I think, though, chas, you underestimate the effectiveness of NEED when it comes to being multilingual. In the US, we have essentially an entire CONTINENT (or large portion of it, anyway) that speaks the one language. Most other parts of the world have neighboring countries closer than you to me that have entirely different languages. Those people NEED to talk to each other...

If and when the States have sufficient close neighbors with foreign languages (Spanish seems the first and most likely), you will see more emphasis placed on it. Until then, we can afford our 'arrogance', or as I prefer it, lack of NEED...