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In 2011, during the first term of President Barack Obama, the United States trotted out a new orientation for its foreign policy, which it dubbed a “pivot to Asia.”

The central goal underpinning this strategy was to gradually downscale the United States’ profound, extravagantly costly, and—over a succession of administrations, both Democratic and Republican—ever-deepening security commitments in the Middle East so as to better face what it expected to be the most daunting challenge to U.S. power in the remaining century: a fast-rising China.

In 2011, during the first term of President Barack Obama, the United States trotted out a new orientation for its foreign policy, which it dubbed a “pivot to Asia.”

The central goal underpinning this strategy was to gradually downscale the United States’ profound, extravagantly costly, and—over a succession of administrations, both Democratic and Republican—ever-deepening security commitments in the Middle East so as to better face what it expected to be the most daunting challenge to U.S. power in the remaining century: a fast-rising China.

For a time, Washington worked hard to convince both its traditional Asian allies, such as Japan and South Korea, and more neutral countries, such as Vietnam, that this shift was serious and no short-term fancy. In fact, however, the Middle East and its wars never relinquished their hold on the United States’ military and diplomatic resources. Any careful reading of U.S. foreign policy over the preceding administrations would have already suggested as much. Clear antecedents of Obama’s so-called pivot could be found in the speeches and policy papers of both the Clinton and George W. Bush presidencies.

As with so much else, the first term of President Donald Trump seriously degraded this convention, however little its goals had been realized. The Trump government publicly cast doubt on Washington’s likelihood of defending Taiwan in case of a Chinese attack, engaged in a scarcely concealed extortion of Japan and Korea by exacting trade concessions in connection with the continued presence of U.S. troops in those countries, and invested little in broadening or deepening alliances........

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