Shimkus, who also served as commanding officer of the U.S. medical ship Comfort, said the United States must not only focus on its military might, but also on its humanitarian power, by providing health care, infrastructure and other aid to people who need it.

Yep, it seems that Pakistan's new 34-year-old foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, has accomplished what years of tense diplomacy haven't been able to -- create some genuine goodwill between the two constantly sparring nations.

It’s quite difficult, to be honest, for the government to do that [control] because many of these soft power tools are not things that we have direct control over. Even if we did try to influence them, that would be — to use the English phrase — the kiss of death, because the fact that the government was doing it would actually detract from the effectiveness of those soft power tools.

Today, such ancient wisdom is proliferating across the whole of China. That the international community can be won over more with soft power has been emphasized by Hu, who has taken measures to spread the knowledge of China's "soft power" across the world.

Byrne and Hall argue that the sheer size of the export education industry is a form of what Joseph Nye famously defined as soft power... Soft power gives Australia an opportunity to pursue its values, promote its ideas and pursue its international interests offshore.

A successful foreign policy should not only protect current interests and address today's threats; it should expand the universe of opportunities for American interests overseas, and defuse threats before they materialize. By doing these things, we seek to create an international context which is more hospitable to the entire range of American interests, rather than simply pursuing them individually.

In the grinding rut of Israeli-Palestinian relations — no negotiations, mutual recriminations, growing distance and dehumanization — the illicit trip to the beach was a rare event that joined the simplest of pleasures with the most complex of politics. It showed why coexistence here is hard, but also why there are, on both sides, people who refuse to give up on it.

Australian diplomats and policy-makers were no doubt watching as Australian cyclist, Cadel Evans edged past Luxembourg rival Andy Schlek to win the prestigious Tour de France earlier this week. They may well hope for a repeat performance when Australia faces Finland and Luxembourg next October in the contest for one of the two available seats on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).