Which foreign language will be most valuable in the next 20 years?

[Schmedlap]

To a young college student who has an interest in contemporary issues in the Middle East and Afghanistan-Pakistan region – but no particular preference regarding any country – which foreign language/country studies would you recommend that he/she study if the intent is to play a role in the major national security challenges of the next generation? (At least the largest challenges among the locales applicable to the languages given).

This is kind of a crystal ball question, since the answer depends on how you expect us to leverage our national power in those regions. I was recently asked this by a college junior (in the fall) who is considering pursuing OCS, State, or CIA. (My first question was to ask him, “you realize those are three different universes, right?”). I gave him my rationale – which is paraphrased below. I also made it abundantly clear to him that I have no idea what I am talking about and that he would be wise to ask his professors.

For my pick, I am thinking Urdu. Pakistan has nukes. Even if we miraculously manage to extract ourselves from Afghanistan, we’ll still be knee deep in Pakistani security issues.

Runner-up – I’m thinking Arabic. We’ll be living, working, and operating in the Arabic-speaking countries for a long time. Kuwait may as well be a PCS (maybe it already is?).

I suspect that Dari and Pashtu will become exponentially less critical as we search for ways to escape from Afghanistan. There seem to be a lot of Indians who speak English, so I’m also thinking not Hindi. Iran may become as problematic as Pakistan, due to its pursuit of nukes and possible internal instability, but I don’t think we’ll have as much dialogue with them as with the Pakistanis – so not Farsi.

Thoughts?