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

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.