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This paper examines how international education (IE), as an important tool of public diplomacy (PD) and soft power (SP), faces unique challenges as issues of national security (NS) become more prominent in this era of new geopolitics. It presents a model to understand the relationship between PD, SP and NS and then applies this model to a comparative study. The contrasting histories, approaches and perspectives of IE as it operates as a component of foreign policy and at the nexus of PD, SP and NS in both the U.S. and Canada are analysed. The paper concludes with three challenges faced by IE in the contemporary context: first, the diminishing role of the university as a distinct and valued non-state actor; second, the weakening of foreign policy as an outward looking, distinctly international investment; and third, the problem with choosing isolation over engagement as a strategy.

Little research has examined public diplomacy as a comparative education issue, particularly regarding social-psychological, economic and political fears or personal and national insecurities. This paper discusses American public diplomacy as a mostly Cold War strategy adapted to post-9/11 national security interests, fears and desires. It further explores differences, similarities, and debates in Canadian media, policy documents and academia, in response to American political, economic and military pressures or demands for a "North American" (i.e. joint American-Canadian) security approach. From a critical pedagogy perspective the paper argues that modern public diplomacy has been a dubious, pseudo-educational, fear-mongering concept nurtured by academics, politicians and military leaders as part of an American foreign policy, military security and propaganda strategy. The paper further shows that post-9/11 Canada, problematically, adapted its own public diplomacy policies to serve American interests. Further research is needed to examine more closely public diplomacy's impacts on Canadian education. (Contains 1 note.)

It is a common narrative among politicians and political experts that Trump's foreign policy is turning the US inwards and abandoning its global leadership: i.e. what we now are witnessing is a new form of isolationism. However, if you look at the administration's vision and strategy, you won't find isolation, but rather an active foreign policy, including the desire of a continued global supremacy. It is perhaps a more unilateral approach, but at the same time it is following a pattern in US foreign policy that we should pay more attention to, namely how every administration is using the opportunity to expand US spheres of influence when possible. This is done by re-formulating its global role and the means to achieve it. This paper will focus on the ways Trump's election and his "America First" policies and the administration's National Security Strategy (NSS) are part of a broader pattern that is often ignored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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