After two centuries of economic growth and increasing world influence, America has come to view itself as a nation apart. Other countries - France, Great Britain, Germany, Russia - may have been great powers. But the US has historically seen itself as an exceptional power - one destined to lead the others into a globalized era of democratic peace, underpinned by a universal network of free trade.

What if the United States isn't just experiencing a deep recession but is entering a period of long-term economic decline? Analysts point out that in some ways the U.S. has already taken a backseat to China, which is the world's largest manufacturer and exporter.

In Afghanistan, the vast majority of the population relies on agriculture for its livelihood. Three decades of war have not changed the central importance of farming in this country, only its difficulty.

Westerners watching keenly for how India will align itself in international affairs found reason to cheer at the start of the year.

Two-time Olympic medalist and five-time world champion Michelle Kwan will travel to Singapore January 9-15, 2011 on behalf of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

When a nation is busy devouring itself, in a manner that threatens the larger global peace, other nations' policies and public diplomacy will be complicated indeed. In the case of a disintegrating Pakistan, American policy has tended to make effective public diplomacy virtually impossible and irrelevant.

When a nation is busy devouring itself, in a manner that threatens the larger global peace, other nations' policies and public diplomacy will be complicated indeed.

In the case of a disintegrating Pakistan, American policy has tended to make effective public diplomacy virtually impossible and irrelevant.

The advance of China and the multidimensional strategic challenge that it poses are most effectively characterized by one of the most loosely defined and misunderstood buzzwords in the modern parlance: soft power.