The Foreign Service Journal, March 2017

30 MARCH 2017 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL to security includes cooperating ever more closely with our Department of Defense colleagues. For example, the number of Marine security guards posted at our embassies has doubled from 1,000 to 2,000 in the past decade. We are conducting more frequent and more complex training exercises with our DOD counterparts. We also have Diplomatic Security advisers posted at the headquarters of the U.S. regional combatant commands. Adapting for an Uncertain Future Internally, DS has been addressing these emerging and evolv- ing trends. We have implemented the recommendations from the Benghazi Accountability Review Board and have taken a hard look at adopting best practices from across the spectrum of missions. In 2012, we created a HighThreat Programs directorate to manage our high-risk posts, ensuring our most dangerous posts receive the focused attention they need. Our recently adopted deliberate planning process (DPP) codifies the way we prepare for our mis- sions, such as providing security for the U.S. delegation to the 2015 Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Nairobi, an event that took place at a high-threat, high-risk post 250 miles from the Somalian border. Supporting this presidential-level summit was the most comprehensive overseas deployment DS had ever undertaken, and was necessary to advance U.S. foreign policy goals. The Vital Presence Validation Process (known as VP2), insti- tuted in 2014, involves a full-scope examination of a high-threat, high-risk post. In this process the compelling national security and policy reasons for a U.S. government presence, the threats to post personnel and facilities, and the measures being taken to mitigate the risk are all spelled out; and an assessment is made as to whether the remaining risk is acceptable. VP2 and other mechanisms constitute “shared accountability” among DS, the regional bureaus and other interagency stakeholders in the risk management process. But the issue of protecting American diplomacy is much broader than DS, broader than the State Department and even broader than the U.S. government. After 15 years of almost con- stant warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan, our Department of State budgets are mostly flat and our Defense Department also faces budget constraints and deep readiness issues, even as the threats and security risks continue to evolve. At the same time, as I noted earlier, the United States has been an indispensable nation. Our presence is increasingly important at a growing number of high- threat posts around the world. DS is the most widely represented U.S. law enforcement and security organization overseas, with more than 2,000 special agents, 220 engineers, 160 security technicians, 100 diplomatic couriers and thousands of domestic and foreign national sup- port personnel. As the law enforcement and security arm of the Department of State, we bear the responsibility of protecting the men and women of the Foreign Service and other chief-of-mis- sion personnel and their families. However, at our overseas posts, risk is not just the business of Diplomatic Security; it is a shared responsibility for all. Therefore, we in DS are working to help the entire Foreign Service evolve into a force in which all diplomats, as well as their family members, are trained in hard security skills essen- tial to operate in today’s world. This transformation in security consciousness includes breaking ground and building, by 2019, a $400-million State Department training center, the Foreign Affairs Security Training Center, at Fort Pickett, Virginia, about 35 miles southwest of Richmond. FASTC will consolidate training now conducted at 11 different sites and focuses not only on hard- skills preparation for our most dangerous locations, but also on basic skills for all diplomats in the event danger strikes anywhere in the world—be it Baghdad, Bamako, Beijing, Berlin, Boston or Brussels. However, as Diplomatic Security continues to be tasked with newmissions and new requirements, the State Department is rapidly reaching the point where we can no longer do more with less. Leadership within the department, within Congress and across the executive branch increasingly—and rightly—demands more from our diplomats, including protecting them as they engage in a dangerous world on behalf of the American people. This requires a delicate but necessary balance between resources to conduct foreign policy and resources to provide a safe and secure environment for the conduct of that foreign policy. Diplomatic Security is undertaking in-depth discussions and making hard decisions on how best to support our nation’s necessary engagement in an unstable world. But these discus- sions need to expand beyond DS. We, as a nation, have to make challenging, tough decisions. With a finite level of resources, we It is essential that we give our people the resources, preparation and backing to handle the crises of tomorrow and the years ahead.