The Foreign Service Journal, December 2012

At the same venue, security specialist Gavin de Becker said that government’s responsibility is to provide reasonable security in response to “warranted fear.” But he added that there is no way to protect against unwarranted fear without imprisoning ourselves. Barbara Bodine, then-U.S. ambassador to Yemen, echoed those concerns. She lamented that the isolated location of her new embassy in Sanaa prevented diplomats from building “essential relationships,” and observed that the resulting long drive to work actually made themmore vulnerable to terrorists. She pointed to “technology and innovative design” as the means to move beyond the model of the embassy as an isolated out- post. “Embassies should be integrated with their surroundings and culture,” she said. During the years that followed, government reports con- tinued to cite security deficiencies and unacceptable working conditions at diplomatic facilities, described in one Government Accountability Office report as “shockingly shabby.” And the State Department continued to chronicle active attempts, some- times two or three a day, to target U.S. personnel and facilities around the world, particularly in the Middle East and Southwest Asia. So as SEDs proliferated from Phnom Penh (2005) to Astana (2006), Bamako (2006) and Quito (2008), it was hard for critics to fault them. They moved many thousands of workers to far more secure and modern workplaces in record time. But it was not long before a chorus of concerned critics coalesced. It included members of Congress, diplomats, senior The “fortress”model was an expedient solution to an urgent problem.