I'm not on the road yet but I have this blog so I might as well use it.  One of Americas greatest weaknesses is our lack of ability in foreign languages.  Having spent years living in China the most disturbing thing I noticed (other than pollution and the Chinese obsession with being the most powerful country in the world) was the fact that Chinese are masters of language skills.  This is a serious threat to Americas dominance in the future world.  The Chinese have 56 different ethnicities and the vast majority speaks Mandarin (Beijing dialect)along with their local language.  There is not a student that graduates from high school in China that does not speak, read and write English!  The Chinese can send them out into the world (I call them the Borg or fire ants) with their language skills and chase Chinese interests and negotiate.  The Chinese have amazing language skills, wherever they are as government entity be it commercial, military, of consulates the bosses speak the local language.  To further bolster their way of getting things done the core of Chinese foreign policy is
"non interference" The Chinese policy of Non-interference in each other's international affairs is the most important principle in international relations to guarantee each country's right to take care of its own internal affairs and prevent any other country from interfering with any means. 

Non interference basically means whether genocide, cyanide, astro glide or whatever what a country does within its own borders is their business and won't affect political or more important economic ties. So, in China, you have a country with a population of 1.4 billion that has super language skills, dead set of being the most powerful country in the world, a culture that dates back 5000 years, believes themselves superior to those of us in the rest of the world, are cunning business negotiators who are not burdened with a moral compass, come from a nationalistic nation and their tribe can be found in every corner of the planet from a Chinese restaurant in New Mexico to the oil fields Angola. The chinese have almost an inate connection to other Chinese. Recently while in Cambodia one of the Cambodian servants in my house found out I had lived in China and got excited and asked me what China is like. She began bragging about her Chinese heritage and was very proud of the fact that she had Chinese blood in her veins.  I told her she was Chambodian and she loved the word. Our lack of langage skills as a nation is a threat to our national security,  national security and defense talking heads say it all the time, we need more people that speak Farsi, Chinese etc.  

Now for my if "I were president" moment.

1. I would first add thousands of new members to the foreign services department.

2.Pass a law that kids cannot graduate high school without speaking two foreign languages

3. Create an Expat job corps (a capitalist peace corps) that works with American multi-national companies or companies that want to go international offering them "outsourced" skilled Americans. The Capitalist corps would place young people with language skills (be they college grads or not) at multi-nationals in developing countries and take care of their expenses like the peace corps does saving the corporations money and giving young Americans real life experience in what being a global citizen means. These young citizens will understand early in their careers the dynamics of the global economy.