A State Department official said in an email that the American Embassy in Havana was aware of the efforts by private institutions like the Caribbean Baseball Initiative to increase ties between the two countries, and described baseball as “an excellent avenue for sports diplomacy and creating good will between our peoples.”

Ulla Rønberg, wife of recently appointed Danish Ambassador Lars Gert Lose, has spent her career promoting cultural diplomacy long before the term came into vogue. Although she’s on a leave of absence from the Danish Agency for Culture while in D.C., Rønberg is finding ways to incorporate her love of culture with her new role as an ambassador’s spouse.

In November 1999, Nancy Matthews arrived at Tehran airport at 3 o’clock in the morning. Susan Koscis followed directly behind her. Koscis had made the trip a few years earlier through an NGO called Search for Common Ground, when she organised a visit of American wrestlers. Nancy was now planning to find and bring Iranian artists back to the United States for an exhibition. Koscis and Nancy were cultural diplomats.

Elio Alvarez and Lideisy Hernandez [...] joined the largest migration from their homeland in decades. Buying two smartphones for $160 apiece […] they plugged themselves into a highly organized, well-funded […] effort to make human traffickers obsolete by using smartphones and messaging apps on much of the 3,400-mile (5,500-kilometer) overland journey [...] to the U.S.

The use of diplomacy in general and, in particular, to help create a global anti-terror coalition does not need to be demonstrated. Face-to-face diplomacy, at all levels, but above all in the Arab world, where personal relationships are culturally important is much less expensive than security operations, not to speak about the military ones, and it may substantially contribute to improve anti-terror cooperation. 

But cultural policy is not just about preservation and artistic education. What Henestrosa offered is a new approach that emphasizes the potential of culture to boost economic and social development, and the potential of culture in diplomacy.

It takes a diplomat to orchestrate harmonious holiday meals. [...] When Portland Chef Naomi Pomeroy is not creating menu items for her critically praised Beast restaurant and Expatriate bar, she accepts assignments from the U.S. State Department to speak about American cuisine to foreigners.

In Southeast Asia, President Barack Obama has taken a softer tone on human rights and corruption in a part of the world that rights groups claim is rife with abuses.