The Foreign Service Journal, May 2015

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MAY 2015 29 Security professionals must balance risks against the requirements of diplomatic engagement. BY ANTHONY C . E . QUA I NTON Anthony C.E. Quainton, a retired Senior Foreign Service officer, is currently a Distinguished Diplomat-in-Res- idence at American University. From 1992 to 1995 he was assistant secretary of State for diplomatic security. He also served as ambassador to the Central African Republic, Nicaragua, Kuwait and Peru. T he buck stops at the regional secu- rity officer’s desk. All security officers know that, yet few of their colleagues acknowledge it. This dichotomy is at the heart of the ongoing tension between security professionals and the diplomatic staff of our embassies and consulates. When there are failures, the secu- rity officer will be at the center of after-action investigations, including Accountability Review Boards. These investigations will start with the assumption that in some way the RSO was negligent in carrying out assigned responsibilities. The recent dramatic attack on Ambassador Mark Lippert in Korea and the ongoing debate about what happened in Benghazi are but the latest examples of this phenomenon. Outside critics want to know whether the RSO took all appropriate steps to protect Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens in Benghazi. And did Amb. Stevens take all appropriate steps to Diplomatic Security Triage in a DangerousWorld FOCUS ON MANAGING RISK protect himself as he carried out his duties as chief of mission? While it isn’t useful to get into the substance of that highly charged debate, several senior Diplomatic Security Bureau heads did roll in the aftermath of Amb. Stevens’ death, and a great deal of attention was focused on specific security mea- sures that were (and were not) taken at the facility in Benghazi. The same may now be true with the attack in Seoul. Such incidents should give us pause and prompt us to ask how security professionals can do their jobs in an extremely REUTERS U.S. Ambassador to China James Sasser peers through the heavily-damaged door of Embassy Beijing on May 10, 1999, following two days of attacks by Chinese protesters over NATO’s May 7 bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.