Our embassy construction reflects present global realities; terrorists have been attempting to kill us under the benign Bill Clinton as well as the 'prickly' George Bush. We are not paranoid. We know that we have real enemies.

WASHINGTON—Recently a major Canadian newspaper extrapolated from the U.S. decision to rebuild/relocate our embassy in London to excoriate U.S. foreign policy ranging from embassy architectural design to "prickly" attitudes toward the rest of the world.

It epitomized the type of commentary that drives Americans to conclude that Canadians "just don't get it" concerning current world security realities.

Anyone with the slightest knowledge of U.S. embassies, for example, in major European capitals knows that security is appalling. In city after city, they are located either on main streets or only slightly removed from such. An illustration of such vulnerability was the old U.S. embassy on Wellington Street in Ottawa fronting directly on the avenue. Structures of this nature are catastrophes waiting to happen for anyone with primitive internet-obtainable knowledge for combining fertilizer and diesel fuel—and a willingness to die.

Indeed, for the national capitals involved, they are the equivalent of attractive nuisances. Just how enthusiastic do you think the citizens of London, Paris, Brussels—just to name a few—are over the prospect of having the U.S. embassy blown up, taking hundreds of local citizens along with it? This was certainly the gruesome reality for our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. Don't Canadians think that we have been encouraged to make our diplomatic facilities less vulnerable by local governments?

Our effort to create less vulnerable structures reflects the reality that killing large numbers of U.S. citizens is a major terrorist objective. And terrorists have become far more effective in creating instruments of terror than they were immediately after World War II. But throughout my foreign service career, U.S. embassies and official diplomatic buildings (U.S. information agency libraries) have been lodestones for rioters, demonstrators, and anyone with a grievance against the U.S.A. Thus, among other instances, the U.S. embassy in Islamabad was burned by rioters in 1979; the embassy in Beirut devastated by a truck bomb in 1983 and attacked again by truck bomb in 1984; and the embassy in Belgrade partly burned this February.

Plaques on the walls of the main entrance of the Department of State identify an extended list of U.S. diplomats killed in service during the past generation. We don't think that a stack of dead diplomats is necessary to indicate "openness"; rather it would suggest weakness and vulnerability—and encourage even more attacks. Thus there are no "John (or Jane) Waynes" in the diplomatic service exuding self-conscious bravado by going unprotected. Just as one sends soldiers into battle with the best available equipment, we will also put our diplomats into quarters that reduce the likelihood of their being killed gratuitously. Frankly, a "bunkered" diplomat is still more effective than a dead one.

Indeed, the effectiveness of greater protection is being demonstrated. Attacks against U.S. embassies in Damascus in 2006 and most recently in Yemen on Sept. 17 were thwarted by greater security protection; attacks against the U.S. consulate in Karachi in 2003 and 2006 were stopped by enhanced security.

Nor, in honesty, have our embassies been anywhere near as "open" as one might imagine for many years. The magnificent architectural design for the U.S. embassy in Athens has been caged and protected for a generation, prompted by Greek anger over U.S. Cyprus policy and relations with Turkey.

Moreover, there is little if any architectural grace in modern buildings. The endless string of glass boxes that were de rigueur a generation ago have succumbed to energy efficiency requirements combined with the reality that exploding glass windows shred everything in its path. So far as design is concerned, every U.S. embassy in recent memory has been excoriated by local observers. The one reality about embassy architecture is that it will never please the local population; even if you cannot draw a straight line with a ruler, you are qualified to be an instant expert on the quality of the design.

Moreover, our embassies in many countries were "best available" quarters in the plethora of spinoff states from the former Soviet Union. They need to be replaced for a wide variety of efficiency reasons—security being just one element. Likewise, embassies constructed in the 1950 to 1960s reflecting the end of colonialism are showing their age; retrofitting isn't anymore efficient than retrofitting automobiles and aircraft from that era to include current safety, navigation, communications, and reliability features.

In short our embassy construction reflects present global realities; terrorists have been attempting to kill us under the benign Bill Clinton as well as the "prickly" George Bush. We are not paranoid; we know that we have real enemies.

David Jones is a former political counsellor who worked at the U.S. Embassy from 1992-96 in Ottawa.