Geography Lessons: American Decline and the Challenge of Asia

Abstract

The United States’ Pacific-centric perspective on Asia has kept it from fully appreciating the relative decline of US power in continental Asia west of China, which the US withdrawal from Afghanistan illuminates. During the 20-year US intervention there, the combined economies of the countries surrounding Afghanistan grew from five-sixths the size of the US economy to almost twice its size. China’s massive Belt and Road Initiative responds to genuine needs in the region. The United States’ Build Back Better World (B3W) programme appears insufficient to offset it. Since the US became a global power, it has not faced a peer competitor comparable to China. Washington needs to cooperate with Beijing on connectivity, climate security and regional security in Central and Northeast Asia, even while challenging it on Taiwan, the South China Sea, trade and human-rights issues.