Pop star and charity activist Bono suggests in a New York Times guest column that the the Nobel Peace Prize offers a chance for America to renew its international credibility and have a tangible effect in helping world concerns.

"The world sees that America might just hold the keys to solving the three greatest threats we face on this planet: extreme poverty, extreme ideology and extreme climate change. The world senses that America, with renewed global support, might be better placed to defeat this axis of extremism with a new model of foreign policy," says Bono.

He adds, "The Nobel Peace Prize is the rest of the world saying, 'Don't blow it.' But that's not just directed at Mr. Obama. It's directed at all of us. What the president promised was a 'global plan,' not an American plan."

Marian Salzman asks how America can reshape its image for Euro RSCG. Keith Reinhard, president of Business for Diplomatic Action and chairman emeritus of DDB Worldwide, says that international exchange and tourism is an excellent tool for creating ambassadors.

"The United States is the only developed country with no federal department of tourism and no national budget for tourist promotion," Reinhard points out. He emphasizes the need for visa reform, more international students at American schools, and a public welcome message from President Obama and key government figures inviting international visitors.

Nicholas Cull, director of USC's Master of Public Diplomacy Program, stresses on the USC Public Diplomacy publication the difference between words and actions. Cull describes America's attempts avoiding the appearance of propaganda using terms like public affairs, public diplomacy, and the least toxic word at present, "engagement."

Ultimately, Cull writes, "The danger –- as with any re-branding or re-labeling –- is that the product or behavior behind the label does not change. For Obama-era Global Engagement to mean more than Bush-era Public Diplomacy it needs to be more than Bush-era Public Diplomacy."

Bono argues that Obama is not simply talking the talk. His vocal commitment to the Millennium Development Goals, "alongside the administration's approach to fighting nuclear proliferation and climate change, improving relations in the Middle East and, by the way, creating jobs and providing health care at home, are rebranding in action."

British diplomat Nic Hailey also notes that nation branding in the traditional propaganda sense will be inadequate, and possibly backfire, if deeds do not match words. In an October 8 talk at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, Hailey stressed, "Some diplomacy will always be secret because there will always be things that you need to do behind closed doors," he said.

"But, what I'm doing privately, secretly, needs to be consonant with what I'm saying publicly. If I'm privately, as a nation, suppressing minorities and doing bad things and torturing people and then publicly, as a nation, saying that 'I am the beacon of human rights,' people will just laugh at me."

A case in point is the Kerry-Lugar bill. Last week, an opinion column in the Wall Street Journal on Pakistan suggested that some members of Congress risk a return to the Bush diplomacy era with exactly this kind of maneuver. On the one hand, the bill offers $7.5 billion in aid to Pakistan over the next five years, with the goal of reducing violence rooted in poverty and fueled by extremism.

On the other hand, the Journal points out, the harsh language some lawmakers want to add to the bill needlessly offends a wide number of Pakistanis it is designed to court in the first place –- a "gratuitous thumb in the eye of Pakistani national pride."

Bono insists that Obama's commitment and enthusiasm for the Millennium Development Goals "remind the world that America is not just a country but an idea, a great idea about opportunity for all and responsibility to your fellow man... The world wants to believe in America again because the world needs to believe in America again. We need your ideas-- your idea --at a time when the rest of the world is running out of them."