US urged to join Asia-Pacific trade group, shift European forces to Indo-Pacific
- In ‘Lost Decade’, two prominent Washington analysts say a US ‘pivot to Asia’, originally undertaken in 2011, has failed and that renewing it is critical to stability with China
The United States should join the Asia-Pacific trade bloc which former president Donald Trump left as well as shift its naval and air forces from Europe to the Indo-Pacific, two prominent Washington analysts recommend in a new book that urges a renewed “pivot to Asia”.
Robert Blackwill, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Richard Fontaine, the president of the Centre for a New American Security, contend that despite a strategic American reorientation to the region in 2011, during the Barack Obama administration, what followed was a decade of missed opportunities and miscalculations.
In Lost Decade: The US Pivot to Asia and the Rise of Chinese Power, they offer what they call an “overdue” to-do list for the renewal of that focus.
Chief among the problems, Blackwill and Fontaine argue, is that Obama’s “pivot” lacked a clear articulation, with officials involved having different understandings of its objectives and metrics for success.
But they also acknowledge that the “lost decade” can also be attributed to a range of external factors, like crises in the Middle East that diverted US attention, and the lack of truly threatening or dramatic events emanating from China.
Months before the crucial US presidential election, the book seeks to insert urgency and balance in the debate about how Washington should articulate and enact its strategy to deter war as it competes with China.
