soft power

June 22, 2014

Foreign education is both a vital 'export' service that earns sizable revenue, and a powerful connector between countries and peoples. Then why are education facilities for foreign students treated as a neglected orphan in India? 

Joseph W. Westphal, ambassador of the United States to Saudi Arabia, met Higher Education Minister Khaled Al-Anqari on Thursday to discuss strengthening of educational relations between the US and Saudi Arabia.

A far more compelling contest between Ghana and Germany will shortly demand your attention.  But just for an instant, you were a witness to someone else’s history. You wanted them to do well. That’s the most potent form of diplomacy.

U.S. foreign policy is failing.  Russia is pushing into Ukraine and threatening Eastern Europe; China is bullying Japan, the Philippines, and Vietnam in the East and South China seas; and terrorist groups in the Middle East and Africa are displaced from one place, only to multiply and create more lethal threats in others.

Why is Japan so off-the-wall in insisting on waving the bloody shirt in front of the world public by slaughtering whales and dolphins in the most inhumane manner possible and then defending the bloodshed with bogus claims? Japan's outrageous actions in supporting the carnage are truly breath-taking. 

Antica Rome restaurant opened its first branch in Riyadh in May. Italian Ambassador Mario Bovo and members of the embassy staff were present at the opening.  The ambassador lauded the close bilateral ties.

Who would have thought that it is the hard power driven Vladimir Putin who would demonstrate to the world the use of the whole spectrum of power tools in the 21st century. He learned from his past mistakes, picked up our debate on soft/smart power, and, by the time he decided to invade Ukraine, he knew exactly how to wield the whole set of his tools.

In East Asia a new kind of big country-small country relationship is taking shape. There are two big countries involved in this situation: a rising China and the long-established power that is the United States. These two big countries need to find a way of accommodating each other’s aspirations and managing current tensions or there could be a disruption of the existing relative peace in the region. 

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