超級大國沒有隱退這回事
疲憊的美國責任未了—3/4
作者：Robert Kagan
翻譯：Taimocracy
III.
When the cold war ended, many did believe that the United States
could finally unburden itself of the vast global responsibilities that it had
shouldered for more than four decades. As
in the 1920s, the world of the early 1990s seemed safe enough. The former Soviet Union was in a state of
economic and political collapse; China, following the Tiananmen Square
massacre, was diplomatically and economically isolated. Americans’ biggest concern at the time was
the booming economy of Japan, which, as it turned out, was just about to fall
into 20 years of stagnation. So what
grave threat required America to continue its abnormal, outsized role in the
world? Could not the United States
return to being more of a normal nation with a more normal definition of its
national interests?
冷戰結束時，許多人真的相信美國終於可以放下超過四十年的重擔。90年代初，就像一戰後的20年代一樣，看起來安全無虞。前蘇聯面對經濟與政治的崩盤，中國則在六四後在外交與經濟上被孤立。美國當時唯一的擔憂是日本蓬勃的經濟即將步入衰退期，後來也確實蕭條了20年。所以還有甚麼嚴峻的威脅需要美國繼續扮演非常態、過於龐大的角色嗎？美國不能回去當個正常的國家，正常地定義它的國家利益嗎？
In September 1990, in
an article titled “A Normal Country in a
Normal Time,” Jeane Kirkpatrick argued precisely that. With the Soviet Union collapsing, there was
no longer a “pressing need for heroism and sacrifice.” The cold war had given
foreign policy “an unnatural importance” in American life. The “foreign policy elite” had grown
accustomed to thinking of the United States as having “expansive, expensive,
global purposes” that “transcended ... apparent
American interests.” I t was time for the United States “to focus again on its
own national interests,” by which she meant national interests as
“conventionally conceived”—“to protect its territory, wealth, and access to necessary
goods; to defend its nationals.” This
was the “normal condition for nations.”
曾任美國駐聯合國大使的 Jeane Kirkpatrick (宋楚瑜的導師之一) 在1990九月寫了一篇〈正常時代的正常國家〉，主張的就是這個。蘇聯垮台，不再有「英雄主義與犧牲奉獻的迫切需求」。冷戰在美國人的生活中，賦予外交政策「一種反常的重要性」。「外交菁英」已經習慣於認為美國有著「明顯超越…美國利益」的「擴張的、昂貴的、全球的目標」。她所說的 (傳統意義) 國家利益是「保衛它的領土、財富、以及必要物資的來源，保護國民」。這才是她所認為的「國家的正常狀態」。
Kirkpatrick expressed what many felt after the fall of the Berlin Wall in
1989, and not just the followers of Patrick Buchanan, who found much to praise
in her essay. Francis Fukuyama also
argued that with communism vanquished and democracy triumphant, there were no
other great geopolitical or ideological challenges on the horizon. The chief threat of the future—as he
suggested in his famous essay “The End of
History?”—would be boredom, the empty tediousness of life lived under a
vapid, soul-killing Western liberalism. Others
noted Paul Kennedy’s warnings about “imperial overstretch” and worried that
America’s extensive global military commitments, no longer justified by a
Soviet enemy, would put it at a disadvantage in a world where geoeconomics
trumped geopolitics. Realists called for
a sharp retraction of American military commitments overseas, the withdrawal of
troops from Europe and Asia, and even a return to what they called the “offshore
balancing” of the 1920s and 1930s.
Kirkpatrick 說出了許多人在1989柏林圍牆倒塌之後的心聲，還不僅限於資深白宮顧問及政治評論家 Patrick
Buchanan 的追隨者 (Buchanan應該很讚賞她這篇文章) 。名作家兼政治經濟學人 Francis Fukuyama (法蘭西斯福山) 也認為，共產主義消失，民主勝利，再也沒有地緣政治或意識形態的挑戰了。他在有名的文章〈歷史的終點？〉裡表示，未來主要的威脅是來自無聊的生活，因為枯乏無味、扼殺靈魂的自由主義將帶來漫長空虛的生活。有些人則注意到歷史學家 Paul Kennedy 對美國「帝國過度擴張」的警告，他憂心蘇聯這個敵人消失後，地緣經濟將重於地緣政治，這對美國在全球的軍事承諾恐怕相當不利。現實主義者則呼籲從歐亞兩洲召回美軍，甚至回到20、30年代所謂的「離岸平衡」。
Still, and remarkably, for the first two decades of the post-cold-war era
the United States pursued the original pre-cold-war grand strategy. The event that set the tone for the next
dozen years was comparatively minor. In
August 1990, Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi army invaded Kuwait, and in a matter of
days conquered and annexed it. Brutal
though the action was, by comparison with the seismic events of the bloody
twentieth century, it was small beer.
The border between the two nations, like most boundaries in the Arab
world, had been arbitrarily drawn by the British Empire. Kuwait had been under Iraqi suzerainty under
the Ottomans, and leaders in Baghdad had long regarded it as an Iraqi province. Saddam further justified the invasion as
support for an allegedly popular (though largely manufactured) rebellion
against the Kuwaiti royal family.
然而美國卻了不起地在冷戰後的二十年延續了冷戰前的大戰略。這時期的定調事件相對上較為次要。1990八月伊拉克的海珊在數天之內併吞了科威特，雖然殘暴，但是跟血腥的二十世紀的震撼比起來，算是小兒科。阿拉伯世界的國界幾乎都是當年的大英帝國擅自劃定的，這兩國也一樣。自鄂圖曼帝國時期，伊拉克就一直是科威特的宗主國，巴格達根本就把科威特視為伊拉克的一個省分。海珊又進一步以科威特內部反叛皇室 (大半是造假的) 為理由，進兵吞併。
Inside and outside the Bush administration, self-described realists
argued that the United States draw the line not at Kuwait but at Saudi Arabia. Kuwait’s oil was not that important, Colin
Powell argued, and the risks of “a major confrontation” with Saddam and his
army were high, so the “most prudent” option would be to defend the Saudis. “We can’t make a case for losing lives for
Kuwait,” Powell argued, “but Saudi Arabia is different.” Dick Cheney worried
that driving Saddam out of Kuwait was going to cost “one hell of a lot of
money,” that Americans had a “short tolerance for war,” and that, after all,
“the oil goes mostly to Japan.” James
Baker took a similar view, as did a majority of Democrats in Congress, as did a
majority of Americans. A poll taken in
November 1990 showed that 51 percent of Americans were opposed to trying to
drive the Iraqis out of Kuwait by force and that only 37 percent were in favor
of it. Most favored economic sanctions
to punish Saddam.
當時布希政府內外都建議把防線劃在沙烏地阿拉伯，而不是科威特。Colin Powell (鮑爾，參謀首長聯席會主席) 說科威特的石油沒那麼重要，不值得跟海珊為此動用大規模的軍隊，主張保護沙烏地阿拉伯是比較審慎的做法。「我們找不到為科威特犧牲生命的理由」 Powell 說，「但是沙烏地阿拉伯就不一樣了」。 Dick Cheney (錢尼，當時為國防部長) 擔心趕走海珊要花大把銀子，美國人民也受不了戰爭，更何況「威特的石油大都輸往日本」。James Baker (貝克，國務卿)、大多數民主黨議員、還有大多數美國人都抱持相同看法。1990的一個民調顯示，51% 的美國人反對出兵，只有37% 贊成。大部分人都偏向經濟制裁海珊。
Other Bush advisers, however, led by Brent Scowcroft, saw things
differently. Saddam’s invasion, they
believed, was “the first test of the postwar system.” For half a century the
United States had taken the lead role in deterring and punishing would-be
aggressors. Although driving Iraqi
forces out of Kuwait would be “costly and risky,” Scowcroft feared that failure
to do so would set “a terrible precedent—one that would only accelerate violent
centrifugal tendencies—in this emerging ‘post-Cold War’ era.” Appeasement
of aggression in one region would breed aggression elsewhere. To President Bush, it was all reminiscent of
the 1930s. This time, he recalled in his
memoirs, “I wanted no appeasement.” Speaking to the American people on the
eve of war, Bush described American objectives not in terms of national
interests but in terms of a “new world order,” in which “the rule of law, not
the law of the jungle, governs the conduct of nations.” Much like
Roosevelt in 1939, he argued that “a world in which brutality and
lawlessness are allowed to go unchecked isn’t the kind of world we’re going to
want to live in.”
但是，老布希政府另外一派以 Brent Scowcroft (空軍上將、國安會顧問) 為主的顧問，卻不以為然。他們認為，這是後冷戰時期的第一個考驗。半世紀以來，美國主導阻嚇及懲罰意圖當侵略者的國家。雖然進兵科威特很昂貴又有風險，但是如果不這麼做，恐怕會產生可怕的先例，將加速後冷戰時期的暴力離心傾向。某個區域的姑息養奸，將導致其他區域的侵略行動。老布希總統覺得這情況很像30年代，他在回憶錄裡說，這次「我不要姑息」。在戰爭前夕他跟美國民眾談話時，他不是以國家利益去說明美國的目標，而是站在「世界新秩序」的觀點，這個「世界新秩序」所服膺的是法治，不是叢林原則。就像1939年的小羅斯福總統，他主張「一個放任殘暴、目無法紀行為的世界，不是我們想要生活的世界。」
Thus did Roosevelt’s original grand strategy—the defense of a liberal
world order against collapse, responding not to any single, specific threat but
to whatever political, economic, or strategic challenges might arise—seem to
reemerge after the long cold war. After
1990, the United States, despite occasional protectionist pressures at home,
generally sought to expand free trade and worked in cooperation with other
governments, even at moments of economic crisis, to prevent a collapse of the
global economic system. The United
States also undertook to expand its alliance system, especially in Central and
Eastern Europe.
護衛自由世界秩序、不針對單一威脅而反應、而是留意任何的政治、經濟、與戰略的挑戰 —— 這原本就是小羅斯福的大戰略，它似乎在長期的冷戰之後又冒出頭來。1990之後，縱使國內偶有保護主義的壓力，美國大體上仍朝著自由貿易前進，與各國政府合作，甚至在經濟危機時仍一本初衷，防止全球經濟崩盤。美國同時也擴大結盟，尤其是在中歐與東歐。
In the decade following the fall of the Berlin Wall, moreover, the United
States also conducted a number of sizeable military operations—seven to be
precise, roughly one every 17 months: in Panama (1989), Iraq (1991), Somalia
(1992), Haiti (1994), Bosnia (1995), Iraq again (1998), and Kosovo (1999). None were a response to perceived threats to
vital national interests. All aimed at
defending and extending the liberal world order—by toppling dictators, reversing
coups, and attempting to restore democracies in Panama and Haiti; preventing
mass killing or starvation in Somalia, Bosnia, and Kosovo; deterring or
reversing aggression in the Persian Gulf in 1991; and attempting to prevent the
proliferation of nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in 1998. When Bush sent 30,000 troops to remove the
corrupt dictator Manuel Noriega, it was not, as George Will wrote approvingly
at the time, in order to pursue national interests “narrowly construed,” but to
fulfill “the rights and responsibilities that come with the possession of great
power.” When Bush then carried out in Somalia what was arguably the most purely
humanitarian, and therefore most purely selfless, intervention in American
history, he told the public, “I understand that the United States alone
cannot right the world’s wrongs.” But the “people of Somalia need ... our help” and “some crises in the world
cannot be resolved without American involvement.”
柏林圍牆倒了之後的十年，美國進行了七次大規模的軍事行動：在巴拿馬 (1989)、伊拉克 (1991)、索馬利亞(1992)、海地 (1994)、波士尼亞 (1995)、伊拉克 (1998)、以及科索沃 (1999)。這七次都不是為了美國國家重大利益，而是保衛或延伸自由世界秩序。美軍在巴拿馬及海地推翻獨裁者、扭轉叛亂、試圖回復民主；在索馬利亞、波士尼亞、以及科索沃防止屠殺與飢荒；1991在波斯灣嚇阻侵略行為；1998在伊拉克試圖防止核武及其他大規模毀滅性武器的擴散。布希派遣三萬美軍趕走巴拿馬領導人Manuel Noreiga，為的是實踐強國的權利與責任。他在索馬利亞執行的任務，明顯是美國歷史上最合乎人道、最無私的干涉行動。布希對美國民眾說：「我明白，光靠美國無法矯正世界的錯誤。」但是，「索馬利亞的人民需要…我們的幫助。…如果沒有美國，有些世界危機是無解的。」
The United States, in short, was the “indispensable nation,” as Bill
Clinton would proclaim—indispensable, that is, to the preservation of a liberal
world order. Such was the thinking
behind most of Clinton’s foreign policy initiatives: the enlargement of NATO,
which included the extension of unprecedented military guarantees to such
nations as Poland, the Czech Republic, and the Baltic states; the billions sent
to try to save Boris Yeltsin’s faltering democratic experiment in Russia; and
the intense focus on containing North Korea, Iraq, and Iran, designated as
“rogue states” because they defied the principles of a liberal world order. Conflicts in remote and troubled parts of the
world were not considered irrelevant to American interests but were viewed
within this broader context. After the
massacre at Srebrenica in 1995, Clinton officials argued, according to David
Halberstam, that “Serb aggression” was intolerable— not because it threatened
American interests directly, which obviously it did not, but because it tore at
“the very fabric of the West.”
簡言之，美國就如柯林頓後來所說的，是「不可或缺的國家」——對維護自由世界秩序而言，是不可或缺的。因此，柯林頓擴大北約規模，對波蘭、捷克、波羅的海國家立下前所未有的軍事承諾；他撥了數十億美元給葉爾辛，扶持搖搖欲墜的俄國民主；並密切圍堵北韓、伊拉克、伊朗等藐視自由世界秩序的「流氓國家」 (因為它們藐視自由世界秩序)。遙遠的戰亂，並非與美國利益不相關，但是美國以此寬廣的視野去看待。塞爾維亞在1995年於 Srebrenica 一地屠殺波希米亞人，柯林頓政府的官員認為是無可忍受的侵略，不是因為它直接威脅美國利益 (顯然沒有)，而是因為它所撕裂的正是西方的結構。
Even the American confrontation with Iraq, beginning in the late 1990s
and culminating in the U.S. invasion in 2003, had begun as a world order issue,
before it became subsumed by George W. Bush’s “War on Terror.” When President Clinton ordered four days of
bombing and missile attacks against suspected Iraqi weapons production
facilities at the end of 1998, he warned that, if Saddam were not stopped, “The
community of nations may see more and more of the very kind of threat Iraq
poses now: a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or
provide them to terrorists. …If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those
who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow.” In the twentieth century, Americans had “often
made the difference between chaos and community, fear and hope. Now, in the new century, we’ll have a
remarkable opportunity to shape a future more peaceful than the past.” At the end of the day, George W. Bush’s
decision to remove Saddam Hussein, whether that decision was wise or foolish,
was driven more by concerns for world order than by narrow self-interest. Of all the American interventions of the
post-cold-war era, only the invasion of Afghanistan could be understood as
directly related to America’s own national security.
美國與伊拉克的衝突起於90年代後期，2003美軍進攻時達到頂點，最後融入小布希的防恐戰爭。即便如此，它最初出現時屬世界秩序議題。1998年底，柯林頓下令四天的砲轟之前，他警告，美國此時若不阻嚇海珊，「國際社會將不乏伊拉克所造成的這種威脅：擁有大規模毀滅性的武器的流氓國家，隨時可以自用，或者提供給恐怖分子。… 今天不做處理，明天海珊以及效法他的人就會更肆無忌憚。」他表示，二十世紀的美國人「經常體驗混亂與和諧、恐懼與希望之間的分野。到了新世紀，我們有絕佳的機會可以創造一個比過去更和平的未來。」當天稍晚 (註：文章有跳躍) 小布希決定要除去海珊，無論決定是明智或愚蠢，其著眼點仍是世界秩序。後冷戰時期的軍事行動當中，只有出兵阿富汗與美國的國家安全有直接關係。
The long interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan certainly played a
part in undermining American support, not just for wars but for the grand strategy
that led to those wars. However, that
support had been shaky from the beginning.
Polls throughout the 1990s showed Americans wary of overseas
interventions, even though the public generally supported their presidents when
they used force. Opposition parties
generally opposed the interventions undertaken by both Democratic and
Republican presidents. Democrats voted
against George H. W. Bush’s Persian Gulf war; Republicans opposed the Clinton
administration’s interventions in Haiti and the Balkans as superfluous
“international social work” and “nation-building” that were divorced from
American national interests. Realists in
the academy and the think tanks pecked away at successive administrations,
warning of overreach and “imperialism.” Perhaps
like the cartoon character that runs beyond the edge of the cliff and hangs
with legs churning in the air before falling, support for the globally active
policies of the 1990s was a kind of forward inertia, fueled by the energy of
the late cold war, and gravity was eventually going to bring it to Earth.
在伊拉克與阿富汗的長期干涉，磨損了美國民眾的支持，不只不再支持戰爭，也連帶不支持導致戰爭的大戰略。不過，民眾的支持從一開始就動搖了。90年代的民調顯示，人民雖然通常會支持總統出兵的決定，但已厭戰。反對黨也都會反對總統的干預行動。民主黨反對老布希參與波斯灣戰爭，共和黨也嘲諷柯林頓在海地及巴爾幹國家的干預是多餘的「國際社交」與「創立國家」，無關美國利益。信奉現實主義的學者也不斷批評一任接一任的政府，發出過度擴張與帝國主義的警告。或許，90年代積極的全球政策是冷戰能量的慣性餘波，就像在懸崖衝過頭、來不及煞車的卡通人物，雙腳在空中猛踩，最終還是要讓地心引力抓回到地面上。
The conventional wisdom these days is that Americans are war-weary. But it may be more accurate to say they are
world-weary. During the cold war, after all,
Americans had much greater reason for war-weariness—Korea and Vietnam were 14
times more costly in terms of American deaths than Afghanistan and Iraq—but
they never fully rejected the global anti-communist containment strategy that
had gotten them into the wars. Today’s
mood seems more analogous to the 1920s. More
than 50 percent of Americans today believe that the United States “should mind
its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best
they can on their own”—the highest number ever recorded since Pew started
asking the question 50 years ago.
大家現在都說美國人「厭戰」，較正確的說法應該是「厭世界」。冷戰時期，美國人更有理由「厭戰」，當時韓戰越戰犧牲的美軍人數是阿富汗與伊拉克戰爭的14倍，美國人卻也沒有真的排斥反共的圍堵政策。眼前的情緒比較像20年代。今天超過百分之50的美國人認為美國應該自掃門前雪，讓其他國家自力更生。美國皮尤研究中心從50年前就開始問民眾這個問題，這是最高的一次數據。
At the core of this public attitude is no doubt the desire to avoid more
wars. But as the 1920s and 1930s showed,
a determination to stay out of war can affect broader foreign and economic
policies. In the 1930s, the desire to
avoid war led Congress to pass the Neutrality Acts, to prevent Americans from
even trading with belligerents in a foreign war lest the United States be
dragged in on one side or the other. Such
an action may be inconceivable today, but the reasoning behind it is visible. Polls these days show that Americans are not
only averse to using military force but also to actions short of war. More than 50 percent agreed that it was “more
important” that the United States “not get too involved in the situation in
Ukraine” than that it “take a firm stand” against Russia, which 29 percent
found more important. Many of those not
wanting to get “too involved” may fear that any involvement could eventually
lead to a possible military confrontation—and they’re not entirely wrong. As in the 1920s and 1930s, Americans can see
the slippery slope.
民眾其實是想避免戰爭。20、30年代顯示，避戰的決心影響了外交及經濟政策。30年代的國會甚至通過中立法案，不讓美國人與交戰團體做生意，以免美國捲入戰亂。這在今天看來很不可思議，但是背後的道理卻顯而易見。民調顯示，今天的美國人不只排斥使用武力，也不喜歡非武力的行動。過半的美國人認為，「不要被捲入烏克蘭的紛爭」比「對俄國態度堅定」更重要。只有百分之29的人認為後者較重要。大家害怕干預會導致戰爭，而確實有此可能。和20、30年代一樣，美國人看到了滑坡 (slippery
slope，在此意指美國人在邏輯上的不理性，顯現出對戰爭的過度恐懼以及缺乏自信。)。
【slippery slope : 其典型形式為「如果發生Ａ，接著就會發生Ｂ，接著就會發生Ｃ，接著就會發生Ｄ，……，接著就會發生Ｚ」，而後通常會明示或暗示地推論「Ｚ不應該發生，因此我們不應允許Ａ發生」。Ａ至Ｂ、Ｂ至Ｃ、Ｃ至Ｄ、……等因果關係好似一個個「坡」，從Ａ推論至Ｚ的過程就像一個個滑坡，最後導致與最初命題不相關的結論。
大型走山的謬誤的問題在於，每個「坡」的因果強度不一，有些因果關係只是可能、而非必然，有些因果關係相當微弱，有些因果關係甚至是未知或缺乏證據的，因而即使Ａ發生，也無法一路滑到Ｚ，Ｚ並非必然（或極可能）發生。相對地，若有充足證據顯示每個「坡」都有合理、強烈的因果連結，即不構成滑坡謬誤。】
【待續】
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