These systems were largely the result of cold war Defense Department investments and have resulted in a modestly successful commercial industry. In light green are countries for which machine translation capability is being developed. Yellow indicates countries in which a primitive capability is available, and the red identifies those countries for which no machine translation capability is known to exist. Machine translation is available for major European and, to a lesser extent, Asian languages, but it is generally not available for areas of current and anticipated concern. Overlaying the map with stars to identify countries for which the State Department has issued travel warnings, and with bombs to indicate countries of recent terrorist incidents, we readily see that areas of concern are poorly served by contemporary machine translation products and services.
Analysts confront an impossible problem.
Exhaustive search is typically expected, in order to avoid missing a key fact, event, or relationship, and most information is in text, including, for example, the Web, newswire, cables, printed documents, OCR d paper documents, and transcribed speech. Critical information sources occur in unfamiliar languages. There are always many simmering pots, and it is unpredictable which will heat up. Commercial machine translation is inadequate, and essentially non-existent for all but the major world languages 9. The world today is a complex, dynamic place.