Fortress America
I worked for American embassies for fourteen years. A commercial officer (i.e., my job was to help sell U.S. products), my office was sometimes in the embassy itself, sometimes in a building close by, and once located across town. Only once was one of my embassies attacked. It was during the first Gulf War and a local terrorist fired an AK-47 at our embassy. The attack was at night when few of us were at work, and the victims were a computer terminal and some drapes and window glass.
Diplomatic work, undeniably, can be dangerous and diplomats of all countries deserve protection. (It is instructive to glance at the 231 U.S. diplomats who lost their lives overseas between 1780 and 2009.) And it is a truism that the most powerful countries are also the ones whose embassies are most subject to attack. That makes American embassies a target. So how do you protect that building and its occupants and still conduct the country’s business? That is a conundrum that has not been resolved. The conventional answer is to pull all your personnel inside a protected compound and build embassies and consulates to withstand possible attacks. Since terrorists can operate anywhere, that implies fortified embassies everywhere.
Not yet a fortress
Simon Tisdall published an article last week in the Guardian, entitled “America’s New Crusader Castles.” The article speaks eloquently of the new fortified American embassies and “bunker consulates” that the United States is building worldwide, but with special emphasis on the Middle East. Remember the attacks on the American embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi in 1998? A friend, another commercial officer, helped pull his bloodied ambassador out of one of those. Since then, says Tisdall, the United States has spent $17.5 billion on building 68 new embassies and consulates, with another 29 in the pipeline. Each of these is designed to forestall such attacks. And, in virtually every case, they project a fortresslike atmosphere forbidding to the communities in which they are set. Tisdall argues that these new embassies appear as crusader castles in places like Kabul, Baghdad, Cairo and Jakarta. In the developed world, too, Berliners are upset about the new American embassy near the Brandenburg Gate and Londoners shudder at the prospect of the new embassy arising in their suburbs. Not that the giant box on Grosvenor Square did much for America’s image. The new embassies are aesthetic disasters, but admirably meet the security dictum that you must appear to be a “hard target” if you don’t wish to be attacked. I don’t know how to strike a balance.
The new embassies are not good for business – in several senses. They isolate embassy staff from the community, making it more difficult for America’s diplomats to have an accurate feel for what is going on around them. They also repel people who might otherwise wish to meet and chat with Americans. As a commercial officer, I generally had more business visitors – American or local – if my office was outside the security perimeter of the embassy. Businesspeople simply don’t like to go through the hassles of gaining entry, just as no one enjoys the security screening at an airport. In some societies, the local authorities pay close attention to who comes and goes at an American embassy, and that can be incentive enough for a local not to visit an embassy. Businesspeople are far more likely to meet if you are at a neutral site such as a private office building.
I can also argue that America’s commercial staffs are safer away from the embassy. For one thing, there are very few American commercial officers, most of the work done wonderfully by local commercial specialists who know their market far better than a rotating officer can ever know it. Yes, the commercial staffs help U.S. companies make sales, but that means they also help local businesspeople make money – always popular in a local community. And, to my knowledge, no commercial staffer, American or local, has ever been injured by a terrorist EXCEPT when they were in an embassy.
Kudos to anyone who recognizes the American embassy in the picture! It’s one of the ones I worked for, though my office was several blocks away.
