The Intelligence Review | volume 3 | issue 5 |

Future Trends
The trend of the rising need for Middle Eastern linguists since 9/11
suggests that this need will continue to grow. Ever since the
beginning of the “global war on terrorism” Middle Eastern linguistics
have been needed because of the United States’ added involvement
in the region. Today, the US is still majorly involved in the region,
and it is very likely that it will stay this way for the foreseeable future
due to ongoing energy, security and military interests (Juneau 2014).
Even though the need for Middle Eastern linguistics will continue to
rise, current data suggests that the decrease or —in the best-case
scenario— stagnation in enrollments for these languages will continue.
Also, even with the addition of more Middle Eastern language
programs in the US, learning these difficult languages will take many
years for new generations of current and prospective IC employees.
While Middle Eastern language learners and programs for them may
be slowly rising, so is the need for those linguists. Therefore, the
language deficit in the US IC will very likely continue for the
foreseeable future.
Conclusion
The topic of Middle Eastern linguistics in the US IC is complex. Much
of the complexity comes from the —understandable— standards of
secrecy in the US IC, which result in numerous information gaps. The
biggest information gap here is that many agencies in the IC do not
release the total number of their employees, let alone linguists. Overall,
the state of Middle Eastern linguistics in the United States Intelligence
Community has changed significantly after 9/11. The demands for
Middle Eastern languages, such as Arabic, were not met after 9/11,
and continue to not be met today, almost 20 years later. The US IC
has done some things to help improve its language capabilities
including providing incentives and creating different scholarship
opportunities, but these have not yet been able to fill the deficit.
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