A separate peace

Several months ago Peggy Noonan wrote an op ed where she opined that our country's elites have pretty much decided that the rest of us can go to hell. They are willing to establish a "separate peace" with our enemies, and the current economic situation. Peggy is right but this separate peace idea goes back for years. When I was in elementary school there was a report on our local news that the rich kids in Fairfax County, VA were taking Russian language courses. The rationale was that the Soviet Union would be the dominant world player and that smart parents would make sure their kids spoke Russian. In Canada Pierre Truedeau actually took his sons to visit Russia because the little twerp felt that the future was going to Russian and he wanted them to see the people and the culture. Well, thanks to God, the efforts of JPII and a guy named Ronald Wilson Reagan the Soviet Union died with nary a shot.
By the time I was in high school the fad among rich parents was for their kids to take Japanese lessons because the teachers and parents apparently thought Japan is going to be dominant business force in the world and the kids might as well be prepared for that. Now the rage in certain high income neighborhoods is for the kids to learn Chinese or Arabic. I wonder if well to do parents in the 40s "prudently" had their kids study German--- just in case? Somehow I doubt it.