In a much-anticipated speech focusing on development, democracy and religion, President Obama sought on Wednesday to strengthen America’s ties with Indonesia, a rising Asian power with the world’s largest Muslim population. But his intended audience was also elsewhere in the Muslim world, especially in the Middle East...

The global challenges we face today require a strategic, multidimensional approach to public diplomacy. Our Government must develop new ways to communicate and engage with foreign publics at all levels of society. In doing so, we must do a better job of listening; learn how people in other countries and cultures listen to us; understand their desires and aspirations; and provide them with information and services of value to them.

Newly minted President Obama offered an address this morning that can be viewed on many layers. An inaugural address is primarily a message to Americans and secondarily a message to the governments and peoples of the world. But in 2009, more than in most years, this address is a message from Americans to a global village about what America is, what America seeks to be, and how America intends to work with that global village.