The scandal caused a decline in American soft power. After the presidency of George W. Bush, Barack Obama incarnated the promise of a new, value-oriented America, a promise for which he received – rather prematurely – the Nobel Peace Prize. Five years later, the PRISM affair has dealt a heavy blow to Obama's – and America's – reputation, which was already dented by the unresolved question of the Guantanamo detainees and Obama's secret drone war.

Why pulling people in is more successful than pushing them on board. The second lesson I learned was about soft power or the ability to "influence nations far beyond the hard edge of traditional balance of power politics," a concept developed by Harvard political theorist Joseph Nye. As one would imagine, soft power rests on foreign policy and political values. It also relies on culture. The U.S., for example, exerts soft power by exporting over a half a million U.S.-educated foreign students each year. Having lived in Latin America, I was on the receiving end of soft power.

The Voice of America has its very own "mockumentary"-style comedy series – “English Off the Mic.” The program, by the VOA Mandarin Service, aims to teach American English and culture to viewers in China. The show's hosts/actors Lin Yang and Michael Bond and director Chenxing Zhang invite On Assignment's Alex Villarreal to a taping and tell her all about their fun approach to an important need.

For more than a decade, American public diplomacy has centered around Joseph Nye’s soft power approach. This approach is based on the assumption that nations can win global hearts and minds of foreign citizens by highlighting the attractiveness of its culture, political values, and foreign policy. To this end, public diplomacy officials have allocated billions of dollars into a variety of soft power programs such as cultural and educational exchanges, foreign aid and development, and English language instruction.

U.S.-Ecuador relations have become tangled. In June, president Rafael Correa made headlines when he offered NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden political asylum. This was considered an attempt by Correa to demonstrate that he was not controlled by “el imperio” (the empire, as Washington is labeled by several left-leaning Latin American governments). But Quito ultimately withdrew its offer and, in baffling recent news, has hired a public relations firm, Van Scoyoc Associates (VSA), based in Washington, D.C., to improve its relations with the U.S. government.

The end of the Cold War changed the nature and mission of international broadcasting. But Congress correctly saw a continued role for such broadcasting to serve U.S. foreign policy by delivering targeted news and information to places where local media still provide an incomplete picture at best and leave citizens unable to make informed decisions. After adding broadcasts from Radio Marti to Cuba in 1985, and TV Marti in 1990, Congress created the International Broadcasting Bureau in 1994. Then came Radio Free Asia in 1996 and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks in 2004.

The US is to host talks with Israel and Palestinian negotiators in the next week following a breakthrough in the drive to revive the moribund Middle East peace process. John Kerry, US secretary of state, called the move a "significant step forward". The agreement, announced on Friday evening after four months of intensive diplomacy, fell short of a hoped for face-to-face meeting between leaders of the two sides.