When Knowledge Stops at the Water’s Edge

Understanding other countries requires more than studying them from afar. This fundamental fact is hardly news. In the 18th and 19th centuries, young people conducted a grand tour of other countries to get to know them better (and, by extension, their own countries). Over the past few decades, all manner of universities have launched semester-abroad programs that make such learning extremely easy.

But increasingly, young Americans with foreign-policy and national-security ambitions are eschewing interaction with foreign countries and even foreign individuals. They want security clearances, and they know that any foreign exposure will complicate matters. This intellectual isolationism risks severely harming U.S. foreign and security policy—just when an acceleratingly unstable world needs able U.S. officials.

Understanding other countries is a daunting and sometimes humbling experience. For the most part, the first step involves attempting to communicate in a foreign language. One can improve one’s abilities by watching movies and television from the countries in question, or by reading newspapers or listening to the radio.

As a teenager, I improved my German by reading Bild-Zeitung whenever I got access to it (Bild was easier reading than Der Spiegel and Die Zeit, to which I later graduated). Later on, I worked on my Italian by watching Italian movies without subtitles. To this day, I regularly listen to RAI (Italian radio), both to keep myself informed and to improve my linguistic abilities.

But even if one does speak the desired foreign language well, one can only understand the country in which it’s spoken by living there for an extended period of time. It involves learning that country’s culture and cultural references, and preferably understanding its society and politics. “I don’t drink coffee, I take tea, my dear,” Sting sang in Alien in New York. But when in Rome, do as the Romans do. Or try, at least.

As an expat, one will always be in the minority. Frequently, one won’t get cultural references, or one will misunderstand them. That has happened to me countless times ever since I moved abroad in my first year of university (I’ve remained abroad ever since). It’s frequently humiliating and exasperating, though it is, of course, often enormously educational. And learning a bit of humility is not a bad side benefit of getting to know another country.

Starting in the late 1600s, young Europeans of means considered the grand tour a must in their civic education, and subsequent generations have also appreciated the value of interacting with other countries. The United States’ Gen Z appreciates it too. Indeed, many of the best and brightest among America’s Gen Z want to make a career out of foreign affairs and international security. They want it so much that they map out their next steps at an early stage. Those steps include applying to the finest U.S. graduate programs in foreign affairs and national security.

Once they’ve arrived in these fine institutions of higher learning, the world is their oyster, right? Not so much. In recent months, I’ve been hearing more and more from professors of international affairs that their students are so focused on getting security clearances for their hoped-for government jobs that they’re forgoing foreign contacts. They’re opting out of study-abroad opportunities and avoiding friendships with foreign students.

Princeton undergraduates’ choices of what field to major in give a good indication of ambitious college students’ thinking. In 2022, the university’s six regional concentrations—which include German, French and Italian, and East Asian Studies—were among the school’s 10 least popular concentrations, the Daily Princetonian reported.

For the third year running, the most popular concentrations were computer science, the School of Public and International Affairs, economics, and operations research and financial engineering. Last academic year (the most recent available), meanwhile, Princeton had a total of one Master’s student in German, two in Slavic languages, four in French and Italian, and six in East Asian Studies. It had no Master’s students in Spanish and Portuguese.

Last fall, George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, which produces “leading experts in business, security, diplomacy, public service, development, conflict resolution, public health, and other fields,” ended its Master’s in European and Eurasian Studies.

During the Cold War, Washington took knowledge of other countries extremely seriously. Universities offered area studies, in which students specialized in, yes, a specific area of the world—and that included learning not just the relevant languages, but the culture and politics, too, not to mention spending time there. Because the government valued such expertise, area experts could look forward to a good career. American students often spent half a year or a year in East Germany, in the Soviet Union, in Poland.

Today, few such programs remain, and even when they’re offered, students—with careers and security clearances in mind—steer clear of them. “My cursor hovered lovingly over ‘East Asian Studies’ (EAS) for a few seconds; then, with a firm finality, I scrolled down and clicked on ‘School of Public and International Affairs’ (SPIA). One last click, ‘submit form,’ and the deed was done,” a Princeton student named Vincent Jiang wrote in the Daily Princetonian last spring.

Today’s ambitious young men and women in top graduate programs will no doubt get their security clearances, and they’re certain to land good jobs in foreign and security policy, too. But what knowledge will they bring? The United States’ many Iranian Americans and Chinese Americans, meanwhile, would be ideal recruits to the CIA or the NSA. They, though, have a reduced chance of getting security clearances to begin with.

With limited exposure to friendly and unfriendly countries, the next generation of diplomats and intelligence officials unlikely have the kind of knowledge Washington needs. That’s a great pity. During the height of globalization, when many a country gave the impression of moving in a Westerly direction, the United States might have been able to get away with insufficient understanding of its fellow nations. But with the geopolitical standoff between Western countries and a China-led grouping intensifying, with the Middle East on the brink of escalating conflict, and with Russia menacing its neighbors, Washington needs such knowledge.

Meanwhile, traffic in the other direction is proceeding briskly—indeed, it’s exploding. In the 2021-22 academic year (the latest year available), British universities had 680,000 foreign students compared to 2.18 million students from the U.K. The former included 152,000 from China and 17,630 from Hong Kong. Nearly 127,000 Indians were studying in Britain, too, as were 9,000 Saudis and even 15 North Koreans. By contrast, a mere 23,000 Americans were studying in Britain. (Already in 2017-2018, the total number of foreign students in the U.K. was extremely high, at 470,000.) At U.S. universities, the percentage of foreign students has grown by 149 percent since 1976—but by only 47 percent since 2010.

Many of the foreigners enroll at Western universities through programs funded by their governments. Indeed, this month a British investigation into concerns that foreigners were exploiting higher education as a way of getting work in the country found that the vast majority of them were, in fact, bona fide students.

Expertise gained from books and television is fine, but woefully inadequate for people who make decisions about foreign and security policy. Yes, well-trained U.S. diplomats and intelligence officers send good information back to Washington. Even they, though, suffer from the same cultural myopia as their graduate-student brethren, often serving in foreign countries whose languages they don’t speak.

Indeed, many a diplomat seems to prefer life inside the embassy compound than out in the field. And even the most insightful diplomatic dispatches are of little use if the recipients back home possess a Washington-centric view of the world. There are many people in recent U.S. administrations who would have benefited massively from living in other countries.

Granted, new espionage legislation in Russia and China makes living there daunting for Americans and other Westerners. But it’s still possible. And there are countless other countries future U.S. officials ought to know from more than reading and remote viewing.

“Make area studies cool again,” as the Daily Princetonian headline urged. Amen to that—and to real knowledge about other countries. Not because such knowledge needs a “cool” label, but because it’s indispensable.