CPD Advisory Board member Markos Kounalakis co-authored a piece about 'Spectral Power' in the October 27th edition of The Christian Science Monitor.

US-based think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has advised US President Barack Obama, who will be visiting India next weekend, that “India should be valued in its own right, not as a partner in containing China.”

The “Africa in Motion” symposium, which took place last Thursday and Friday in the basement of the Northwest Labs, was at once a celebration of Harvard’s recent top-notch scholarship and a sobering reminder of the work that needs to be done to solve the continent’s problems.

What the West needs most is a fresh look at the full range of its capabilities and interests. Only then can its power fulfill its purpose. Seen as a wonder tool, smart power has been embraced as a fresh and benign aspect of power; a definably formulaic mix of soft (cultural) power and hard (military) power.

Hallyu, or the Korean Wave phenomenon, has helped put South Korea on the map as a modern Asian nation with much to offer culturally. But has it brought economic gains to the nation?

China will enhance its cultural soft power in the 2011-2015 period, according to a document of the Communist Party of China (CPC) issued Wednesday. ...A public culture service system should be basically established with the emphasis in grassroots rural areas and central and western regions, it said.

Historian and diplomat Joseph Nye gives us the 30,000-foot view of the shifts in power between China and the US, and the global implications as economic, political and "soft" power shifts and moves around the globe.

Let's play connect the dots. After the US midterm elections, President Obama will visit India, Indonesia, South Korea, and Japan. Trace a line between the nations, noting how it loops down through the Indian Ocean and back up through the South China Sea and East China Sea, forming a semicircle around China.