Robert D. Blackwill is the Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He formerly served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Planning under President George W. Bush, as well as U.S. Ambassador to India.

Richard Fontaine is the CEO of the Center for a New American Security, having previously served as its President between 2012 and 2019. This essay is a permitted excerpt from the latest book by Robert D. Blackwill and Richard Fontaine entitled Lost Decade: The US Pivot to Asia and the Rise of Chinese Power (2024). Copyright © 2024 by Robert D. Blackwill and Richard Fontaine and published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

 

It is difficult to overstate Asia’s significance. It is home to 60 percent of the world’s population, three of the five largest national economies, over 40 percent of global GDP, an estimated two-thirds of the world’s economic growth, 41 percent of international exports and 37 percent of global imports, half of the world’s active military personnel, six of the ten biggest armies, four of the ten highest defense budgets, five of the nine nuclear-weapons states, and six of the ten major carbon emitters. It is also the region in which America’s chief geopolitical rival is most active. Over the 2010s and beyond, U.S. policy sought to benefit from Asia’s dynamism, respond to China’s astonishing rise, end Middle East wars, and limit expenditures in Europe. This was the essence of the Pivot to Asia, and its core strategic logic was sound.

“The Obama Administration attempted a grand strategic shift in the absence of forcing events or cataclysm. Yet in the history of American foreign policy, it has generally required such an upheaval to turn the great ship of state.”

 

Good Ideas Falling Short
Why, then, did the Pivot not succeed as envisioned?

First, Washington persistently underestimated the China challenge. For too long, policymakers retained the belief that the proper combination of incentives and disincentives would induce Beijing to support rather than undermine international order, and that they might even prompt the development of Chinese pluralist structures and practices. While there was little evidence of any movement in these directions before Xi Jinping’s ascension to political primacy, his rule dispelled any remaining doubts. As Stephen Hadley, George W. Bush’s national security advisor, said more than a decade later, “We clearly misread” Xi. “He really took the country in a very different direction than Jiang Zemin or Hu Jintao.” Kurt Campbell and Ely Ratner observed that, rather than bowing to U.S. preferences, “China has instead pursued its own course, belying a range of American expectations in the process.” Yet not until 2017, during the Trump Administration, did the United States declare China a strategic competitor. U.S. policy has since scrambled to adjust to this belated realization.
 

Second, crises emerged in other places. From the outset, the policy was predicated on an expected peace dividend in Iraq and Afghanistan, two wars Obama was determined to end. He announced the forthcoming withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in 2011, but that war would grind on, at great cost, until its end in failure a decade later. Obama did follow through on his commitment to withdraw the U.S. military from Iraq, but in neglecting to leave a residual force that could dampen instability there, the Islamic State established the world’s largest terrorist sanctuary in the emergent vacuum. American troops returned to Iraq—and went to Syria as well—where they conducted a five-year, resource-intensive campaign to destroy the ISIS caliphate. They remain in both countries today. To these efforts the United States added a ruinous military intervention in Libya, which produced violent regime change and destabilized that country.

The Pivot also assumed a quiescent Europe, where major war was unthinkable, U.S. attention and resources could remain flat or even diminish, and in which the transatlantic allies would focus on out-of-area operations rather than on continental security. Until recently, European security did not, in fact, pull the United States away from concentrating on the Indo-Pacific. Yet just as the Biden Administration began to pivot in earnest, Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 upended these assumptions. U.S. diplomats were suddenly talking to Asians about Europe rather than the other way around, American forces were deploying to Europe rather than away from it, Congress was appropriating tens of billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine, and the connection between European security and U.S. national interests received a major new boost.

Many other events, both abroad and at home, might be added to the list of perpetual crises and difficulties. America’s domestic divisions had nothing to do with China or the Indo-Pacific, but resulted in sequestration caps that shrank the U.S. military just as leaders sought to devote more resources to Asia. The global financial crisis and its long aftermath helped fuel a backlash against trade agreements that undermined the Pivot’s economic centerpiece. The siren song of Israeli-Palestinian peace redirected one secretary of state’s diplomacy, while the forging of an anti-Iran coalition consumed the efforts of another. Hamas’ attack on Israel and the eruption of war in the Gaza Strip prompted Washington to surge military assets to the Middle East, focus diplomatic attention there, and prepare a new, large-scale aid package for Jerusalem.
 

Third, the Pivot lacked a clear, commonly understood strategic articulation. Policymakers over the decade generally agreed that Asia should represent America’s priority region, and that China’s rise posed a historic challenge to U.S. foreign policy. But how to translate those broad truths into specific policies and budgets remained a challenge. How to make trade-offs with other issues in other regions proved harder still. While conducting interviews, we found officials across administrations defining the Pivot differently, unable to agree on its specific objectives or identify what, precisely, constituted progress toward its ends.

 

Fourth, no American president put sufficient weight behind the Pivot. Focusing foreign policy on Asia yielded no domestic political benefit, and thus did not affect candidates’ electoral prospects. And in the absence of a sustained presidential drive, individual government agencies were largely free to pursue their bureaucratic preferences, whether or not they accorded with the announced strategic objective. As Dwight Eisenhower stressed, “Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.” No president took on that task during the lost decade.

 

Fifth, by declaring an Asia-first foreign policy, the Obama Administration attempted a grand strategic shift in the absence of forcing events or cataclysm. Yet in the history of American foreign policy, it has generally required such an upheaval—or at least the emergence of a major new threat—to turn the great ship of state. Pearl Harbor and Hitler’s declaration of war on America shook the United States into full mobilization for World War II. The emergence of Stalin’s Red Army on the plains of Europe, the Soviet Union’s totalizing, revolutionary foreign policy, and the war in Korea pushed America to vigorously implement a strategy of containment. The 9/11 attacks made fighting terrorism the top priority of U.S. activity. The Pivot followed no such visceral alarm.

 

Over more than a decade, Chinese events were never so dramatic or threatening as to become the driving factor in U.S. policy, especially in a world of so many other priorities. The Pivot to Asia thus amounted to a test of whether a democracy like the United States could anticipate challenges to come—the rise of China, the erosion of Asia’s balance of power, the economic and military vulnerability of America’s Pacific allies and partners—and adjust course before it is provoked into change by crisis. Announced while the United States remained deeply engaged in the Middle East and Afghanistan, before Xi Jinping became China’s paramount leader, before European countries were devising their own Indo-Pacific strategies, and before concerns over technology, supply chains, and military innovation had crystalized, the Pivot to Asia may have simply been too visionary for succeeding administrations to digest and employ.

 

The final reason why the United States did not pivot to Asia, however, and why it did not adequately respond to the rise of Chinese power, is the simplest of them all: It was more than successive administrations could manage. Moving military assets from Europe and the Middle East, for instance, would have entailed assuming more risk in those regions and potentially undermining U.S. credibility there. Passing the TPP would have put members of Congress in the crosshairs of anti-trade voters at home. Sustaining the Hillary Clinton-era focus on diplomacy in the Pacific would have meant spending less time on Middle East peace or Syria ceasefires (priorities under Secretary Kerry), or Russia and Iran (areas of focus under Secretaries Tillerson and Pompeo). Ending sequestration and funding greater military resources for the Pacific would have required a bipartisan spending deal. Divesting legacy weapons systems to procure armaments better tailored for a China fight would have stirred those who support continuing existing production lines. All those steps and more would have best been taken years ago. But they were hard—too hard, in the event, to get done.

 

A Lost Decade

The period from roughly 2011 to 2021 thus represents a lost decade. Had the United States pivoted to Asia as intended, it would be better able to deter war with China today. It would have deeper trade relationships in the region, and countries there would be both less dependent on China and less susceptible to Beijing’s coercion. America’s diplomatic interactions with key countries would be stronger, and the region would have less reason to hedge against U.S. unreliability. America’s chances of prevailing in its long-term competition with China would be greater. Pivoting to Asia would by no means have eliminated the Chinese challenge. It would, however, have made it easier for the United States to manage it.

 

Even today, however, when policymakers and political leaders uniformly worry deeply about the China threat and see Asia as America’s priority theater, the hardest things remain undone. The United States has spent money to bolster its position relative to China—$50 billion for semiconductors in the CHIPS Act, increases in the defense budget, funding for the Development Finance Corporation, and so on. It is undertaking important military posture improvements in Asia, pursuing the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, and engaging in creative, intensified regional diplomacy. All are positive steps, but even combined they are insufficient to meet the challenge. The United States remains unwilling to pursue a Pacific trade agreement, spend enough on defense, move significant military assets from Europe and the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific, shift its force structure away from legacy systems and toward weapons better suited to deter China, or pursue a strategic immigration policy to keep those with advanced technical skills in the United States. In the U.S. political system and given the press of events elsewhere, again, these moves have so far proved just too hard.

 

This reality, in turn, raises the disquieting possibility that U.S. democracy is incapable of doing the hardest things. We reject such fatalism. The policy recommendations that follow—indeed, many of the ideas that first animated the Pivot—are necessary to protect U.S. vital national interests and democratic values and the world in which we wish to live. Most of them are overdue. To await the domestic political jolt supplied by some China-related calamity would be to invite the very outcome we seek to avoid.

 

In fact, as previously noted, the stirrings of a new pivot to Asia are detectable today. The Trump Administration rightly shifted to a focus on competition with China, and the Biden Administration has intensified engagement with the Indo-Pacific. Without referring explicitly to a past lost decade, policymakers have begun referring to a present “decisive decade” in the contest with China. Their steps are, however, just a start. Today the United States needs a new and enveloping Pivot to Asia, one that accounts for America’s enduring global role and multi-region interests, draws on lessons learned over more than a decade of effort, and is possessed by a sense of urgency. It is time to begin doing the hardest things, to take the actions left undone, and to align Washington’s foreign policy agenda with its national interests and stated strategic priorities.

 

Maintaining World Order

The overarching goal of U.S. foreign policy should be to preserve the core pillars of the international order, even as specific rules and institutions change and adapt. The United States benefits from, and has a vital interest in maintaining, a global order governed by rules rather than brute power, one in which countries enjoy sovereignty, disputes are resolved peacefully, markets are open to trade, human rights are considered universal, and democracy can flourish. Since the 1940s, Washington has opposed hostile spheres of influence emerging in Eurasia precisely because they threaten the United States’ desired rules-based order.

 

Today, China threatens to construct precisely such a hostile sphere of influence in Asia. Its military power has grown dramatically, making it more difficult for the United States to operate militarily across the region. Its economic weight has risen, permitting it to coerce countries in ways that violate their basic sovereignty. Its claims to the South China Sea run counter to longstanding maritime rules and threaten freedom of navigation, while its potential use of force against Taiwan could upend the structure of U.S. alliances and partnerships. Its illiberal preferences crowd out the space in which democracy can thrive and promote instead the legitimacy of autocratic governance. Its current policies could lead to catastrophic war with the United States.

 

In this light, U.S. policy toward China should aim to ensure that Beijing is either unwilling or unable to overturn the regional and global order. In so doing, the United States should work toward the preservation and extension of core international values that serve it and many other nations well. Accomplishing this goal requires a strategic pivot to Asia.

 

The U.S.-China competition crosses multiple regions and domains, but rivalry and tension are most acute in the Indo-Pacific. Chinese military power is most concentrated in that region and becomes attenuated with distance from the Western Pacific. Beijing’s maritime claims, border disputes, and threats of force focus on Asia. Its economic gravity is greatest there, and countries in the Indo-Pacific are particularly vulnerable to Beijing’s interference in their domestic politics.

 

As a result, increasing U.S. military resources in Asia, and deepening regional security partnerships, will enhance deterrence and make China less likely to use force. An ambitious regional trade policy would reduce countries’ reliance on the Chinese market and blunt Beijing’s use of economic coercion. Contesting initiatives like Belt and Road would limit China’s ability to convert economic involvement into geopolitical influence, particularly in subregions—like Southeast Asia—where such influence could lead to military agreements. Building new technology partnerships can ensure the free flow of information where China might otherwise restrict it, and focusing alliances on protecting democracies from external interference will enhance their independence and sovereignty. Contesting Chinese influence in international bodies will help protect universal values and key principles of international order.

 

A U.S. approach to China that seeks only a pivot to Asia is incomplete, but a strategy that does not pivot to Asia will fail.

 

Four Strategic Principles

As important as what to do is how to think about the task before the United States. We propose four principles to guide a renewed pivot to Asia.

 

1. Articulate a Positive Vision

 

Defending regional and global order, including its concrete benefits for the independence and freedom of countries, permits the United States to articulate a positive vision for the Indo-Pacific. The United States is not merely competing against China, but working toward the preservation and extension of core international values that serve many nations well. U.S. allies and partners should not be required to rupture their ties with China in order to join a unified bloc, but they should be encouraged to take part in coalitions aimed at resisting Beijing on specific issues. The accompanying message, despite Beijing’s claims to the contrary, should be that Washington does not seek to suppress China’s rise, but rather to establish a U.S.-Chinese equilibrium in the long term.

 

The pursuit of this vision will, however, take years and involve risks. A renewed pivot to Asia involves contesting China in key areas, bolstering U.S. power in ways that Beijing will inevitably find menacing, and collaborating with countries in ways that will leave China feeling surrounded. Diplomacy, as we propose in detail throughout this volume, can help mitigate these risks, but the United States will need to accept increased tension in the near to medium term to increase the odds for a more stable equilibrium with China over the long run.

 

2. Endorse America’s Global Role

 

In view of Beijing’s ascendance, American policymakers should devote new diplomatic, economic, and military resources to Asia. In nearly every case, however, such additional engagement comes at the price of less attention to another area or region. Here U.S. leaders should proceed, but carefully.

 

The tendency to privilege a single issue has reoccurred periodically across U.S. foreign policy. Policymakers and politicians, often backed by a vocal consensus, elevate serious, legitimate threats—communism, terrorism, now China—in a way that crowds out the attention necessary to deal with other priorities and interests. When it comes to shifting military resources, diplomatic energy, and leader-level attention from other issues to Asia, policymakers should be wary of a simple “do more” imperative.

 

The United States is and should remain a global power, and so a renewed pivot to Asia must account for attention and resources devoted to other regions and issues. In identifying resources that might be drawn on, policymakers should be able to demonstrate that the benefits of doing more in the Indo-Pacific outweigh the likely costs of doing less elsewhere. And when the calculation suggests that a shift in priorities is warranted, such a decision should be discussed thoroughly with allies and partners and made with as much specificity as possible—based on a particular set of policy tools or military deployments—rather than on the abstract basis that simply doing more is better.

 

Pivoting to Asia cannot mean the abandonment of key commitments elsewhere. Americans, after all, care not only about forestalling Chinese hegemony in Asia, but also about preventing terrorist attacks originating in the Middle East or Afghanistan, punishing and helping reverse Russian aggression in Europe, deterring Iranian malfeasance, ensuring Israel’s defense, securing energy supplies and sea lanes, combating climate change and dangers to public health, and helping developing nations improve their quality of life.

 

America’s ability to sustain focus on the long-term challenge of China depends on the lack of acute, threatening crises in Europe and the Middle East. By pulling troops completely from Iraq in 2011, for instance, the Obama Administration did not redeploy them to Asia but instead ensured America’s return. The same sadly may be the case in Afghanistan. Sustaining a low level of U.S. military presence, diplomatic engagement, or funding in key non-Asia areas could aid, rather than undermine, Washington’s pivot to Asia. America should tilt toward the Indo-Pacific, but not so far that it topples over.

 

3. Calculate Trade-Offs amid Great Power Competition

 

Pivoting to Asia in a world of scarce resources entails trade-offs, and yet as every policy practitioner knows, setting priorities is far easier said than done. Assessed individually, every region—the Western Hemisphere, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, the Global South—has a claim to priority, and many issues have constituencies inside or outside government that argue for their importance. Making choices is harder still when the United States faces great-power competitors in both China and Russia, simultaneously and indefinitely. Both countries are globally active, and an approach that attempts to resist their influence everywhere would be unsuccessful. Even a generalized Asia-first approach represents an insufficient guide to policy and resources; after all, the Indo-Pacific is a big place.

 

Actions by China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, or international terrorist groups that would undermine U.S. vital national interests, contest key principles of international order, constrict the United States’ freedom to act, or undermine the domestic functioning of U.S. allies and key partners should broadly define America’s national security priorities. Policymakers should thus focus most on actions in the places and on the issues where the potential damage to key U.S. national interests is large and the potential utility to the challenger is significant. The remainder of adversaries’ activities around the world that are undesirable, offensive, and even contrary to lesser interests should be relegated to a lower tier of priority. These challenges should receive a significantly smaller share of American national security resources and attention. As Steve Jobs observed, “People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are.”

 

Washington therefore needs a far subtler prioritization of regions and issues, and a policy process that considers the relative importance of multiple crises and opportunities rather than evaluating each on its own. This is true not only for the executive branch but also for Congress, which tends to focus on headline issues and direct funding and policy changes accordingly. The policy prescriptions in the “to-do list” below translates imperatives to set priorities and make trade-offs into a series of concrete actions.

 

The alternative, in this new era, would require the United States to resist undesirable Chinese (and Russian) influence wherever it exists—which is to say, every region of the world and across a wide spectrum of issues. To attempt this, even while working with allies and partners and taking every other prudent step to augment American power, ensures failure. The United States should do more but not try to do it all, everywhere.

 

4. Pursue Unity

 

For all of America’s many divisions, there is today—perhaps surprisingly—far more agreement than discord on the biggest foreign policy issue of all: the requirement to compete effectively with China. Broad domestic political unity is necessary to succeed in the contest, but it cannot simply be conjured by well-meaning policymakers. Pursued smartly, however, successful competition with Beijing—and the renewed pivot to Asia that is necessary for it—could bring U.S. political leaders together rather than drive them apart. The bipartisan concern with China provides an opportunity—possibly the only major one in these gridlocked political times—to rally elected leaders around a program of American strength and renewal.

 

Analogies to Soviet-era containment and a Cold War II are inapt for many reasons, but in one respect Cold War history illustrates the possibilities that attend indefinite U.S.-China competition. The imperative to confront Moscow helped spur America to a program of national greatness and international leadership. Republicans and Democrats alike wished to demonstrate democracy and capitalism’s superiority over communism and central planning, to enlist more allies and friends than the Soviet bloc, and to inspire the world by showing what a free people can accomplish.

 

To be sure, the Cold War also brought fear of Armageddon, proxy wars, covert operations, superpower crises, and national anxiety. But under its influence, the United States sharpened its edge, establishing a worldwide alliance system and aiding economic development in impoverished regions. It improved civil rights at home, built the interstate highway system, expanded research universities, and landed men on the moon.

 

No one should actively seek a return to the Cold War, or even a watered-down variant of it. But since America is faced with an indefinite period of competition with China—and we make the case that it is—its leaders should use that fact to catalyze a far grander, positive agenda of American greatness in the twenty-first century. The presence of an external threat drives Americans together. That is not a reason to pursue or hype such dangers, but if they exist nevertheless, wise policymakers will employ them to visionary and constructive ends. They may even serve as the long-awaited stimulus to a pivot, spurring the United States to do in the future the things that have proved too difficult in the past.

 

The To-Do List

A genuine pivot to Asia represents a new approach to American grand strategy. The policy adjustments necessary for such a shift are legion, and too numerous to detail in this volume. Instead, we offer nine recommendations that require urgent policymaker attention. While executing them would hardly represent a fully adequate response to Chinese power, together they constitute a major step in the right direction.

 

Continue to Strengthen U.S. Alliances in the Indo-Pacific

 

America’s regional alliances represent key comparative advantages for the United States. Recent years have seen major advances in ties with Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, and India. These critical efforts—both to support their growing strength and to solidify the ties with and among them—should continue.

 

Join CPTPP and De-Risk Economic Ties with China

 

Following the collapse of the TPP, Washington watched as each nation in the region became ever more dependent on trade with China and more vulnerable to Beijing’s geoeconomic coercion. Joining CPTPP would increase U.S. access to lucrative Asian markets and give Washington the ability to shape rules in the region and beyond. Washington’s entry would also reassure regional partners that the United States remains committed to the Indo-Pacific. More politically palatable steps toward reentry, such as pursuing a bilateral or regional digital trade deal, might help in the near term. In the meantime, the United States should identify areas of economic dependence with China that incur national security risk and pursue alternative arrangements.

 

Substantially Increase the U.S. Defense Budget and Boost U.S. Military Assets and Power Projection in Asia

 

America’s defense budget, with a FY2024 level of $841 billion, is in nominal terms quite sizable. As a percentage of GDP, however, the 2.7 percent it represents matches 1999—the height of the post-Cold War “peace dividend”—as the lowest level since 1953. In addition, given the rate of inflation, the FY2024 defense budget amounts to a small real cut compared to the previous year’s figure. The United States cannot arrest the eroding balance of power in the Indo-Pacific, and meet its critical commitments elsewhere, without major increases in defense spending.

 

Shift Significant Military Resources from the Middle East to Asia

 

For more than a decade, Washington fed the perception of U.S. withdrawal from the Middle East without obtaining a significant resource dividend. This amounted to the worst of all worlds: deep and costly engagement in the region while fanning the fears of abandonment. Washington should invert this equation by diminishing its military presence in the region while bolstering its commitment to act. Troop levels, air bases, maritime deployments, and more should decline in the Middle East, surging only if and when necessary for significant military operations, such as the initial effort to deter other actors from joining the Israel-Hamas war in the fall of 2023.

 

Shift Substantial U.S. Air and Naval Forces from Europe to the Indo-Pacific

 

The ongoing degradation of Russian military power amid the war in Ukraine—and the revelation that Moscow’s military might is significantly less than originally thought—is combining with European steps to increase defense budgets, acquire new capabilities, and enhance military production lines. As a result, Russia will pose no serious conventional military threat to NATO allies in Europe for the foreseeable future. This provides a historic opportunity to pivot U.S. air and naval forces from the defense of Europe to new locations in the Indo-Pacific.

 

Make European Allies Central in Washington’s China Strategy

 

Until recently, most of Europe was reluctant to challenge the PRC, given the enormity of the Chinese market and the importance of two-way trade. Beginning in 2022, however, and following Beijing’s tacit support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, NATO allies increasingly signaled their opposition to China’s destabilizing policies—and displayed greater willingness to cooperate with the United States against them. The United States should encourage the European Union to wield its significant international regulatory power to help curb China’s coercive economic influence, and to set liberal economic rules, especially in technology, to which Beijing will be forced to adhere. Washington should similarly work with European nations to blunt Beijing’s influence in international institutions and establish a European military presence, even if modest, in the Indo-Pacific.

 

Pursue Issue-Based Coalitions with Allies and Partners

 

The United States should encourage countries to join coalitions aimed at resisting Beijing on specific issues, such as economic coercion, theft of intellectual property, dominating international organizations and standard-setting bodies, military aggression, covert interference in other countries’ domestic politics, the spread of illiberal technologies, and human rights abuses.

 

Intensify Bilateral Diplomacy with China

 

Although no modus vivendi between Washington and Beijing is currently possible given their polar views on vital national interests, diplomacy remains essential. Regrettably, both nations at best will struggle for the foreseeable future to maintain the current tense state of the bilateral relationship, and to prevent it from becoming even worse. Contrary to some claims, diplomacy does not undermine U.S. toughness, but rather represents the necessary companion of a competitive approach. An entirely confrontational approach, devoid of communication, cooperation, or compromise of any sort, would radiate systemic tension throughout Asia. If confrontation turns to conflict, the likely consequences would be catastrophic. Even as it competes vigorously, the United States should rigorously follow a One China policy and demonstrate abiding restraint on the issue, and publicly reject both Taiwan independence and regime change in China as policy objectives.

 

Support the Forces of Democracy and Liberalism

 

The United States has an important international role to play in supporting the growth of democratic institutions where they do not exist and defending them where they are under pressure. Too rigid a delineation between free countries and autocracies could hamstring U.S. efforts to assemble the coalitions necessary for long-term competition with China. Yet Washington should be clear about the values it represents—and wishes to see flourish—in the Indo-Pacific and beyond. America’s vision of a better, freer world is a key comparative advantage in the competition with China’s cramped, illiberal worldview.

 

The Pacific Century

We live, it is often observed, in the Pacific century. In that region lay America’s deepest national interests, its greatest geopolitical rival, its most important economic fortunes, and—in some sense—its destiny. This excerpt has sought to illuminate the Pivot’s strategic logic, analyze its successes and failures, and propose a way forward for U.S. engagement in the region that matters most.

 

Here we return to the importance of leadership by the president and Congress, which a renewed Pivot to Asia requires. It will take foresight and courage by both. It requires unity and compromise by both. It means sustained effort and collaboration by both. None of these qualities is in abundance today. But no country thrives on competition, both foreign and domestic, like America. At a time of bitter domestic strife, many issues will push our political leaders apart. Amid a growing consensus about the magnitude of the stakes, renewing the Pivot to Asia should help bring them together.

 

U.S. political leaders and policymakers should take seriously what they say about China and Asia, make the necessary moves before they are forced upon them, and demonstrate that a democratic America can, in fact, shift its strategic focus and policy attention to Asia, even in a world of competing priorities. Now is no time for strategic pessimism. The United States can now embark in earnest and speed on a Pivot to Asia. For the sake of its security, prosperity, and freedom, it must.

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