When you turn on the television in Europe, coverage of what happens in America jostles alongside domestic news. Europeans have a fairly good understanding not only of America's geography but also its political history.

When you turn on the television in America, a different reality emerges. Not only is our coverage dominated by issues at home, but at times only a cursory attempt is made to ensure that the names of foreign leaders and places are pronounced correctly.

Now you may think these are the frustrations of a linguistic pedant, but when we fail to correctly understand the world in which we live, how can we possibly know how to react to it? In these turbulent times, we must provoke ourselves to understand those around us, so that we can make informed decisions on the foreign policy agendas of those we seek to elect.

A report conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2022 confirmed our diminishing international understanding. It found that only 48 percent of Americans could name the capital of Afghanistan (Kabul) and that only 41 percent could identify the flag of India, the world’s most populous country.

Of course, when you live in Kansas, the prospect of clicking your heels three times and readily straying across a country’s border isn’t a likely one. Even so, we need to ensure that our geographic isolation doesn’t place limits on what we can see and hear.

© The Hill