Lost Decade is a bureaucratic take on American policy’ slow  pivot  to the east and to Asia-cnetric geopolitics and its implications for America’s present and future.

Across the political spectrum, there is wide agreement that Asia should stand at the center of US foreign policy. But this worldview, first represented in the Obama Administration’s 2011 “Pivot to Asia, marks a dramatic departure from the entire history of American grand strategy. Both trump and Biden continued in a similar vein to little effect.

In the upcoming US election, both likely candidates President Joe Biden and ex-president Donald Trump more or less agree on the urgent need to push back against Beijing’s rising global dominance. Both men promise to pay more attention to Asia, even if it comes at the expense of Europe and the Middle East.

Pillars of the US security establishment, Robert Blackwill ( former ambassador to India) and Richard Fontaine ( head of Centre for a New American security, a cross party defence think-tank with strong ties to the Biden Administration), argue in Lost Decade, recent failed attempts to reorient US foreign policy and write “The military balance has deteriorated in China’s direction, the US economic agenda has become ever-less ambitious, and America’s diplomatic engagement has proved inconsistent.” Wito9it a swift action the US is on a path to a future in which China dominates first its own backyard and then the wider world.

Beijing plans “to construct a hostile sphere of influence in Asia” they argue – unless Washington, gets its act together.

China economic rise continued amid partisan bickering, conflicts in the Middle East and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

In 2012, when the US Department of Defense set up a covert group to develop technologies to blunt China’s military advances, its director discovered he had not been assigned an office and was forced to set up shop in the Pentagon courtyard of nearly a year.

Under Obama Washington did little to stop Beijing’s campaign to build artificial islands in the South China Sea.  They were kinder towards Biden about his Afghanistan withdrawal to strengthen ties with allies Japan and South Korea.

The argue no matter who wins the presidential election, Washington should belatedly to turn away from the Atlantic and towards the Pacific with a substantial increase in defense spending is required pushing up a Pentagon budget that already stood at a colossal $850bn last year. 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 by Robert Blackwill  and Richard Fontaine, Oxford University Press $29.99/£22.99, 480 pages.