In this article, Jeff Bale reviews empirical research, policy analysis, and other forms of scholarly commentary on the long-standing rationale of framing language education in service of U.S. geopolitical and economic security. This synthesis directly calls into question the commonsense view that national security and economic competitiveness are the most expedient, if not the most effective, rationales for framing and implementing foreign and/or heritage language education policy in the United States. To substantiate this argument, this chapter is divided into three parts. First, Bale provides an historical overview of formal (and sometimes informal) language education policies tied to U.S. geopolitical and economic security. Second, he identifies and synthesizes three analytical stances within scholarship about this connection between language education policy and the "national interest," namely, technocratic, pragmatic, and critical approaches. He concludes the chapter by identifying several gaps in the literature on this complicated relationship between language learning and national security.