We couldn’t have picked a more salient topic or a more critical time to talk about new media and their impact on our relationships around the world. Throughout the Middle East, people are shaking off decades of restrictive government controls.

As our attentions are increasingly focused on the Middle East, deficit reduction, spending and job creation…one issue that receives little attention but is inextricably linked to each of these critical issues is the mass privatization of American power. We are exploring this theme in my Corporate Diplomacy II course this spring, the inspiration of which came from the work of international relations scholar Allison Stanger, Director of the Rohatyn Center for International Affairs at Middlebury.

By the numbers, women have largely achieved equality in the U.S. For those who want to continue the fight, there is plenty of work left to do — abroad.

Cricket diplomacy is the opposite of the notorious “gunboat diplomacy,” in which forces are deployed and coercion is used against the opponent. In the context of Pakistan-India relations, the history of diplomatic episodes in the name of cricket is not new.

After years of spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to get its message out to Afghans, the United States is still experimenting. The State Department, for example, is trying a new communications approach in Kandahar by turning to old media — radio and television.

President Obama said Monday that the military operations in Libya have succeeded in averting a humanitarian catastrophe, but he pledged that the United States would continue to scale back its involvement in the conflict over the coming days.

I've just returned from a mission trip with First Methodist Dallas to San Jose , Costa Rica, where we worked with a pair of Texas missionaries who are building an orphanage. More on Texas' ties to the children's home to come soon...

The U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy is charged with appraising U.S. Government activities intended to understand, inform, and influence foreign publics. The Commission formulates and recommends to the President, the Secretary of State, and Members of Congress policies and programs...