The US Embassy in Baghdad represents a massive engineering feat. Complete with its own power, food, shopping center, apartments, and formidable defenses, it is a marvel on the same scale as the finest World War Two-era battleships...and about as applicable to the current conflict as iron dreadnaughts were in the era of the aircraft carrier.
The building of massive redoubts has been an obsolete military strategy for centuries, and for good reason. A leader who retreats to a castle or fortress only controls the land on which that fortress stands, and can influence only the people who live within its walls. Within the walls of a fortress, leadership can grow increasingly out of touch with the local populace, with communications both to and from the fortress being increasingly difficult.
Attempts to control insurgencies and hold dominion over foreign countries through the building of massive isolated fortresses was attempted with disastrous results by the Ottoman Turks during the First World War. T.E. Lawrence, one of the intellectual fathers of modern insurgency, talks about a strategic situation in Hejaz in 1916 that was eerily similar to the strategic situation the United States faced from 2003-2007.
Lawrence noted that thousands of Turkish troops had holed themselves up in a massive forward operating base in the Arab city of Medina, digging in for an Arab offensive that never arrived. Lawrence was content to leave the Turks on the perpetual defensive in Medina. For although the Turks may have held the city, it represented only a few square miles of Arabia, an area throughout which the Arab Bedouins moved and occupied at will, spreading their insurgency through the Arabian Peninsula towards Aqaba and eventually Damascus.
Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom, his account of the Arab War, is even more prescient when he discusses his raids against the Hejaz Railway. The Turks would typically only venture out of the safety of their base in Medina in trains along the Hejaz Railway, much as US forces, under the auspices of force protection, would venture out of their forward operating bases in armored columns. Lawrence and the Arab insurgents in Hejaz placed improvised explosive devices along the railroads, much like our current foes place similar devices along the highways of Iraq.
Seeing that the United States was suffering a fate similar to the Turks in Hejaz, General David Petraeus immediately changed US military policy. As part of the comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy which accompanied the American troop surge of 2007, American forces were pushed off of the massive forward operating bases and into smaller patrol bases throughout the cities of Iraq, particularly Baghdad. American troops patrolled the streets on foot, rather than in up-armored HMMWVs. Even though this represented a huge risk for force protection, it also paid huge dividends.
Leaving the safety of their vehicles, the dismounted troops were then able to interact regularly with the local people, provide security, shop in the local markets, collect valuable human intelligence, and gain the trust of the Iraqi people, responsibilities typically falling to other governmental agencies, such as the US State Department.
No one can doubt that the US military should be able to successfully interact with the local population in order to better serve in nation-building endeavors. However, the simultaneous convergence of military and diplomatic policy—that is, the tendency of American diplomats to behave in a more soldierly fashion (i.e., fortress-like embassies), and the tendency of American soldiers to act increasingly as the sole American diplomats--has led to what many foreign policy experts are referring to as a militarization of American foreign policy. Or, to quote a common catch-phrase, "American public diplomacy wears combat boots".
The militarization of the public diplomacy and American embassies is not only limited to volatile area like Iraq. In the United Kingdom, the United States is moving its embassy away from its prime location in Grosvenor Square in downtown London to an isolated area south of the Thames River. The American embassy in Berlin, in accordance with the latest policies in embassy building, is 30 meters away from the nearest street, and was jeered in the German press as being a hideous "lump".
This is a far cry away from the era of the Marshall Plan, when American embassies were designed by the greatest architects, and featured public libraries in which the locals could read and experience American culture. American embassies were a means by which the United States could serve as an example to the world; to showcase the best that the American superpower had to offer.
The design of our embassies serves to reinforce the popular perception of the United States throughout the world. During the Cold War, our embassies served as examples to nations all over the world, reflecting our role as the rebuilder of Europe and promoter of democratic values for many nations. Unfortunately, the design of modern day embassies reflect America's increasing isolation in the world community (both diplomatically and culturally), as well as reinforcing the global community's uneasiness towards American military power.
The US Department of State needs to adopt a two-fold approach to re-examining its public diplomacy policies. First, it needs to stop wasting billions of dollars on embassies that are counter-productive to US foreign policy. While the attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 remind us of the need for the protection of our embassies and diplomatic personnel, it should not come at the risk of our diplomatic mission abroad. Secondly, the State Department needs to hire far more foreign operatives and accustom them to life in dangerous areas. Engaging the local population is the key to success in public diplomacy, and should not be left entirely in the hands of the military.
The State Department would be wise to emulate the success of General Petraeus' counterinsurgency strategy and public diplomacy. American Public diplomacy needs to re-discover its past so that it can continue towards a more successful future.
Captain Crispin J. Burke is a UH-60 pilot with assignments in the 82nd Airborne Division and with Joint Task Force-Bravo in the Republic of Honduras. He is currently deploying to Iraq as a commander within the 10th Mountain Division.