India wants to know: where has Michelle Obama been all day? This is unusual for the Harvard-trained lawyer who has made important international trips by herself to project American soft power.

This speech made history. No State of the Union address in the modern era makes the case more that America stands as strong and resilient as ever. (...) The State of the Union address shows not just Americans, but the entire world, that America is still an exceptional nation—one that believes in the rule “by the people for the people.” Mobs and factions can never take our sovereignty away from us.

An interview with the man whose coinage 'smart power' is much in use in diplomatic-strategic circles. Joseph S. Nye Jr. is a leading US political scientist. He is also a former dean of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and worked in various capacities with several American presidents. Nye is a prolific writer and has written over 13 books and over 150 critically acclaimed articles in professional and policy journals. 
 

China is often portrayed as a giant in the hard-power leagues of the economy, technology and the military. But when it comes to the country's soft power, China watchers have little optimism. As some analysts have pointed out that soft power is all in the mind, think tanks are important as a deliverer of soft power as they convey ideas.

An avalanche of criticism of FC Bayern Muenchen, a leading soccer brand and Germany's most successful club, for playing a commercially driven friendly against Saudi Arabia's FC Al Hilal amid a crackdown on dissent in the kingdom ... highlights the increasing risk autocratic Gulf states run in employing the sport to polish tarnished images and project soft power.

This comes as part of Egypt’s penchant toward using all types of soft power on various levels in an attempt to regain its lost role in Africa and rectify the widespread perception on the popular level in all upstream countries that depicts Egypt as stealing Nile water.

Speaking to Daily Sabah, Joseph Nye said that contrary to many opinions, the power held by the U.S. is not declining. Instead, other actors in the world are becoming more visible as they join the power struggle.

Evidence from the Middle East suggests a mixed record of benefits and challenges to American higher education arising out of the recent trend in creating branch and satellite campuses. (...) This projection of "soft power" as a tool of public diplomacy is particularly resonant in a region of the world where the impact of United States policy has, on occasion, been perceived as far from benign.