American Monolinguism as a Strategic Disadvantage in Counterintelligence

Widespread monolingualism in America creates a major blindspot in counterintelligence. Many may view this as completely acceptable as English, America’s first and legal language, is the most spoken and most learned language in the world. Despite this, none of our adversaries have English as their first language, and they are not keen on using English for their internal communication. Our adversaries will, however, use English as a tool for information operations and espionage in the United States to a level that we are utterly incapable of matching. Russia, China, North Korea and Iran all have advanced intelligence capabilities, and Russia, China, and Iran have a large population of English speakers. Therefore, there must be a sizable, intelligent population of Americans who speak their languages to defeat them in the intelligence sphere. In order to stop our adversaries from taking advantage of America’s monolingualism and committing acts of espionage, information warfare, and other intelligence operations against the American people, The United States’ educational apparatus must support increased efforts to promote language learning among young people.