The Foreign Service Journal, December 2012

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | DECEMBER 2012 29 BUILDING THE BONDS OF TRUST FOCUS EMBASSY SECURITY W e are in the midst of an important but undeclared debate about how America engages with the world. In the Foreign Service, we are the ones on the front lines of engagement, and how we choose to conduct diplo- macy in today’s world will have long-term strategic implications. The second half of the 20th century witnessed repeated attacks on diplomatic facilities by criminals and terrorists of all stripes— communist, nationalist, Islamist and narcoterrorist. In most of the world since the end of the Cold War, that violence has faded. But ideologies that reject modernity and use violence to advance political aims continue to fester in some regions. As a result, we face the temptation to pull away when a tiny minority defames their society through an act of violence against our colleagues or our diplomatic facilities. This is one of the major challenges of the new century. Fortunately, our first Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, gave us pretty solid guidance on how to handle it in a 1797 letter to Elbridge Gerry: “Nothing but good can result from an exchange of information and opinions between those whose circumstances and morals admit no doubt of the integrity of their views.” Indeed, American diplomacy has a long history of openness. Our ideals and engagement have helped nurture freedom around the world, from the early 19th-century revolutions of indepen- dence throughout the Western Hemisphere to our outposts of uncensored thought throughout the Soviet bloc, and on to our moral support of the Arab Spring’s struggles for dignity. Our embassies and cultural centers have long been not only symbols of our values but physical incubators of those values. We have offered gathering places and uncensored information because we understand that free societies, no matter where or who, are in our long-term interests. And just as importantly, we engaged the people and societies of our host countries, showing the world the best of America and learning to understand each unique culture in which we found ourselves. Earlier this year I received AFSA’s William R. Rivkin Award for constructive dissent by a mid-level Foreign Service officer. This honor recognized my dissent cable asking the Department of State’s leadership to reconsider policy decisions on security which, I believe, are having negative strategic consequences for our foreign policy. In that cable, I suggested that our zero-risk policies would make us less secure. In particular, I questioned the move toward the fortress architecture that characterizes the Now it is more important than ever to maintain our tradition of open diplomacy all over the world. BY JOSHUA W. POLACHECK Joshua W. Polacheck, a mid-level public diplomacy officer, is currently the senior policy adviser for Near Eastern affairs to Ambassador-at- Large Melanne Verveer in the Office of Global Women’s Issues. After joining the Foreign Service in 2003, Polacheck first served in Harare and Santo Domingo, then on the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Ninewah and in Beirut. In his most recent overseas assignment, he was a deputy border coordinator in Islamabad, where he traveled regularly to Afghanistan. He was this year’s winner of AFSA’s William R. Rivkin Award for constructive dissent by a mid-level Foreign Service officer.