The cardinal rule of Turkish foreign policy is straightforward: Turks love countries that help them against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party...The U.S. needs to make its assistance to Turkey against the PKK, including thus far unreported aspects of such aid, the bedrock of its public diplomacy outreach to the Turks.

Christina Tribble says diplomats’ growing use — and awareness of — social media “has sort of fundamentally shifted the way that we have to reach out, the issues that we think about."

America and Britain invaded Afghanistan 10 years ago, for reasons which were understandable, to wage a short war that was unavoidable...What we have learned is that we hugely overestimated the capacity of our military, diplomatic and intelligence establishments to change other societies.

"The foreign minister and secretary general need to realize that in the world of public diplomacy, where Israel fails again and again, we need to draw the media and its representatives closer to the ministry and its workers, and not push them away"...

One of USAID’s key objectives, said Mr. Miller, is to assist countries and regional institutions in the Pacific to increase adaptive capacity and resilience to the negative impacts of climate change.

Take Mitt Romney's 59-point plan to rebuild America, which contains a set of foreign policy principles.. [including] enhanced "soft power" to bolster American influence around the world and steadfast alliances in Europe and the Middle East.

Those who doubt this need only look at the bipartisan public diplomacy failures of the last decade, or today at the critical elections in Egypt, where the U.S. has an astonishing lack of situational awareness and influence.