Diplomatic security after terrorists kill US Ambassador in Benghazi, Libya

[Peter Dow]

Couldn't you accomplish the same goal with a lot less hassle and expense by parking a suitably sized naval vessel offshore and designating it an "embassy"?

Yes in the case of countries like Libya with a nearby coast line it could be a good solution which could be up and running very quickly.

For Libya it would be possible to have two ships - a larger "embassy ship" anchoring 12 plus miles offshore off of Tripoli and a second smaller "consulate ship" anchored 12 miles plus offshore off of Benghazi.

So a fuller range of options if the Libyans say "no" to a land-based fortress embassy would be -

Diplomacy can be done over the internet and telephone, at sea in anchored ships acting as floating embassies / consulates, in a neighbouring country, or in the USA or Europe, Libyans visiting us, until such time as they are ready to say "yes" to the fortress embassies base plan.

For Libya, I had in mind using an anchored ship off the coast as a staging point for supplies to be offloaded from other ships then loaded onto helicopters for onward transport to the fortress embassies base.

I think for Libya the ship embassies solution is a good idea to try out and get some experience of how practical and useful operating a remote embassy would be. This experience could be invaluable to inform the design requirements of a remote fortress embassies base on land.

Ship embassies are also an option for Egypt and Pakistan though not for Afghanistan being landlocked. (The alternatives for Egypt and Pakistan of using a remote embassy based in Israel and India respectively could be considered - although friendly countries Israel and India are not without their own security problems.)

The large U.S. Embassy in Baghdad having invested so much in to enhance security is probably worth keeping for now.

Of course that would be completely inconsistent with the purpose and function of an embassy, but so would a fortress in the desert.

Well I can think of 4 Americans who'd be better off alive and well today in a ship embassy anchored off Benghazi or Tripoli.

So long as the ship embassy wasn't anchored too close to land within missile, mortar or artillery range of the shore I would think it would be fairly safe. I assume it would be a US Navy ship with guns, missiles and marines of course.

Better still is over the horizon 12 miles plus offshore so that helicopters flying from ship to shore can initially fly parallel to the shore but unseen from the shore for an unpredictable distance before turning and heading inland.

If as I have read there are indeed a large number of ground to air missiles in the hands of terrorists then we need to bear in mind that travelling by helicopter can be vulnerable to those missiles or even machine gun fire so it is best security procedure to do things like change the route so that terrorists never know where to lie in wait, have an attack helicopter escort, equip the helicopters used with anti-missile devices etc.

Also even if a diplomat achieves surprise by arriving unexpectedly at a public event in Tripoli or Benghazi, remember that very quickly the word will get out and terrorists with ground-to-air missiles will be on their way to follow the diplomat leaving and to try to shoot down the helicopter when it departs. So don't wait around visiting for too long and lose the advantage of surprise. A quick landing, speech, wave, photo for the cameras, drive away, take off, back to ship - all before the terrorists know anything is happening.

But yes the more I think about it, the ship embassy concept looks good to go!

One of the great advantages of proposing things that you know will never be tried is that you will never be proven wrong, and can carry on for all time claiming that your way would have been better. This is not an uncommon device on these forums, though this is perhaps an unusually extravagant example.

Well as far as the ship embassy concept is concerned, I wouldn't be so sure that it won't be tried.

I believe that a couple of US ships are indeed off shore Libya somewhere but that is maybe more to do with hunting down the terrorists who killed Ambassador Stevens and his colleagues.

So if there are two US ships off Libya now then there might be more one day soon and one ship with the new ambassador to Libya aboard maybe.

Those who would prefer to consider the real world would be well advised to follow Jon's excellent example and become elsewhere, which I think I will do.

Well remember that in real world the US government paying state-sponsors of terrorism billions of dollars in military aid, which is more money than their corrupt leaders have ever seen in their lives before is exactly the incentive to make sure they keep the terrorist fires burning.

If before 9/11 someone had told the Afghan and Pashtun elite that they'd have their hands on $6 or $7 billion per year in military aid to spend if only they'd provide a base to train up some jihadi terrorists to attack America I suspect that they would have readily agreed to do their best to bring it on.

Sometimes the real world needs improving upon and that's the case in the war on terror.