[Lou L]

The US is happy to continue to excel in business, warfighting and technological innovation.

Surely, you realize that an understanding of geography is essential for all of these, do you not?

[wideawake]

I'm not sure why a knowledge of geography is essential to technological innovation - but the simple fact is that America is a meritocracy and has always produced as many intelligent and well-educated people as it needs.

Global geography is almost entirely irrelevant to many people's daily lives - but if you quizzed the same people on the geography of their tri-county area, I'm sure there is an encyclopedia of information in their heads.

Americans are biased toward practicality, always have been and always will be.

[NathanR]

The US is happy to continue to excel in business, warfighting and technological innovation.

Geography is not essential in any of these. You either need way more or way less. e.g. In Warfighting, you need to know how to read military topo maps, and what the best way is to get there from here locally, but only at the command level do you need more.

Knowing geography is neither necessary nor sufficient to develop technological innovation. Einstein needed geographical knowledge when escaping Hitler, not when developing the Theory of Relativity.

Even in business, a broad knowledge of geography is not needed. It might be useful, but is not needed.