Past presidents have tried to use "soft power" strategies to bolster the United States' cultural appeal abroad and lend moral weight to the country's standing as the free world's leading alternative to communist or authoritarian systems. Such tactics are not a substitute for military and economic "hard power," foreign affairs analysts said, but can help shape global perceptions of the United States and its motives.

In 2016, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India continued to enlarge its foreign policy options and generally pursue the goal of raising the country's international profile. Over the year India exhibited more self-confidence in dealing with challenges, showed more assertiveness in defending its interests, and displayed far more flexibility in exploring compromises on issues of global concern.

So far, Duterte has toured Laos, Indonesia, Brunei Darussalam, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Cambodia. [...] the tours are potentially beneficial for Duterte, who lacks experience in national politics and international diplomacy. He intends to gather insights from various ASEAN states to strengthen engagements and build a common action agenda on regional issues. Just how this corresponds to Duterte’s broader foreign and security policies remains to be seen.

During the 2016 election campaign, Trump declared that many of America’s foreign-policy problems began with the “dangerous idea that we could make Western democracies out of countries that had no experience or interest in becoming a Western democracy.” As on a number of other issues, the president-elect’s dramatic statement broke from not only establishment views within his own party, but the dominant perspective of America’s political and foreign-policy elites.

For much of the past two decades, progressive foreign policy has been defined by what it is against—[...]  But it is much less clear what a progressive foreign policy stands for, and what it would look like in practice. It is especially important to try to define one now, after the election of Donald Trump.

Duterte had announced, upon being elected, that he intended to pursue an “independent foreign policy”. On September 12, he declared he was “not a fan of the Americans” and that he wanted to “reorient” foreign policy with the U.S. On September 27, he added that he wanted to pursue “new alliances with Russia and China.”

In a world that is so tightly interconnected by social media and technology, it is imperative that we take advantage of our robust lines of communication [...] With the uncertainty of our U.S. foreign policy in the face of a new administration, now is a critical time for public diplomacy. The more we connect directly and listen to individuals from other countries, the more likely we are to understand society