Today marks the 36th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, a conflict that claimed the lives of more than 58,000 Americans and continues to affect the United States, including its military leaders and current wartime operations.

That manual has become the guide for counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. It emphasizes that military power alone can’t succeed against an insurgency, and the importance of public diplomacy as part of a “comprehensive strategy employing all instruments of national power.”

Mehmanparast said the West has taken contradictory approaches toward popular uprisings the Middle East and North Africa, particularly in Libya and Bahrain, Tehran Times correspondent reported from Havana.

The Chinese are savvy. They have a strategy to capture highly educated human capital from us. This strategy is in their interest--but certainly not in ours. The problem is that the U.S. isn't counteracting the Chinese effort with one of its own.

The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and U.S. Soccer announced today that former U.S. Women’s National Team players Briana Scurry and Amanda Cromwell will serve as sports diplomats May 1-7 in the first wave of soccer exchanges slated for this year.

We all share a deep belief in the ability of people from different backgrounds and experiences to find common ground if they just have the opportunity to sit together and talk. Simple interactions can have enormous power.

From the monolithic American view, Egypt and Syria would not appear to be especially different countries, although the outcomes of efforts to embrace democracy have been very much so. Meanwhile, pro-democracy movements have encountered varying degrees of success in Tunisia and Yemen and abject failure in Bahrain, where Saudi security forces were part of the crackdown, as well as in Algeria.