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.

Robert Blackwill is the Henry A. Kissinger senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of Harvard Kennedy School's Applied History Project. As deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor for strategic planning under President George W. Bush, Blackwill was responsible for government-wide policy planning to help develop and
coordinate the mid- and long-term direction of U.S. foreign policy. He also served as presidential envoy
to Iraq and was the US ambassador to India from 2001 to 2003.

Richard Fontaine is the Chief Executive Officer of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). He
served as President of CNAS from 2012-19 and as Senior Advisor and Senior Fellow from 2009-12. Prior to CNAS, he was foreign policy advisor to Senator John McCain and worked at the State Department, the National Security Council, and on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Prior to that, he served as Associate Director for Near Eastern Affairs at the National Security Council (NSC) from 2003-04. He also worked on Southeast Asian issues in the NSC's Asian Affairs directorate. At the State
Department, Fontaine worked in the office of Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and in the department's South Asia bureau. He currently serves as Executive Director of the Trilateral Commission and as a member of the Defense Policy Board.

Acknowledgements
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: What's at Stake: The Pivot and American Vital National Interests
Chapter 3: The Pivots Before the Pivot: The Clinton and Bush Administrations
Chapter 4: Rhetoric Meets Reality: Obama's Pivot to Asia
Chapter 5: Turning on China: The Pivot During the Trump Administration
Chapter 6: Gaining Ground: Biden Policy Toward Asia and China
Chapter 7: Please Stay: Europe and the Pivot
Chapter 8: America Is Going Home: The Middle East and the Pivot
Chapter 9: We Don't Want to Choose: The Indo-Pacific and the Pivot
Chapter 10: We Will Build in Any Case: China Rises as the Pivot Flops
Chapter 11: Balancing Military Power in Asia: Defense Policy and the Pivot
Chapter 12: Pivoting from Offense to Defense: The Changing Role of Economic Policy
Chapter 13: Competition and Cooperation: Transnational Issues and the Pivot
Chapter 14: Conclusion: The US Pivot to Asia and American Grand Strategy
Notes