The issue of striking a balance between security and accessibility is one that has been a constant struggle for United States’ diplomatic missions worldwide. How do diplomats meet the competing demands of interacting with foreign populations and keeping safe in a world filled with anti-American extremism?

MINUTES after last week’s violent attacks on America’s missions in the Middle East, the country’s embassy in Cairo was already on Twitter. It tweeted an emergency number for American citizens. It criticised Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood for supporting the protests on their Arabic feed. And it thanked fellow tweeters for their condolences on the murder of the American ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens.

Across the world his standing remains markedly lower in predominantly Muslim nations. However, Leila Hilal, a Mideast expert at the New America Foundation, said Obama may have made more progress toward improving relations than critics say."Obama inherited a very damaged U.S. credibility in the region," she said, and so it would be unrealistic to think that his "new beginning" would take hold fast.

This weekend, I talked to Rick Steves, the travel guru, about the unrest in the Middle East and he underscored the importance of travel as a means of bridging cultural divides. It might sound like a cliché, but it's true: Americans needs to travel because our diplomats can't do all the heavy lifting for us, security restrictions or not.

APDS Blogger: Marissa Cruz-Enriquez

Fostering that kind of eye-opening cultural exchange was the point of the State Department's initial push of artists, academics and business leaders into nations undergoing transformations after the Arab Spring uprisings. And it's also what's at stake as the Obama administration issues travel warnings and yanks personnel from its besieged diplomatic missions across the Muslim world.

The murder of U.S. diplomats in Libya as an alleged reaction to a YouTube posting brings into focus serious differences in culture and values with many societies in the Muslim world. Acknowledging this fact is an essential step in tackling the gaps in the value of human life and religious symbols.