In spite of its growing importance in public debate, diplomatic security has received very limited scholarly attention. This introduction outlines the dimensions of diplomatic security, explaining how the volume contributes to the literature on both security and diplomacy, and briefly describing the content of each chapter.

The United States' diplomatic security apparatus that operates today from Washington DC to Iraq and Afghanistan is uniquely massive. It is incomparable in its size, budget, degree of institutionalization, and level of sophistication when set against both other nations as well as its own humble origins in WWI. To understand why this is so, the first half of this chapter historically maps and causally explains how, and why, US diplomatic security has been transformed over the course of its modern hundred-year history. The second half provides an empirically rich study of the various roles and functions of the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security and the US military units that protect the US diplomatic mission.

China's rise as a global power and its proactive foreign policy have been extensively researched. The challenges China faces in sustaining its growing diplomatic presence, including the protection of its diplomatic posts and personnel abroad, have been much less studied. In recent years, Chinese diplomats have been increasingly operating in unstable environments and have become the target of terrorist and criminal groups. China's growing economic footprint and the large number of Chinese citizens traveling to and living in foreign countries exert further pressure on consular services and expose Beijing's diplomats to additional risks and challenges, ranging from hostage negotiations to the evacuation of Chinese nationals. As this chapter shows, Beijing has yet to fully develop legislative and institutional frameworks to manage these growing challenges.

This chapter examines the United Kingdom's diplomatic security policies, arrangements, and methods during the Cold War and post–Cold War eras, explaining where responsibility for the procedures used to protect missions lies before touching on the role of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and other government agencies in underpinning diplomatic security. In particular, the chapter notes that British diplomatic protection remains based on an informal approach that relies on the personal contacts and previous experience of the security personnel responsible for protecting missions abroad.

At the beginning of 2017, a French government decree transformed the Sub-Directorate for Diplomatic Security into a full-fledged directorate of the ministry of Foreign Affairs under the name of the Directorate for Diplomatic Security. This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of today's French diplomatic security policies. To this end, it relies on documents and interview to examine the process underlying the creation of a dedicated service dealing with diplomatic security and investigate how such arrangements have been shaped by French diplomatic culture and more general transformations in French foreign policy.

Since the end of the Cold War, counterterrorism has joined traditional counterintelligence concerns at the top of the German diplomatic security agenda. Germany has designated diplomatic security predominantly as a responsibility of the police, and has tasked the German Federal Police (Bundespolizei) with the lead role in providing security for its diplomatic installations around the world. This chapter offers a brief review of the Federal Republic of Germany's diplomatic activities and its efforts to maintain diplomatic security from the Cold War to the present. It then examines some of the main challenges to diplomatic security today, and how Germany has responded to them.

Despite the increasing number of attacks on Russian diplomatic representations and personnel abroad, Russian diplomatic security has received very little attention. This chapter examines Moscow's approach to diplomatic security, showing that Russian diplomatic protective arrangements have been characterized by an increasingly large military component. Overall, however, Russia's diplomatic security policy has been reactive and slow. This, as epitomized by the murder of the Russian ambassador in Istanbul in December 2016, hinders the effective protection of Russia's diplomatic personnel.

Even if the Italian diplomatic presence abroad has slightly diminished since 2013, Italy still maintains the fourth largest diplomatic network worldwide. Italy has a clear and long-standing system in place for the protection of its diplomatic corps, complementing host country protection with the dispatch of units from the Carabinieri, a gendarmerie corps with both military and law enforcement duties. Nevertheless, as this chapter shows, the growing exposure of Italian diplomatic missions to a variety of threats requires the allocation of further resources to diplomatic security. The need for budgetary cuts and public criticism of the alleged privileges enjoyed by diplomatic personnel abroad, however, make the allocation of additional funding and personnel to diplomatic security problematic.

Israeli diplomatic delegations have frequently been targeted by terrorist attacks. The Israeli state has established a single overarching approach against this violent campaign, choosing the Israeli Security Agency (ISA) as the leading organization tasked with countering attacks against both diplomatic missions and other civilian objectives abroad. The ISA has been crucial in enhancing Israel's diplomatic security by providing intelligence and armed personnel to protect missions abroad.

Turkey saw the secrecy of its diplomatic communications and the safety of its diplomatic personnel repeatedly threatened from the early twentieth century to the present day.

Over the last thirty-five years, the Department of State (DoS) has experienced four wrenching incidents: the 1983 Beirut embassy bombings; the 1998 East Africa embassy bombings; the 2007 Nisour Square incident; and the 2012 attack on the Benghazi Special Embassy Mission. These tragic events have challenged US approach to diplomatic security, forcing the DoS Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DS) to become less tolerant of risk and better able to assess and understand the consequences of the risks it continues to face. Drawing on the author's experience as a special agent within the DS, this chapter examines these four incidents as catalysts for a more robust understanding of risk management in the DoS, outlining their implications on the evolution of US diplomatic security.

This chapter explores the entanglements of Western diplomatic efforts with the war on terrorism, arguing that this involvement might increase diplomats' insecurity. It takes a critical approach to "security" and the "securitization" of diplomacy, that is, the discourse that portrays Western diplomats as under an "unprecedented" level of threat that requires extraordinary security measures. The securitization of diplomacy in the theaters of the war on terrorism has led to further distancing between diplomats and locals, translating into the use of isolated fortress embassies and the resort to military escorts and private security companies. This chapter sheds light on the short-term and problem-solving nature of this securitization and seeks instead to re-engage diplomacy as a powerful structuring force in the international system.

The Conclusion examines the nature and scope of diplomatic security policies worldwide, the factors underlying their variations, their effectiveness in securing diplomats, and their implications for the conduct of diplomacy. It provides novel insights into the study of security and diplomacy alike. Most notably, it underscores the importance of organizational interests and cultures in shaping protective arrangements, conceptualizes diplomatic inviolability as an international norm, and posits the existence of a trade-off between effective diplomacy and effective diplomatic security. Arguing that diplomacy in a traditional sense has partly lost its importance has become commonplace. States' reluctance to close missions in dangerous locations, arguably the most effective security policy available, vindicates the enduring importance of traditional, face-to-face diplomacy in the twenty-first century.