Jeff Smith specializes in South Asia as a research fellow in Heritage's Asian Studies Center. Leaders pose for a picture before a Quad Indo-Pacific meeting on October 6, 2020 in Tokyo, Japan. Anadolu Agency / Contributor / Getty Images Key Takeaways If the U.S. is indeed planning to abandon the Indo-Pacific without a compelling strategic rationale, it would represent a strategic blunder. The intellectual architect of the contemporary Indo-Pacific concept was Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. A reversion back to the Asia-Pacific with no compelling strategic rationale would represent a grave miscalculation. Among the Democratic front-runners for president, Joe Biden was seen as boasting arguably the longest foreign policy resume and most centrist disposition. Just over a month after the election, however, a matter of nomenclature has some in the community of experts watching the Indo-Pacific sounding the alarm bells.