Furthermore, despite making impressive efforts to cultivate its soft power, Joseph Nye concludes that China “has had a limited return on its investment.” Perhaps most importantly, while the past decade has undermined global opinion of U.S. power and policy, China has been unable to develop strong alliances.

Efforts to stabilize Somalia have been intensified.. Getachew Reda, a public diplomacy and communications director general at the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on Wednesday said the coordinated military operations, to wipe out Al-Qaeda linked extremist group in "disarray".

"Modern international relations lie between peoples, not merely governments." The above quote is from a State Department report entitled Memorandum on the Postwar International Information Program of the United States. The report was completed in July 1945...

The flurry of attention that the girl bands Girl’s Generation and Wonder Girls got in South Korea for making appearances in the U.S. earlier this month suggested that Korea’s pop culture was cracking the U.S. more than it really is.

The United States and Europe used sanctions and public diplomacy to try to effect change in Burma. We cut off non-humanitarian funds, targeted the regime with stiff sanctions, and publicly challenged the junta on its human rights abuses.

Ms. Sonenshine is currently the Executive Vice-President of the United States Institute for Peace (USIP), but was nominated by President Obama for Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy in November. Once confirmed, she will lead the country’s public diplomacy efforts abroad...

APDS Blogger: Jennifer Green

Washington, D.C. -- We are just so excited to be in a place where others understand the term “public diplomacy.”

The “we” I am talking about is the delegation of 18 public diplomacy graduate students from the University of Southern California, on an inaugural trip to Washington, D.C. to meet with professionals working in our field at various organizations. The goal was to broaden our awareness of careers in public diplomacy, and to build connections and opportunities between the East and West coasts.

The most successful cultural diplomacy strategy integrates people to people or arts/culture/media to people interactions into the basic business of diplomacy. The programs in Afghanistan, Egypt, and Iran all contribute to core goals of U.S. policy in those countries. Each succeeds by empowering local voices, rather than by conveying ideas through American emissaries.