Globalization: the challenge to America: computers and the Internet have made the world a much smaller place--and brought foreign competition right to America's doorstep.

• Author: Friedman, Thomas L.
• Position: Cover Story

When your computer crashes in the middle of a late-night homework session and you call a help line, there's a good chance in this era of globalization that the friendly person assisting you is on the other side of the world, possibly in Bangalore, India's high-tech capital.

Bangalore is home to not only Indian firms, but also to outposts of American companies like Dell, IBM, and Delta Airlines, which in recent years have been hiring Indians to handle jobs outsourced from the U.S. Well-educated, ambitious, and fluent in English, young Indians cost a lot less than their American counterparts: A call-center employee in Bangalore makes around $5,000 a year, compared with about 525,000 in the U.S.

Today, there are 150,000 people in high-tech jobs in Bangalore, and they're doing a lot more than answering help-line calls. Someone in India [or China, South Korea, or elsewhere] may be preparing your parents' tax returns, reading your X-rays, or writing software you'll soon be using. Globalization has entered a new phase, with critical implications for all Americans, especially young people. New York Times Op-Ed columnist Thomas L. Friedman wonders if the U.S. is ready for the challenge.

For so many years, America's economy was so dominant on the world stage, so out front in so many key areas, that we fell into the habit of thinking we were competing largely against ourselves. If we fell behind in one area or another--whether it was math and science skills, broadband capacity, or wireless infrastructure--we took the view that: "Oh well, we'll fix that problem when we get to it. After all, we're just competing against ourselves."

In recent years, though, with the leveling of the global playing field, it should be apparent that we are not just competing against ourselves. The opening up of countries like India, China, and Russia means that their young people can plug and play--connect, collaborate, and compete--more easily and cheaply than ever before. And they are. We, alas, are still coasting along as if we have all the time in the world.

"Today, the most profound thing to me is the fact that a 14-year-old in Romania or Bangalore or the [former] Soviet Union or Vietnam has all the information, all the tools, all the software easily available to apply knowledge however they want," says Marc Andreessen, a co-founder of Netscape and creator of the first commercial Internet browser. "That is why I am sure the next Napster is going to come out of left...