Coming: Foreign Language for All Officers

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz has approved a Defense Language Transformation Roadmap, which contains 43 tasks needed to transform foreign language expertise in the military services. According to the road map, the experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq “reinforce the reality that the Department of Defense needs a significantly improved organic capability in emerging languages and dialects, a greater competence and regional area skills in those languages and dialects, and a surge capability to rapidly expand its language capabilities on short notice.” As the road map unfolds, all junior officers will be required to complete a foreign language course, and eventually selection criteria for general officer and flag officer ranks will include a requirement to be bilingual. To execute the blueprint, a Defense Language Office is being instituted in DoD.