The Foreign Service Journal, February 2013

30 FEBRUARY 2013 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL inadequate security and leadership failures to have put Ameri- can citizens unnecessarily in harm’s way. Its report faulted the department for relying too heavily on local security forces in its improvised security arrangements, and found the oversight of those provisions to be confusing and undisciplined. Sec. Clinton accepted all of the board’s recommendations (see page 12 for the full list) and requested additional money from Congress to implement its findings, including hiring 150 new DS agents, a 15-percent increase in the force. Additional resources are certainly need-ed, but exactly how they should be deployed is the real question. Regrettably, the Dec. 20 Senate hearing on the topic did not tackle this issue. The word “contractor,” for example, doesn’t even appear in the transcript. Once the urgency of the Beng- hazi report recedes, it is uncertain whether Congress will follow through with the additional funding State needs to hire more agents. And in the absence of that commitment, hiring security contractors will continue to be the path of least political resis- tance, even though experience has shown this to be a highly unreliable option. Alternatively, Washington could choose to refrain from ambitious military intervention, a policy shift our current fis- cal crisis may facilitate in any case. But that would still leave us with the need to meet ongoing commitments, which have already led to reliance on the “fortress embassy” model. No matter how effective that approach may have been in keeping our facilities and personnel safe, our experience in Baghdad and other places raises real concerns about how effective diplomacy can be when conducted from behind a barricade. Formulating the appropriate approach to security at embas- sies and consulates around the globe thus turns, in part, on how one envisions the future of U.S. diplomacy. If carefully calibrated military interventions that avoid the introduction of ground forces are the wave of the future, then the State Depart- ment would be wise to build internal capacity to pursue its mission without unnecessary risk. Or, if the faltering economy makes the American public less willing to finance a large diplo- matic presence overseas, then fewer Foreign Service personnel would be put in harm’s way. However Washington proceeds, properly funding and staff- ing U.S. diplomacy and development programs after more than a decade of war is likely to remain a pressing concern. As that debate unfolds, it’s worth keeping in mind that one of the big- gest hidden costs of depending so heavily on contractors is that it can blind us to those things that only government employees can do well. n