Mr Nye, a veteran observer of global affairs, is more optimistic. He expects that America will still play the central role in the global balance of power in the 2040s. What, after all, is the alternative?

The phrase public diplomacy may not have become an official term in the popular press until World War I. But it was during the Civil War that deliberate, state sponsored programs began attempting to influence the public mind abroad about American foreign policy.

Nowhere is the contrast between Benedict XVI and Francis more tangible than in the degree to which the papacy seems to have recovered its diplomatic and geopolitical swagger. The normalization of relations between the U.S. and Cuba in December 2014 came about in part thanks to Francis, who wrote private letters to President Obama and Cuban president Raúl Castro that reportedly helped break the ice between the two leaders.

The United States ambassador to South Korea, Mark W. Lippert, was attacked Thursday morning by a knife-wielding man who said he opposed joint American-South Korean military exercises, according to the South Korean police and journalists who were at the scene.

The chemistry between Netanyahu and Obama has never been good. It’s not a matter of personalities. It’s a clash of realities—the two men see the world differently. Obama believes the best way to protect Israel—and broader American interests—is to get a deal that will curtail Iran’s uranium enrichment, cut its stockpile of fuel, convert its facilities, and require intrusive daily inspections.  

Since becoming president, Barack Obama has emphasized soft power, suggesting that an over-reliance on military force has alienated many of the United States’ friends and allies without achieving much in return. But many Republicans, and even some Democrats, accuse him of overcorrecting (...). For all their finger-pointing, both parties have, in reality, come to embrace an intermediary approach—what can best be called “energy power.”