July brings us our nation's birthday, which allows us to reflect on the beginning of America's history...The State Department's request of $2.14 billion for the contributions to International Peacekeeping Activities account, and recover $322 million cut from public diplomacy in 2008.

Today, the Soviet Union has vanished, and Chinese power is growing. Some in the US argue that China's rise cannot be peaceful, and that the US, therefore, should now adopt a policy of containing the People's Republic. Indeed, many Chinese officials perceive that to be the current American strategy.

Harvard professor Joseph Nye talks of a world shaped by the shifting distribution of power from West to East and the growing dispersal of power from state to citizens.The “Arab Spring” is the most spectacular example...

With a potentially contentious Russian presidential election looming in 2012, we at RealClearWorld thought it would be useful to examine just where Russia's leadership is most prized, and respected. Using Gallup data, we set out to find the Top 5 Most Pro-Russian Countries.

International broadcasting remains an important element of soft power diplomacy. Nations want to tell their story to peoples around the world. Those goals remain the same even as the means of telling those stories has changed dramatically.

“Taiwan’s pop music represents an important aspect of the country’s soft power, with cultural flair and business potential, and has taken the lion’s share of the Chinese-speaking market,” GIO Minister Philip Yang said at a news conference. “The tours will take the beautiful and diverse sounds of Taiwan to our neighbors,” he said.

Recently the International Monetary Fund confirmed what the average Chinese has long anticipated: China will soon have the world's largest economy, surpassing the United States. Some Chinese believe that passing this milestone will have automatic consequences for international politics, giving China more international influence. But as history shows, the path may not have a single destination.

In a stance that roughly paralleled that of President Theodore Roosevelt, who famously advised, “Speak softly, but carry a big stick,” General Powell said the U.S. should work through “soft power”—diplomacy, humanitarian aid and the like—to achieve its goals, using military action only as a last resort.