Kerry, meanwhile, said America's diplomatic corps should receive additional resources. But he stressed that embassies should not be turned into fortresses that isolate diplomats from the countries where they're working.

The report, by a five-strong Accountability Review Board (ARB), also called for $2.3 billion in extra funding over the next 10 years to fortify and improve some of America’s 275 diplomatic outposts around the world. “It’s no understatement that our diplomats are on the front lines of the world’s most dangerous places,” Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee said.

Our position in the world and how we are perceived from abroad matters economically and politically. A positive image abroad can support export-led growth and inward investment, but also facilitates "soft power" and British influence on the world stage. Has 2012 changed global perceptions and improved brand Britain?

Brazil enjoyed one of the biggest jumps in this year’s soft power survey, marking the end of an impressive year for the country. While Brazil is now well-established as one of the world’s leading economies, a main player on the global stage and one of the all-powerful BRIC nations, it’s impressive spike on the soft power survey indicated that it is also having a very real effect on the culture of the world.

With public diplomacy emerging as a crucial tool of statecraft, Park will have to shake off her out-of-touch image and engage peoples at home and abroad. Her vision for an “era of diplomacy by the people” includes broader opportunities for the Korean youth to take part in development programs, more overseas Korean language schools and support for cultural exports. She has also pledged to scale up official development assistance and house at least five more international organizations here.

Attention, Hollywood political donors: The Obama administration has begun the delicate post-election process of deciding which key supporters to reward with coveted diplomatic appointments, and THR has learned that at least four fundraisers with close showbiz connections are under consideration.

This past week, even as net users across the country were discovering that China’s Great Firewall has been upgraded and that many VPNs no longer work, China’s state-run Xinhua wire service was busy using Twitter. It’s the kind of frustrating irony that Chinese web users are used to by now; the nation embracing popular foreign web platforms to try to get its own message out while simultaneously working tirelessly to ensure that its citizens cannot access those same platforms.

When Vladimir Putin took office as President for the third time, he sent the Ministry of Foreign Affairs a document outlining the philosophy that would guide his approach to international relations for the next five years. Only recently released, the document is very revealing, showing that Putin’s worldview, and his idea about Russia’s role in that world, has changed substantially since he first took office as president in 2000.