, Columnists
America's Digital Infrastructure Is Crumbling, Too
Brain drain and lack of a coherent policy have increased the risk of widespread failures and hacker attacks.
Ready for a hack attack?
Photographer: Jeremy Piper/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Last weekend I passed through the glittering main terminal of the Hamad International Airport in Doha, Qatar. It is highly efficient, utterly beautiful and ultramodern. I cannot think of a single U.S. airport that compares favorably to it in any dimension. China today is building high-speed rail networks, new modernized ports, and seemingly endless stretches of smooth highways at a prodigious rate. We used to think of a “missile gap” threatening the U.S. during the Cold War. Today we are increasingly facing an infrastructure gap -- and it is expanding daily.