In an article published in the Department of State’s Bulletin on November 7, 1948, entitled simply “The Voice of America,” Allen stated the purpose of the Department’s information activities, including VOA, the Congress had authorized earlier in the year with the passage of the Smith-Mundt Act

When Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi took the stage to accept the Oscar for A Separation, he spoke of his film as a counter narrative to talk of war and offer a view of Iran “through her glorious culture, a rich and ancient culture that has been hidden under the heavy dust of politics.”

Reexamine the strategy of “reset” with Russia. The President should commission the National Security Council to form a task force for a bottom-up review of Russia policy in view of Putin’s return to the Kremlin and Moscow’s sabotage of the U.S. policies on Iran and Syria. The U.S. should use its public diplomacy assets to “name and shame” Russia as an enabler of the Iranian and Syrian regimes.

Nearly a year ago, as Japan struggled with the devastation wrought by the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami, the United States military launched “Operation Tomodachi,” a major humanitarian aid mission, to help the Japanese government respond to the crisis.

Sports diplomacy builds on Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s vision of “smart power,” embracing the use of a full range of diplomatic tools—in this case, basketball—to bring individuals together in order to foster a greater understanding of societal norms and cultures.

The world's nations achieved a U.N. goal of cutting in half the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water five years ahead of the 2015 target...The water target was one of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals to reduce global poverty that government leaders, nongovernmental organizations and the United Nations have been working to achieve, with varying success.

Diplomats are increasingly using social media to promote their countries’ foreign policy. Leading from the front is the US Embassy in Wellington and its social savvy Ambassador. Ambassador David Huebner is all for embracing innovation in diplomacy or, in foreign policy speak, 21st Century statecraft.

Innovations are a source of soft power. At a time of an unprecedented economic recession, soft power fueled by innovations remains America's greatest competitive advantage...The US experience suggests the way China has transformed itself into a new superpower will not be possible without building up its soft power that provides fertile ground for innovative products.