From October 24 through November 11, emerging journalists from 105 countries will participate in the U.S. Department of State’s Edward R. Murrow Program. The flagship initiative...will connect international journalists with their American counterparts, where they will meet in both the newsroom and in United States’ journalism classrooms.

More than 300 of the Communist Party’s most powerful leaders met in Beijing and discussed ways of boosting the nation’s “cultural soft power”: an admission that for all the country’s economic prowess it lacks the magnetic draw of a country like America.

Now, as senior Republican on a key appropriations panel for foreign operations, Graham is trying to stave off funding cuts for a softer kind of power exercised by diplomats, civilian training corps and U.S. contractors who help other governments battle AIDS, modernize schools, instruct police, clean water wells and enhance their armed forces.

“In a world where soft power is so important, the United States is counterproductively compromising its position in a forum that really matters,” said Ronald Koven, who monitors Unesco for the World Press Freedom Committee, an American nongovernmental organization.

Clinton’s 2009 trip is widely acknowledged as a high point in US public diplomacy efforts within Pakistan ... Her accessible manner, blunt talk and willingness to engage directly with different strata of Pakistani society earned her much respect and helped complicate the fiery, nationalist debate around the Kerry-Lugar-Berman legislation.

The American-Russian Cultural Co-operation Foundation was established in 1992. Since then, the annual award is presented to those who commit themselves to encouraging Russian-American cultural exchange and co-operation.

But even Romney, a leading contender, has a chink or two in his foreign policy armor...He pledged to make full use of soft power -- diplomacy and leadership within alliances and organizations like the United Nations.

Foreign assistance creates long lasting partnerships with countries and foreign publics—partnerships that benefit the national security of the United States. By helping to educate, empower, employ, and befriend people in other countries, we decrease instability...