Joseph Nye is a University Distinguished Service Professor at Harvard University. He is also the former Dean of the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, the Assistant Secretary of Defense under the Clinton administration from 1994-1995, and a current member of the Foreign Affairs Policy Board. He is the author of many books, most recently Is the American Century Over?

Following a speech at the University of Oxford in early June, he spoke with Samuel Ramani. That interview follows.

Even during the height of the Cold War with its threat of Nuclear Armageddon, the cultural exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union never ground to a halt. But in the last few years, because of the "boomerang effect of a rancorous legal battle between the Russian government and the Chassidic Jewish group, Chabad" (LA Times 1/17/13), Russia imposed a ban on all art loans to American museums. This legal case is based on Chabad's decades-long effort to recover religious books and manuscripts that the Russians expropriated after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917.

BEIJING — More than 140 years ago, the United States government designated Yellowstone as the nation’s first national park — an untouched Western landscape of geysers, grizzly bears and soaring peaks. The national parks program eventually expanded to include more than 450 sites and has become one of the country’s greatest tourist draws.

The FBI agents who broke the International Football Federation scandal in late May by getting a bunch of foreigners arrested in Switzerland are naturally convinced that their sole purpose is to combat corruption. American ideologues who advocate “R2P” – the “right and responsibility to protect” – have no doubt that U.S. armed intervention is a suitable way to protect human rights. Air Force officers who bomb people in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Yemen take it for granted that they are eliminating terrorism.

The leaders of seven wealthy democracies gathered in southeastern Germany on Sunday and Monday for a two-day summit that touched on a number of issues, including climate change and combating terrorism. (The Group of 7 consists of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States.) But it wasn't strictly work for the leaders, as evidenced by photos snapped of a beer-swilling U.S. President Barack Obama. When in Rome, er, the Bavarian Alps ...

Corn dogs, gravy, s'mores and squirrels — just a few of things that most Americans don't give a second thought to, but things that are brand new to some people visiting from another country.

In a recent report, Development Initiatives said many social programs are severely under-funded in developing countries. Across all least developed countries, only 20% of costs are financed.

When the community of nations gathers in July to discuss the issue of development financing, Canada and other wealthy nations will be asked to substantially increase their foreign assistance budgets.