Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates acknowledged Sunday that the unrest in Libya did not pose an immediate threat to the United States. Even so, he and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the Obama administration was justified in taking military action.

In an effort to deflect and counteract leftist regimes in Latin America during the Cold War, Washington attached great political importance to its propaganda efforts. From Cuba to Chile, the US sought to promote friendly media while cultivating the support of right-wing reporters.

Over the past decade, China’s economic and military might have grown impressively. But that has frightened its neighbors into looking for allies to balance rising Chinese hard power.

Over the past two years, in a departure from the policy of reassurance it adopted in the late 1990s, China has managed to damage relations with most of its neighbors and with the United States. Mistrust of Beijing throughout the region and in Washington is palpable.

Contending forces—be they from the ruling class or activists organizing from below—make strategic choices based on the quantity and type of the resources they have at their disposal.

In the realm of public diplomacy reports, there are too few that should be on your required reading list. “Social Media Strategy: Bringing Public Diplomacy 2.0 to the next level” (820kb PDF) is an exception.

Strongly condemning the desecration of the Holy Quran in Florida, the United States, Ulema on Friday urged the Muslim Ummah to adopt a comprehensive strategy to help check such incidents and to avoid confontration among the followers of different religions.

On 12 March, the Arab League called on the United Nations Security Council to impose a no-fly zone over Libya, reports The Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal contends that “American liberals and the Western European chattering classes,” are the people mainly complaining about US presence in the Arab world, not Arabs. While the Obama administration, plagued by “American self-abnegation,” relies on the international community to intervene in the Libyan conflict, the United States may be losing the confidence of the Arab street.