At the same time, no fundamental changes have occurred in the sources of the United States’s power and influence, such as the economy, science and technology, military strength, international political influence, and cultural soft power.

A second batch of South Korean water engineers will leave for Libya later this month to help the war-torn nation restore its water supply services...."Rather than focusing on post-war reconstruction projects, it is time for us to do 'public diplomacy' to win the hearts of Libyan people."

American soft power — its ability to attract and persuade — is increasingly undermined by the government’s inability to take strong action on climate change, something that local opposition to clean energy development only makes worse.

It is not difficult to understand why everybody keeps mum about the tragic events happening in Tibet...Today’s China seems to have a different definition of ‘culture’ or ‘religion’ than the rest of the world. In an official Chinese publication...

A favorable image of Iran, once widely held in the Arab world, has started to erode in the last few years and since the beginning of 2011, it has deteriorated sharply. This is because the wave of unrest in the streets of the Arab world has been accompanied by a major shift in perceptions of Iran.

The international ramifications for China's slowly rebuilding reputation would be too much to bear even for the relatively untouchable Communist Party... On the one hand, Europeans are slowly becoming more reliant on Chinese bail-out money – do not bite the hand that feeds you. On the other, Europe must maintain its soft-power credit, even if only on the surface.

It seems to me, whether it’s called soft power or smart power, it’s a very wise thing to do to invest in development, and it’s very short-sighted to not see the link between our national security and what’s going on anywhere in the world.

In the past 30 years, China has created an economic machine that has lifted more people out of poverty in a short space of time than any nation in history. It has built world-class factories, vast modern cities and a continental highway system. Now it wants to build something less tangible: soft power.