Intelligence and the Language Gap

Here's an interesting essay by Spengler on a big vulnerability in the intelligence war. An excerpt:

In terms of linguistic and cultural capacity, the US today commands what may be the lowest-quality clandestine service of any great power in history. Why don’t more Americans learn foreign languages? Turn the question around: why do they forget the languages they already know? The children of immigrants almost invariably lose the native language of their ancestors. One finds German festivals in Wisconsin with lederhosen-wearing brass bands, Weissbier and bratwurst, but no one who can form a single German sentence. Italian-Americans march through the streets in what they imagine to be native costume to honor the birthday of Columbus, without knowing more than a few obscenities in a southern dialect.