...Should America's hard power and divide-and-rule approach triumph, Africa may descend into one large theatre of war with many actors, chapters and a tragic ending. Should China's soft power and win-win economic approach triumph, this may end up becoming a truly African Century.

In order for soft power to be effective, however, you need a foundation of trust between countries. This can be a problem with traditional forms of cultural diplomacy, which are often perceived as being merely vehicles for sweetening the appeal of government policy. If a country is perceived to be overly self-interested as it deploys soft power, its efforts will fall flat.

Today’s NATO suffers from a public diplomacy overload rather than an image problem. Far from being a panacea to its democratic deficit, the dominant influence of public diplomacy strategies and their advocates on Allied decision-making is arguably part of the problem.

Thailand is now most of the way through the first term of the Obama administration, and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has introduced and implemented the concept of "smart power" in relation to US foreign policy, which attempts to strategically combine elements from both "hard power" and "soft power" approaches.

...Turkey has a policy of outreach at the moment. It has been really active in Africa, in Asia and in Latin America using all its methods of soft power. And I’m sure that they would appreciate, would want better relations with China in spite of the differences that might be between them.

As the drive has accelerated it has helped give Ankara something it rarely had before: soft power, the allure of a country widely seen to be a success.

The US government’s failure to accord American Muslims the same respect, rights and privileges due to American citizens is nothing short of an ethical failure...the American insistence on profiling the Muslim minority at home is causing the US to lose its moral high ground, and with it, the soft power it once exerted.

If a state possesses sufficient “soft power,” it has acquired the ability to frame and shame events and actors in international relations...The French role in last year’s intervention in Libya was a perfect example.