Engagement is applied in diplomacy as a synonym for a wider range of more specific practices of contact between an international actor and a foreign public, including public diplomacy, communication and the deployment of international aid.
It was the title of a 2008 anthology of essays on the future of public diplomacy published by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
[1] Since January 2009, it has been widely used by the Obama administration, who in May 2009 announced the creation of a unit within the National Security Council responsible for coordinating diplomacy, aid and international communication called the Global Engagement Directive.
[2] Variations on 'Engagement' include 'Strategic Public Engagement', which was first seen in June 2009 in a report by the Washington-based Think Tank Center for a New American Security entitled Beyond Bullets: A Pragmatic Strategy to Combat Violent Islamist Extremism.
[3] The term engagement is used in both military and marketing contexts and thus has the advantage for the Obama administration of reassuring both these constituencies[clarify].