The DoD could and should have done a better job. That’s clear from their decision to set up a rapid response force in Spain.

It seems that despite multiple attacks over the past couple of decades against FSOs and diplomatic facilities, some of which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people, the focus on security has been more on hardening the facilities themselves, rather than tactics to deal with potential attacks themselves.

We’ve seen embassies and consulates turned into armored fortresses (creating an architectural style that is brutalist in tenor and far more removed from central city locations as an attempt to improve security postures). The problem is that in many parts of the world, that’s not possible - and the funds simply aren’t there.

That means that staff has to make due with what’s available - and staff has to work around the appropriated amounts. The Benghazi situation was complicated by the fact that State was shifting security obligations far too quickly so that no one was able to gain a good picture of the situation and stick around long enough to implement. Congressional failures to fully fund State’s security initiatives again contributed.

This isn’t just a matter of throwing money at the problem. Diplomatic security is a balancing act. You want to maintain an open dialogue and encourage people to interact with diplomatic staff - not just sit behind fortified walls. But you have to give security the tools and means to respond when something goes terribly wrong.

Attempting to judge higher-ups based on what someone on the ground saw/did doesn’t actually add anything of value to the discussion. It allows those who see the attacks as a political opportunity to grandstand in Congressional hearings rather than understand what needs to be done to fix the problem.*

If that means getting the DoD and State to work closer together to develop a rapid response team that can be called upon to act within a short timeframe - within 4-6 hours of the initial report of problems - with a range of force responses, with a follow-on force to secure the situation within a reasonable time thereafter.

The problem of course is that what I may think of as reasonable is someone else’s idea of completely unreasonable - as in even a 4-6 hour response is unreasonable when we can have a UAV overhead in X minutes (ignoring that there are actions that only someone with the training, tactics, and capabilities on the ground can do and it takes logistics to make that happen).

*see my follow up comment