people those governments represent diplomats put themselves in harm's way for all of us day and night they live in every part of the globe often in remote places that are afflicted by poverty and violence and they suffer casualties  people deserve it and i missions cannot be effective without it at the same time we have to recognize that the very effective this we seek to maintain with that security is threatened that the security measures are not carefully manage take the symbolism of the american embassy itself for generations of sight of the american flag flying openly in the heart of foreign capitals in oppressive regimes to dissidents relief to americans abroad and pause to many dictators stories are legendary of young people learning in american embassy libraries and cultural centers who would later become leaders of their nations with affection for the united states that they would never forget and yet our concerns with security have now let us to build new embassy compounds of cookie cutter boxes surrounded by walls located on the outskirts of towns one magazine called a new embassy in iraq for example mega bunker of baghdad one of our witnesses today has referred to this phenomenon as fortress america but seven hundred million dollars embassy baghdad is not the only example there are a number of others a slice of them up on the board right now the american flag flies on the outskirts of foreign capitals remote from daily life from inside the fortified perimeter of a massive bunker in the words of one commentator these embassies are the artifacts of fear my concern is that our diplomats are at risk of alienation of becoming unable to communicate face to face with the very people they must try to understand and to influence the risk of irrelevance i don't think that anybody on this panel here today claims to have the answers for the very difficult questions that confront those questions of you know the best way to conduct diplomacy in this post nine eleven world that's why we've assembled such a great group of experts for us to ask these tough questions and to learn from the collective the experience personal a perfect study that these witnesses have given for example of diplomats can't meet with their counterparts travel the country get to know people what purpose do they serve was the symbolism of embassies and what messages do they symbolism and what messages to they sent to the host country and its people what positive symbols should our embassies be sending is a symbolism important back to be reconciled with other considerations such as security and fiscal discipline one of the best ways to protect those serving in our industries embassies abroad we need to focus not  risk avoidance but on risk management and how do we do that how much does heavy security screening reduce casual traffic into american libraries or cultural centers on embassy count how significant is this and what creative options are there for acceptable ever increasing patchwork of government agencies especially the large increases of military personnel who do not report to the ambassador but to a distant a combatant commander so called american presence post that is small expedition type offices with a single diplomat and remote but significant foreign cities be a part of the diplomatic puzzle best provide the necessary manpower if we do not have adequate numbers are numbers of language trained and otherwise adequately prepared personnel to send on these and other missions which the government accountability office among others has documented how do we get them in some how best to the united states pursue diplomacy in the twenty first century and how can we ensure that we had this discussion before we spend more and more millions of taxpayer dollars on fortress like embassies or other activities that don't best serve our core and long term national security needs defense secretary gates recently stressed what is clear to me is that there is a need for a dramatic increase in spending on the civilian is a means of national security diplomacy strategic communications foreign assistance civic action and economic reconstruction development we must focus our energies beyond the guns in steel of the military look like an operational form in the end and confident that we can do the right thing and get the right balance of security and openness of trained personnel resources necessary to carry out the vital task of american diplomacy in the twenty first century but we first need a robust and open dialogue among policymakers experts of the men and women who represent us abroad in the face of great personal sacrifice or again thank outstanding witnesses for being with us today i look forward to hearing and your experience at this point  department personnel we have continued security concerns which in many instances have led to limited mobility outside of the walls of the embassy compound and of course we hear reports of embassies in need of additional the upgrade both in terms of the of increased security for embassy personnel and security of physical structures congress must address these concerns continued oversight and potentially with new legislation in two thousand and two the sub it committee began investigating  partner states rights citing efforts we wanted to make sure the us was putting the right people in the right places and in the correct numbers necessary to meet our foreign policy goals subcommittee held three hearings on this topic including one in april two thousand and three the april hearing focused on the review of u s diplomatic presence to ensure the appropriate number and types of personnel were being assigned to u s embassies and consulates shelf out staffing projections for new embassy compounds for being developed without a consistent systematic approach or comprehensive rightsizing analysis recommended the partner state develop a standard format for projecting staffing requirements and ensure that staffing projects are validated within within the department in june two thousand and six year reported to date had either implemented recommendations always taken steps to implement the recommendations however despite states best efforts thus far more work needs to be done and  reports are useful in helping the state department understand where they can improve their efforts for their oversight by the subcommittee will be helpful and i look forward to working with my colleagues on the subcommittee necessary reforms as chairman we morning is an associate professor at the university of maryland college park and is the author of the architecture of american diplomacy and fortress america she's widely recognized as an expert on the history and cultural impact of united states embassy design  construction dr leslie holds a graduate degree in city planning from harvard university and a doctorate in american civilization from george washington university has also written and commented widely on the new embassy compound program and the united states embassy in officer commissioned in one thousand nine hundred eighty six and has written and commented on the diplomatic strategy on television and in the print press the nayland is a bomb on the calvary officer to serve widely in latin america state department headquarters in the white house this an issue that was more fundamental bigger if you will than the buildings themselves and i'm not saying the buildings are not important i look forward to discussion today but the issue for the commission was how do you do the twenty first century  distracted a little help people ask if architecture really matters when security is such a huge concern there's no better illustration that it does matter than congress is instinctively correct decision after nine eleven to maintain the capitol as a place of business you might have relocated to a lower profile less accessible setting or retreated to home districts and chosen to communicate via teleconference but you did not you decided to conduct business as much security as possible without impeding the business of government or public access to government during the civil war when he might well of stop construction of the great capitol dome president lincoln did not when the people see the dome rising he declared it will be a sign that we intend the union to go on lincoln recognized the power of architecture congress has recognized it when it comes to america's presence abroad we must recognize  good design conveys good intentions well designed buildings represent the best of modern technology show our respect for countries that host us around the world and claim our confidence in the future sadly o b o program with its cookie cutter approach to production which you mention mr chairman conveys neither goodwill nor strength to the contrary it is dogging the global landscape with embassies that resemble big box stores only they are bigger more isolated and far more forbidding than any store designed to attract business or sell a product and an essay does not belong everywhere any more than a wal mart belongs in georgetown with globalization when we face the world we face individual contractors weakens the government's negotiating role and minimizes the contribution of architects and other design professionals whose skills are needed now more than ever for these reasons and more experts warn that soaring maintenance example is the new british embassy in yemen which not only meets security requirements but is also a model of sustainability in a desert climate we can point to nothing comparable any one of the american flag flying a top americans all through the cold war and was considered a symbol of strength in that city and in the picture but it's hard to see are isolated embassy enclaves really platforms for for the head these questions call for answers and in seeking answers we would do well to be guided by the same thinking drive to maintain the openness of the capital supreme court justice stephen breyer recently spoke out on this subject because of his concern that we are allowing security to make too many of our decisions about public buildings we'll end up with buildings that look like our embassy and said deploring as a fortress it's not just about money he said it's about finding people who listen who understand that embassies quote a statement that the united states is a democracy and not walling itself off from the world unquote blumer ambassador to india daniel patrick moynihan addressed these issues in  ninety senator moynihan architecture as a national policy issue and called for an ongoing conversation on how to balance security and openness at home and abroad that conversation has not yet occurred but with your help it can begin minimizing the role of architects in the embassy production process it should be noted that no longer even hires architects for individual projects the exception are only the high profile projects such as berlin and beijing and they also abandon the highly respected peer review panel that served the state department so well between one hundred fifty four in two thousand and four and fiftieth anniversary year and instead created a panel of industry representative of which are slated to receive in the near future these are not third world countries with undeveloped infrastructure they are places where historic preservation and urban design are taken seriously we would not want to return to the architectural ego trips of the fifty's but we must ask of a big box prototype there are interests in norway or the netherlands three design excellence can contain cost and enhance security while standardization can lead to the opposite many were less costly one would meet requirements for the future of the right priorities are offensive not defensive it is far easier to spend money on security improvements to protect buildings than it is to devise and implement programs such as those that ambassador grossman has cited that might diminish the threat of attack and respect for america and what it stands for after all that should be our first priority unfortunately it is easier to install more report will pose logistical challenges by conventional solutions it is worth asking whether the isolated fortress like embassy even provides security advertises many diplomats must travel outside  counterpart tax dollars the only reason it so dramatically in the last decade to avoid a repeat of the tragic bombings of our embassies in east africa that is reason enough to build better buildings of development assistance our embassies are bricks and mortar platforms for projecting u s influence in foreign lands as such of their design location and assess ability certainly matter but as a c s i s embassy the future report stresses diplomacy is foremost about people our diplomats in their capacity to carry out their missions thus i will focus on the human element of the embassy of the future the foreign service is a worldwide available core of professionals with abilities  policy development and implementation foreign service members possess need to possess a range of abilities including foreign language fluency area knowledge management skills public diplomacy skills and jobs specific functional expertise data show that the foreign service is below eighty five percent staffing short one thousand and fifteen positions for overseas and domestic assignments and shored one thousand and seventy nine positions for ending transit in temporary needs a two thousand and six g a o report found that twenty nine percent of language designated positions were not filled with language proficiency staff as a result of understaffing and under investment in training today's foreign service does not have to a sufficient degree the knowledge skills and abilities needed for diplomacy and foreign assistance future u s diplomacy will suffer unless the white house and congress staffing our embassies as being no less vital than staffing our military units future diplomacy will suffer and less professional development of our diplomats is seen as being no less vital than the professional development of our military is calling for for more resources seems self serving coming from the president of ask please let me quote also recent remarks of the secretary of defense robert gates quote the department of defense is taking on many burdens that might have been assumed by civilian agencies in the past the military has done an admirable job but it is no replacement for the real thing civilian involvement in expertise what is clear to me is that there is a need for a dramatic increase in spending on the civilian instruments of national security and quote secretary gates clearly recognizes the value of a well staffed and well trained diplomatic corps just as we think about the embassy of of the future we must not lose sight of the human dimension future u s diplomacy will suffer unless human capital deficits are addressed no matter how well trained u s diplomats are there effectiveness will be limited if they are unwilling or unable to get out beyond the embassy walls to conduct face to face the plum a city fortunately the foreign service has a proud tradition of working the alleys and offices of assassinated in sudan and a u s embassy vehicle was bombed in levanon i have full confidence that my colleagues will continue to volunteer for again dangerous assignments and will get out beyond the embassy walls to interact with foreign publics to do so however they need more training and full staffing for example a diplomat who lacks fluency in the local language may well be hesitant to make contact with a wide variety of segments of the local society a diplomat who received a fraction of the physical security training that is routinely given to intelligence community officers may well feel ill at ease going out to meet a contact an ambassador with an understaffed security office may be unable to safeguard the members of his or her mission thus before existing security procedures are you why is the name of risk management training and staffing gaps must be closed first finally i must mention an ever growing disincentive to service abroad that threatens the long term health of the foreign service and with it the future of u s diplomatic engagement i referred to the exclusion of overseas foreign service members from receiving the localities pay salaries just been given to other federal employees groups of such as the intelligence community officers receive the same basic pay overseas that they receive what in the us however are foreign service currently takes a nearly twenty one percent cut in base pay when they transfer abroad both asset and the bush administration are seeking a legislative correction i think representative on van hollen of this committee for his support in trying to solve the problem i encourage others to follow suit thank you again for holding this hearing thank you was the nail in and i think we've all closer to the center of the city we could have been a park like structure but to the people who needed to have access and there i agree with mark we need to provide different kinds of  foreign service i believe is beggars can't be choosers after the bombings in eighty three and eighty four there was a flurry of discussion about the need for secure embassies but then funding never came so after the tragedies in nairobi salaam the foreign service was just a static that the congress year after year has appropriated funds for embassy construction so i think we were just so overwhelmed at the congress had was going forward with us funding that perhaps that's where people like me kind of stopped thinking about the issue the president nominated and the senate confirmed a very strong willed person to head the overseas building office he pushed through a lot of  very thankful for but now that he's gone perhaps it is a time to ask some of these questions and the issue of funding is critical we need a new embassy in mexico city but to buy a square block in mexico city let alone tokyo would cost a lot of money so funding is so i totally agree that we need to to look at this more i just hope that the funding continues and if more funding is needed to better i totally agree with you that we have to be protected that the world has changed we're dealing with a very changed circumstance for sure i only want to point out that really architecture and security are not mutually exclusive or what i'm talking about they can support one another and in fact you can take examples of even a sustainable design for instance  mansions if you could have an embassy be self sufficient if it could have its own energy supply if it was able to recycle and so forth it could be a safer place it wouldn't be dependent it wouldn't be  if god forbid it were taken over as some of them have been people wouldn't be suffering for lack of water and so forth but that sort of thing in trying to be self reliant and also energy efficient but the in a place which maybe doesn't have fifteen acres to work with and so you really need more creative decisions in put to accomplish those security goals which are as you said the most important and while there seems to be a reference to the human infrastructure that represents american diplomacy they certainly should be i think much more i think america's problem today is not necessarily iraq it's not afghanistan it's america's isolation in the world we're in these places virtually on our own sure there are other countries that are represented there but disproportionately america's presence is profound in traveling to afghanistan pakistan with mr lane mr platts late last year i was also struck by the american military and their emphasis not only on their military duties but more on the humanitarian aspect of their job i think that's very very refreshing and you were hearing from diplomats but from the military personnel themselves that their mission is equal parts humanitarian and equal parts military and when we talk about buildings in fortresses reference was made to daniel patrick moynihan who was a great admirer of american architecture primarily because architecture says something about a community it says something about a nation and i think when you look at the fortune that represent american embassies throughout the world it conveys a sense of isolation and in diplomacy what it is you need is constructive engagement the author has said that in diplomacy style is the substance  i know that it was referenced in the chairman's opening statements to mr nayland as well about john michael granville john michael granville was not only a constituent he was a kid from the neighborhood he grew up a couple of streets away from me and i spoke with his mom a couple of times and years day john was murdered coming home from a new year's eve party at the british embassy in khartoum he was shot five times he died about three hours after the incident in his driver was was was killed instantly but was amazing you know his my it management to me as a representative of the united states government i don't feel sorry for us that her son who she spoke with the night before always said that the importance of his work the importance of his work peace and reconciliation  this particular case trying to reconcile the peace agreement of two thousand five piece agreement between northern and southern sudan after twenty one years of bloody civil war but the importance of his work far far outweighed the  danger of it and while a family was grieving a nation in a community was grieving there was also this sense of purpose that john granville's life had represented and i think it was an extraordinary testament to the great work that diplomats are doing throughout the world when you look at john was with the agency for international development u s agency for international development but when you look at what's happening in places like darfur and other places in the continent of africa and other places in the middle east it's these kinds of people that are doing in the work of reconciliation and who are most susceptible to violence it's  the non governmental organizations because i think when they're doing important work in tough neighborhoods they become most susceptible to violence because their true t and when you look at what's happening in india for the last thing the sudanese government wants is westerners to tell the rest of the world what's really going on there in journalists and humanitarian workers are the  service general is a specialist is increasingly looking more and more like america and if you've spoken to any of the new entry level officer classes you can you can see that we have them over to the absolute headquarters and on the wall the picture of a foreign service class of one hundred thirty four and you can imagine what that looks like and then you have the new officers and specials coming in now there is a famous war for talent and hispanics african americans and others are being courted at least before the stock market crash being courted by wall street and in a lot of other  places we don't have if you take whatever the target demographic is the profile of us college graduates we are not you know on that demographic yet but we're getting closer and closer to it  you know the foreign service is in for some rough times right now every time we in the active foreign service raise our voice a little  there are a lot of people out there not secretary gates but a lot of people out there who jump on it to say we're wimps or or whatever and that disturbs me a lot d locality pay legislation that came into effect in one thousand nine hundred four and i guess state and apps were asleep at the wheel because the overseas foreign service was excluded so now the federal government thirteen percent reflects this convoluted idea of locality pay the cost of a top of attracting talent to the united states to to washington d c or houston or san some other thing but the central intelligence agency if i can say those words their people if they have any overseas washington locality other folks like can't even mention  if they're overseas they get washington locality pay but the foreign service doesn't and it's now a twenty one percent gap now yes if you go to baghdad you're going to get a large danger pa differential but one hundred eighty three of our two hundred eighty six posts now take a pay cut to go to one hundred eighty three of our posts and if america wasn't a two income family two income nation there probably wouldn't be such a huge deal but it is a two income nation but in the foreign service and uniform military has some extent to our spouses often can't get a job in la gos nigeria or to stand and so our family income over a thirty year career takes a major hit and retirement savings take a major hit so having this twenty one percent pay cut when you go one knows what they're getting into when they when they are joining the foreign service and the state department certainly on their on their website doesn't highlight this although they do highlight the danger and other issues which is quite extraordinary  the normal assignment now is a hardship post two thirds of the overseas foreign service posts are now hardship has been cleaned out repeatedly james baker cleaned it out a the idea that foreign service members are all sitting around paris and london is just absolutely no longer the case in fact this is only a little there are now basically have to serve in a provisional reconstruction changed a lot it's now mostly hardship when i joined i went to bogota which with beirut was the only unaccompanied or limited company post now we have something like twenty seven unaccompanied posts or a limited immediately have all the volunteers is just that there was a twenty one percent staffing gap at the mid levels and now afghanistan i don't know this is not public but there  takes care of people after they've done a hard to a hardship to our in terms of their onward assignment so i think we're still ok there the truth is most foreign service members prefer the hardship it was twenty years ago it was just boring as all get out and most foreign service people want the challenge so yes if i could get london for three years i might do it but then i might not i might i might immersion isn't that hard to achieve in the way that foreign service is currently structured it seems as though people are kind of rotated on a pretty regular basis after a short period of time and for to foreign service nationals and one of the many bad things that happened after nine eleven was that some of the trust was taken back from foreign service nationals were only america cleared americans now can do a lot of the stuff in the consulate and i'm sure some of that's appropriate but but moving forward if we could get back some more authority that trusted thirty foreign service nationals