The Lost Decade is an essential guide for understanding what the historic shift to Asia-centric geopolitics means for America's present and future. Across the political spectrum, there is wide agreement that Asia should be at the center of US foreign policy. But this worldview, the "Pivot to Asia" announced by the Obama Administration in 2011, is a dramatic departure from the entire history of American grand strategy. Ten years on, we now have some perspective to evaluate it in depth. In The Lost Decade, Robert Blackwill and Richard Fontaine--two eminent figures in American foreign policy--take this long view. They conclude that there are few successes to speak of, and that we lack a coherent approach to the Indo-Pacific region. They examine the Pivot through various lenses: situating it historically in the context of America's global foreign policy, revealing the inside story of how it came about, assessing the effort thus far, identifying the ramifications in other regions (namely Europe and the Middle East), and proposing a path forward. The authors stress that the US has far less margin for foreign policy error today than a decade ago. As the international order becomes more unstable, Blackwill and Fontaine argue that it is imperative that policymakers fully understand what the Pivot to Asia aimed to achieve--and where it fell short--in order to muster the resources, alliances, and resolve to preserve an open order in Asia and the world as a whole. Crafting an effective policy for the region, they contend, is crucial for preserving American security, prosperity, and democratic values.

Lost Decade: The US Pivot to Asia and the Rise of Chinese Power

Politics & Social Sciences

Blackwill, Robert D.

Fontaine, Richard

Politics & Government

Oxford University Press

Conventional Arms Control and East/West Security

Larrabee, F. Stephen (eds.)

Clarendon Press

Grand strategist and founder of modern Singapore offers key insights and controversial opinions on globalization, geopolitics, economic growth, and democracy.
When Lee Kuan Yew speaks, presidents, prime ministers, diplomats, and CEOs listen. Lee, the founding father of modern Singapore and its prime minister from 1959 to 1990, has honed his wisdom during more than fifty years on the world stage. Almost single-handedly responsible for transforming Singapore into a Western-style economic success, he offers a unique perspective on the geopolitics of East and West. American presidents from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama have welcomed him to the White House; British prime ministers from Margaret Thatcher to Tony Blair have recognized his wisdom; and business leaders from Rupert Murdoch to Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobil, have praised his accomplishments. This book gathers key insights from interviews, speeches, and Lee's voluminous published writings and presents them in an engaging question and answer format. 
Lee offers his assessment of China's future, asserting, among other things, that “China will want to share this century as co-equals with the U.S.” He affirms the United States' position as the world's sole superpower but expresses dismay at the vagaries of its political system. He offers strategic advice for dealing with China and goes on to discuss India's future, Islamic terrorism, economic growth, geopolitics and globalization, and democracy. Lee does not pull his punches, offering his unvarnished opinions on multiculturalism, the welfare state, education, and the free market. This little book belongs on the reading list of every world leader―including the one who takes the oath of office on January 20, 2013.

Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master's Insights on China, the United States, and the World (Belfer Center Studies in International Security)

Biographies & Memoirs

ALLISON, Graham

Wyne, Ali

Historical

The MIT Press

Grand strategist and founder of modern Singapore offers key insights and controversial opinions on globalization, geopolitics, economic growth, and democracy. &nbsp; When Lee Kuan Yew speaks, presidents, prime ministers, diplomats, and CEOs listen. Lee, the founding father of modern Singapore and its prime minister from 1959 to 1990, has honed his wisdom during more than fifty years on the world stage. Almost single-handedly responsible for transforming Singapore into a Western-style economic success, he offers a unique perspective on the geopolitics of East and West. American presidents from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama have welcomed him to the White House; British prime ministers from Margaret Thatcher to Tony Blair have recognized his wisdom; and business leaders from Rupert Murdoch to Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobil, have praised his accomplishments. This book gathers key insights from interviews, speeches, and Lee's voluminous published writings and presents them in an engaging question and answer format. Lee offers his assessment of China's future, asserting, among other things, that "China will want to share this century as co-equals with the U.S." He affirms the United States' position as the world's sole superpower but expresses dismay at the vagaries of its political system. He offers strategic advice for dealing with China and goes on to discuss India's future, Islamic terrorism, economic growth, geopolitics and globalization, and democracy. Lee does not pull his punches, offering his unvarnished opinions on multiculturalism, the welfare state, education, and the free market. This little book belongs on the reading list of every world leader.

Today, nations increasingly carry out geopolitical combat through economic means. Policies governing everything from trade and investment to energy and exchange rates are wielded as tools to win diplomatic allies, punish adversaries, and coerce those in between. Not so in the United States, however. America still too often reaches for the gun over the purse to advance its interests abroad. The result is a playing field sharply tilting against the United States.
In a cogent analysis of why the United States is losing ground as a world power and what it can do to reverse the trend, War by Other Means describes the statecraft of geoeconomics: the use of economic instruments to achieve geopolitical goals. Geoeconomics has long been a lever of America’s foreign policy. But factors ranging from U.S. bureaucratic politics to theories separating economics from foreign policy leave America ill prepared for this new era of geoeconomic contest, while rising powers, especially China, are adapting rapidly. The rules-based system Americans set in place after World War II benefited the United States for decades, but now, as the system frays and global competitors take advantage, America is uniquely self-constrained. Its geoeconomic policies are hampered by neglect and resistance, leaving the United States overly reliant on traditional military force.
Drawing on immense scholarship and government experience, Robert Blackwill and Jennifer Harris show that if America’s policies are left uncorrected, the price in American blood and treasure will only grow. What geoeconomic warfare requires is a new vision of U.S. statecraft.

War by Other Means: Geoeconomics and Statecraft

Business & Money

Harris, Jennifer M.

Economics

Harvard University Press

Taiwan&#8239;"is&#8239;becoming the most dangerous flash&#8239;point in the world for a possible war that involves the United States, China, and probably other major powers," warn Robert D. Blackwill, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) Henry A. Kissinger senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy, and&#8239;Philip&#8239;Zelikow, University of Virginia White Burkett Miller professor of history. In a new Council Special Report,&#8239;The&#8239;United States, China, and Taiwan: A Strategy to Prevent War, the authors argue that&#8239;the United States should change and clarify its strategy to prevent war over Taiwan.&#8239;"The U.S. strategic objective regarding Taiwan should be to preserve its political and economic autonomy, its dynamism as a free society, and U.S.-allied deterrence-without triggering a Chinese attack on Taiwan." "We do not think it is politically or militarily realistic to count on a U.S. military defeat of various kinds of Chinese assaults on Taiwan, uncoordinated with&#8239;allies. Nor is it realistic to presume that, after such a frustrating clash, the United States would or should simply escalate to some sort of wide-scale war against China with comprehensive blockades or strikes against targets on the Chinese mainland." "If U.S. campaign plans postulate such unrealistic scenarios," the authors add, "they will likely be rejected by an American president and by the U.S. Congress." But, they observe, "the resulting U.S. paralysis would not be the result of presidential weakness or timidity. It might arise because the most powerful country in the world did not have credible options prepared for the most dangerous military crisis looming in front of it." Proposing "a realistic strategic objective for Taiwan, and the associated policy prescriptions, to sustain the political balance that has kept the peace for the last fifty years,"&#8239;the authors urge the Joe Biden administration to<ul><li>affirm that it is not trying to change Taiwan's status;</li><li>work with its allies, especially Japan, to prepare new plans that could challenge Chinese military moves against Taiwan and help Taiwan defend itself, yet put the burden of widening a war on China; and</li><li>visibly plan, beforehand, for the disruption and mobilization that could follow a wider war, but without assuming that such a war would or should escalate to the Chinese, Japanese, or American homelands.</li></ul> "The horrendous global consequences of a war between the United States and China, most likely over Taiwan, should preoccupy the Biden team, beginning with the president," the authors conclude.

The United States, China, and Taiwan: A Strategy to Prevent War

Zelikow, Philip

Council on Foreign Relations

Iran: The Nuclear Challenge maps the objectives, tools, and strategies for dealing with one of the most vexing issues facing the United States and global community today. The book brings together leading experts — CFR’s Elliott Abrams, Robert D. Blackwill, Robert M. Danin, Richard A. Falkenrath, Matthew Kroenig, Meghan L. O’Sullivan, and Ray Takeyh — on the issues and contingencies surrounding Iran’s nuclear program, including sanctions, negotiations, U.S. and Israeli military options, regime change, and how to deal with a latent or actual Iranian nuclear weapons capability. This volume presents one of the clearest pictures of Iran’s nuclear program to date, along with the various policy options available to the United States and others and their potential consequences. "Iran: The Nuclear Challenge is perhaps the most comprehensive and nuanced analysis of how we should think about Iran's nuclear program. Assembling a cast of distinguished scholars and seasoned policy practitioners, this CFR volume examines the political, economic, and military strategies associated with the Iranian nuclear problem. Each author carefully fleshes out the contours and consequences of available U.S. policy choices, providing the reader a deep understanding of the Iranian nuclear dilemma. Iran: the Nuclear Challenge will undoubtedly enhance our debate on the most challenging security issue confronting the United States today." --Stephen J. Hadley, former national security adviser “Iran: The Nuclear Challenge unravels and isolates the choices available to the United States as it faces the possibility of Iranian nuclear weapons capabilities—an illuminating work even for those already well versed in the issues. The authors, all senior fellows at CFR, provide insightful personal analysis as well as the tools necessary to form one’s own judgments, affording a meaningful exercise in foreign policy decision-making. With the mission of informing readers not what to think, but how to think about Iran's nuclear activities and U.S. options, Iran: The Nuclear Challenge will remain of significant value to practitioners and students alike.” --Samuel R. Berger, chair of Albright Stonebridge Group and former national security adviser

Iran: The Nuclear Challenge

O'Sullivan, Meghan L.

Kroenig, Matthew

Takeyh, Ray

Abrams, Elliot

Danin, Robert M.

Falkenrath, Richard A.

Council on Foreign Relations Press

Robert D. Blackwill and Ashley J. Tellis argue that the United States has responded inadequately to the rise of Chinese power. This Council Special Report recommends placing less strategic emphasis on the goal of integrating China into the international system and more on balancing China's rise.

Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China (Council Special Report)

Tellis, Ashley J.

In light of China's deepening economic slowdown, "China's foreign policy may well be driven increasingly by the risk of domestic political instability," write Robert D. Blackwill, Henry A. Kissinger senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), and Kurt M. Campbell, the Asia Group's chairman and chief executive officer, in a new Council Special Report. "Economic growth and nationalism have for decades been the two founts of legitimacy for the Communist Party, and as the former wanes, [Chinese leader Xi Jinping] will likely rely increasingly on the latter."  Xi's "dominance of the decision-making process [has] made him a powerful but potentially exposed leader," the authors note. To protect his position, Xi will "most probably stimulate and intensify Chinese nationalism—long a pillar of the state's legitimacy—to compensate for the political harm of a slower economy, to distract the public, to halt rivals who might use nationalist criticisms against him, and to burnish his own image."  The report—Xi Jinping on the Global Stage: Chinese Foreign Policy Under a Powerful but Exposed Leader—notes that China's economy, which had expanded at an annual rate of 10 percent for three decades, is entering a new era of considerably slower growth.  To strengthen his position at home, Xi "will probably intensify his personality cult, crack down even harder on dissent, and grow bolder in using the anticorruption campaign against elites who oppose him." Internationally, Xi "may provoke disputes with neighbors, use increasingly strident rhetoric in defense of China's national interests, and take a tougher line in relations with the United States and its allies to shift public focus away from economic troubles."  To deal with Xi's more assertive foreign and defense policies, the authors call for a new American grand strategy for Asia that "seeks to avoid a U.S.-China confrontation and maintain U.S. primacy in Asia."  The authors, both former senior government officials with extensive experience in the region, recommend passing the Trans-Pacific Partnership—an Asia-centered trade deal with countries that represent approximately 40 percent of the global economy—lifting constraints on U.S. exports of oil to Asian allies, and maintaining a commitment to deploy at least 60 percent of the U.S. Navy and Air Force in the Asia Pacific.  They identify the U.S. pivot or rebalance to Asia as "the indispensable ingredient in a successful U.S. policy to participate and project strength more consequentially in the region and to deal with Chinese power and influence under Xi Jinping."  To interview the authors, please contact Global Communications and Media Relations at communications@cfr.org or 212.434.9888.

Xi Jinping on the Global Stage: Chinese Foreign Policy Under a Powerful but Exposed Leader (Council Special Report)

History

Campbell, Kurt M.

Asia

"The U.S.-Israel relationship is in trouble," warn Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellows Robert D. Blackwill and Philip H. Gordon in a new Council Special Report, Repairing the U.S.-Israel Relationship. Significant policy differences over issues in the Middle East, as well as changing demographics and politics within both the United States and Israel, have pushed the two countries apart. Blackwill, a former senior official in the Bush administration, and Gordon, a former senior official in the Obama administration, call for "a deliberate and sustained effort by policymakers and opinion leaders in both countries" to repair the relationship and to avoid divisions "that no one who cares about Israel's security or America's values and interests in the Middle East should want." "For strategic, historical, and moral reasons, both governments should do all they can to reframe and revive the U.S.-Israel strategic partnership," the authors argue. "The upcoming transition to a new administration provides an opportunity to put recent disagreements aside and to show the political will needed to reverse the negative policy trends described," write Blackwill and Gordon.

Repairing the U.S.-Israel Relationship (Council Special Reports)

Gordon, Philip H.

Middle East

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