The most forward-looking companies increasingly use their own "smart power" partnerships with international development agencies and NGOs as a way of opening markets. While a country uses smart power when it intelligently combines hard military power with soft...

In Indonesia, smart power is also increasingly gaining in attraction and popularity. On several occasions, the Indonesian Military (TNI) elite has used the term to explain how the defense force must cope with future multidimensional threats and challenges. Defense Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro, for example, asserted that, “the concept of smart power is principally the potential synergy of civilian and military”.

Moscow seems to be placing high hopes on the new tool. The new draft of the Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation, signed by Vladimir Putin in February, states that "new information and communication technologies will be widely utilized" in order to "create an objective perception of Russia in the world" and "develop effective domestic means to exert informational influence on public opinion abroad."

What will the world look like about two decades from now? In December, the United States National Intelligence Council published its guess: Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds...US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has referred to the Obama administration's foreign policy as being based on "smart power", and argued that we should not talk about "multipolarity", but about "multi-partnerships". Likewise, the NIC report suggests that Americans must learn better how to exercise power with as well as over other states.

Mr Kerry will have big shoes to fill. Mrs Clinton's tireless public diplomacy has helped repair the damage to America's standing on the global stage and world leaders have been begging her to stay in the job. At the state department, Clinton laid the foundations for a "smart power" approach to the exercise of American leadership. Although Mr Kerry's view of American power is similar, his style will be very different. It's unclear whether he will be keen on public diplomacy.

Soon, I realized that the event was not intended for Americans. It was to impress people from here in Jakarta: Invited Indonesians and Indonesians who read the news from the invited press. It was a showcase of American “soft power”, a term popularized by Joseph Nye, a professor at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

The US Department of State and the Association of American Voices is facilitating a unique musical program called American Music Abroad. The program works to implement Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s vision of “smart power”diplomacy

The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, in partnership with USA Hockey, announces that a group of American youth ice hockey players will travel as Youth Sports Envoys to Moscow, Russia, October 5 – 14, 2012.