy will be a major challenge for Lack. 

Today, the American Security Project, a Washington-based think tank, released a new report outlining how the Pentagon is trying to influence public opinion in foreign countries. The report is framed around the question of how military public diplomacy can help achieve U.S. military objectives abroad without the need for what the white paper refers to in true newspeak-infused euphemistic language as “kinetic actions”;  in plain English — killing and wounding people overseas.

Today, the American Security Project, a Washington-based think tank, released a new report outlining how the Pentagon is trying to influence public opinion in foreign countries.

It's natural that all countries have different aims in foreign policy and different ways to attain them. However, one aim has been common for all cultures – spreading influence. Turkey is the only Muslim majority NATO member country with a decade long stability record in its economy, offering low corporate income taxes for entrepreneurs and a large domestic market. Spending 2.7 percent of GDP for its military, we can say Turkey is a diplomacy player but it is neither rich enough nor is it active enough in terms of using its military might to be an effective actor in the region.