Robert Kagan: Superpowers Don't Get to Retire--4/4

超級大國沒有隱退這回事

疲憊的美國責任未了—4/4

作者：Robert Kagan

翻譯：Taimocracy

IV.

Historians often refer to the “maturing” of American foreign policy since the nineteenth century.  But if nations can learn, they can also unlearn.  These days it is hard to watch both the conduct and the discussion of American foreign policy and not sense a certain unlearning, a forgetting of the old lessons on which the grand strategy was premised.  Perhaps this was inevitable.  World War II is as distant from today’s “millennials” as the Civil War was from the generation of the 1930s.  A generation that does not remember the cold war, but grew up knowing only Iraq and Afghanistan, is going to view America’s role in the world differently.  Combine that with the older generations that have tired of playing the old role, and it is hardly surprising that enthusiasm is flagging.  Americans today are not isolationists, any more than they were in the 1920s.  They favor the liberal world order insofar as they can see how it touches them.  But they are no longer prepared to sacrifice very much to uphold it.

歷史學者常提到美國外交政策自19世紀以來的成熟進步，但是，如果國家可以學習，它也可以遺忘。今天美國外交政策的論述與作為卻讓人感覺到某種遺忘——遺忘大戰略所奠基的古老教訓。這也難怪。成長於後冷戰時代的美國人只知伊拉克與阿富汗，再加上老一輩的美國人已經厭倦了苦撐全球安全，熱情轉為疲軟或許是必然的。但，這並不表示現在的美國人是孤立主義者，他們親身體驗並支持自由的世界秩序，只是還沒有心理準備要為它做犧牲。

This is understandable.  Americans have been Atlas carrying the world on their shoulders.  They can be forgiven for feeling the temptation to put it down.  Under the best of circumstances, playing the role of upholder of the liberal world order was always a monumental task.  At the dawn of the American era, Truman called it “the most terrible responsibility that any nation ever faced.” George Kennan was convinced that the American people were “not fitted, either institutionally or temperamentally, to be an imperial power in the grand manner.” Actually, he underestimated them, for Americans maintained their global commitments for decades, better than most nations.

這是可以理解的心理。美國就像神話中肩負地球的 Atlas，如果他們累了想放下重擔，是可以諒解的。就算在最佳狀況下，背負自由世界的秩序，已經是很龐大的任務。杜魯門在承擔之初就說了，沒有國家面對過這麼可怕的責任。George Kennan 則相信，美國人「要以崇高的氣度去成為超級強國，制度或氣質上都不適合。」事實上，Kennan 低估了同胞。美國人背負全球義務數十載，大多數國家難以望其項背。

Yet the burden has been immense, and not just the obvious costs in lives and treasure.  Americans have spent vast amounts on defense budgets, more than all other major powers combined.  Can’t U.S. allies carry more of the burden? The question has been asked since the dawn of the cold war, but the answer has always been: probably not.  The same factors that have made the United States uniquely capable of supporting a world order—great wealth and power and the relative security afforded by geography—help explain why American allies have always been less capable and less willing.  They have lacked the power and the security to see and act beyond their narrow interests.  So where they failed before they will fail again.  Even twenty-first-century Europeans, for all the wonders of their union, seem incapable of uniting against a predator in their midst, and are willing, as in the past, to have the weak devoured if necessary to save their own (financial) skins.  There are moral costs, too.  Like most people, Americans generally like to believe that they are behaving justly in the world, that they are on the side of the right.  If possible, they like to have legal or institutional sanctions for their action, or at least the general approval of like-minded nations.  On the two occasions in the past 100 years when the United States contemplated taking on a central role in global affairs, in 1918 and 1945, American leaders insisted on simultaneously creating world organizations that could, at least in theory, provide this legitimacy for American actions.

此一負荷龐大，美國所付出的不僅限於戰場上的生命與貴重資源，它在國防預算上的長期投注，超過了其他大國的總和。然而盟邦至今仍無法分擔重責，因為它們缺乏美國得天獨厚的財富、權力、與提供安全的地理位置。因此視野與行動受限，無法超越自身偏狹的利益，也就難以避免過去的錯誤。歐洲就算在二十一世紀風光地結為歐盟，卻依然為了私利，不肯團結對付侵略者，眼睜睜看著弱肉被強食。此外，美國也承擔了道德上的壓力。就像大部分的人一樣，美國人一般來說都想在國際上行為恰當，站在對的那一方。他們希望擁有法律或制度上的認可，或至少得到理念相同的盟邦一致贊同。美國在1918及1945年決定承擔全球事務時，領導人也同時創立了國際組織，就是希望以此取得全球行動的合法性。

The problem is, the world lacks any genuine overarching legal or institutional authority, much less a democratic authority, to which all nations subordinate themselves.  Questions of right and wrong are settled not according to impartial justice but usually according to the distribution of power in the system.  Americans have usually had to use their power to enforce their idea of justice without any assurance beyond their own faith that they are right.  This is a heavy moral burden for a democratic people to bear.  In their domestic lives, Americans are accustomed to having that burden spread evenly across society.  The people make the laws, the police enforce the laws, judges and juries mete out justice, and the prison officials carry out the punishment.  But in the international sphere, Americans have had to act as judge, jury, police, and, in the case of military action, executioner.  What gives the United States the right to act on behalf of a liberal world order?  In truth, nothing does, nothing beyond the conviction that the liberal world order is the most just.

問題是，這個世界缺乏所有國家都服膺的法律或制度權威，更別提民主權威了。決定是非對錯的，不是公平正義，而是權力的分佈。美國人向來運用權力去伸張自認為的正義時，除了自己的信念之外，沒有任何東西可以確認他們是對的。對一個民主國家的人民來說，這是沉重的精神負擔。在國內，美國人習慣大家平均分擔責任：人民立法、警察執法、法官與陪審團伸張正義、監獄官員執行刑罰。但是在國際領域，美國卻必須集所有責任於一身：法官、陪審團、警察、軍事行動執行者。有甚麼東西賦予美國權利，讓它以維護自由世界秩序為名而行動嗎？事實上，沒有，除了「自由世界秩序是最公平的秩序」的理念之外。

This moral conundrum was easier to ignore during the cold war, when every action taken, even in the most obscure corners of the world, was justified as being in defense of vital national interests.  But actions taken in defense of world order are fraught with moral complexity.  Americans and Europeans argue that Ukraine’s sovereignty should be inviolate and that the people of Ukraine should be allowed to pursue their aspirations to be part of Europe.  Vladimir Putin justifies his invasion of Crimea on the grounds of ancient historical ties and in response to American and European meddling in Russia’s historical sphere of influence.  Who is there to adjudicate between these competing claims of justice? Who can determine which side is right and which side is wrong? It does no good to invoke some allegedly superior twenty-first-century morality against an inferior nineteenth-century morality.  No more in this century than in previous centuries is there either perfect morality or perfect justice to be found in the international system.  Nor do great powers come to disputes with clean hands, in this or any other century.  All are selfish; all are morally compromised.  And indeed, the more power a nation has, the more it is likely to act in ways that cannot be squared with a Christian or Enlightenment morality.

冷戰時，以「護衛國家重大利益」為藉口，可以輕易擋掉這個道德難題，但是「護衛世界秩序」就複雜了。歐美認為烏克蘭主權神聖不可侵犯，普亭卻認為歐美不該插手俄國歷史影響力的領域。誰有資格論斷是非？論道德觀與正義感，二十一世紀並沒有比十九世紀完美。論國家，大家都自私，都有道德汙點。況且，愈是強盛的國家，愈可能不符合基督教或啟蒙運動的道德標準。

Who is to say that even defense of the liberal world order is necessarily good? The liberal world order was never put to a popular vote.  It was not bequeathed by God.  It is not the endpoint of human progress, despite what our Enlightenment education tells us.  It is a temporary and transient world order that suits the needs, interests, and above all the ideals of a large and powerful collection of people, but it does not necessarily fit the needs and desires of everyone.  For decades many abroad and some Americans at home saw it as a form of Western imperialism, and many still do.  Communism may have failed, but authoritarianism and autocracy live on.  And it is that form of government, not democracy, that has been the norm throughout history.  In recent decades the democracies, led by the United States and Europe, have had the power to shape the world.  But who is to say that Putinism in Russia or the particular brand of authoritarianism practiced in China will not survive as far into the future as European democracy, which, outside of Great Britain, is itself only a little over a century old?

誰敢說「護衛自由世界秩序」一定就是好事？這世界曾投票表示對「自由世界秩序」的喜好嗎？上帝並未賜予人類這樣的世界秩序，它也不是人類文明的終點。它只是在這個過渡時期，勢力龐大的一群人的需求、利益、及理想。它未見得是所有人的需求。事實上，現在仍有人把它視為西方帝國主義。共產主義失敗，但獨裁思想與制度依舊存在，而且是整個歷史的常模。數十年來，強大的歐美倡導民主，但是英國以外的歐洲民主只實行了一百多年，誰敢說普亭主義或中國獨裁制度不會一樣長壽？

A liberal world order, like any world order, is something that is imposed, and as much as we in the West might wish it to be imposed by superior virtue, it is generally imposed by superior power.  Putin seeks to impose his view of a world order, at least in Russia’s neighborhood, just as Europe and the United States do.  Whether he succeeds or fails will probably not be determined merely by who is right and who is wrong.  It will be determined by the exercise of power.

「自由世界秩序」跟其他類型的世界秩序一樣，是由超強的國家強加其優勢外力而成的，而不是我們所想像的因為優異本質而盛行。普亭跟歐美國家一樣，也想要在他周圍區域施行他所想要的世界秩序。他的成敗，可能並非由是非對錯來決定，而是由權力的運作來決定。

This is a disturbing thought for a nation that has grown weary of exercising power.  Hans Morgenthau once observed that Americans are attracted to the “illusion that a nation can escape ...  from power politics,” that at some point “the final curtain would fall and the game of power politics would no longer be played.” Many escapes have been offered over the past two decades.  In 1989, Fukuyama told Americans that with the end of history there would be no more “serious ideological competitors left to liberal democracy.” Liberal progress was inevitable, and therefore nothing need be done to promote or defend it.  Such thoughts were echoed throughout the 1990s.  The age of geopolitics had supposedly given way to the age of geoeconomics.  What America needed in the new era was less “hard power” and more “soft power.”

這個思維，對已經厭倦權力運作的國家而言，很困擾。Hans Morgenthau 曾觀察到，美國人「誤以為一個國家可以擺脫權力政治」，誤以為「權力政治遊戲總有落幕的時候」。Fukuyama 在1989告訴美國人，歷史必然結束在自由民主模式，民主將不再有競爭者，人們不須再努力倡導或護衛它。90年代一直有這樣的聲音，認為地緣經濟取代地緣政治的時代即將來臨，美國在新世紀需要的將是軟實力，而不是硬實力。

Such was the reigning conventional wisdom, at least from the end of the cold war until 2008 and the beginning of the financial crisis.  Then the paradigm shifted.  Suddenly, instead of the end of history, it was the end of America, the end of the West.  Triumphalism turned to declinism.  From the post-cold-war utopia it became the post-American world.  Yet this, too, turned out to be a form of escapism, for remarkably, whether the liberal world order was triumphing or America and the West were declining, the prescription remained the same: There was nothing to be done.  Whereas before it had been unnecessary, and even wrong, for the United States to use its power to shape the world, now, suddenly, it was impossible, because the United States no longer had sufficient power.

這樣的論調支配了一段時間，至少從冷戰結束到2008年經濟危機之初。然後，典範轉移了。突然間，歷史沒有結束，結束的是美國、西方。不見勝利，但見衰微，不見後冷戰烏托邦，但見後美國世界。然而，這一切依舊是逃避主義。因為不管強盛或衰微，藥方是一樣的：我們都無能為力。之前美國形塑世界秩序，是沒必要的，或者是錯誤的，現在則因為實力不夠而變成是不可能的。

Today more than 50 percent of Americans believe the United States plays “a less important and powerful role as a world leader than it did a decade ago.” One senses that, for many Americans, this decline is not a reason for panic but comes as something of a relief.  Less power means fewer responsibilities.  A sense of futility, today as much as in the 1920s and 1930s, is both an invitation and a justification for a return to normalcy.

今天一半以上的美國人認為，美國「在國際上的領導地位比十年前低落」。可以感覺得到，美國人並不會因為國力衰微而恐慌，反而是鬆了一口氣，因為力量小表示責任也小。今天的氛圍與20、30年代差不多，「徒勞無用」給了人們藉口，想回歸國家「常態」。

The sense of futility has affected policymakers, too.  Senior White House officials, especially the younger ones, look at problems like the struggle in Syria and believe that there is little if anything the United States can do.  This is the lesson of their generation, the lesson of Iraq and Afghanistan: that America has neither the power nor the understanding nor the skill to fix problems in the world.

無用論也影響到決策者。白宮高階官員，尤其是年紀較輕的，認為美國對敘利亞問題幾乎是無能為力的。他們這一代從伊拉克及阿富汗學到的是：美國沒有那個權力、理解力、或者技巧，去解決國際問題。

This is also escapism, however, for there is a myth embedded in this plea of futility.  It is that wielding power effectively was ever any easier than it is today.  With rose-colored glasses we look back at the cold war and imagine that the United States used to get others to do what it wanted, used to know what it was doing, and used to wield such overwhelming power that the world simply bent to its will or succumbed to its charms.  But American policy during the cold war, despite its ultimate success, was filled with errors, folly, many near-disasters, and some disasters.  From the beginning, allies proved rebellious, resentful, and unmanageable.  American domestic politics made sensible policies difficult and sometimes impossible to sustain.  The world economy, and the American economy, lurched from crisis to crisis.  American military power was at its best a most uncertain instrument.  In Vietnam, whether inevitably or because of bad policymaking in Washington, it failed miserably.  In Korea, it almost suffered a complete catastrophe.  The most successful presidents of the era, from Truman to Reagan, did not always seem successful to their contemporaries and suffered significant setbacks in their foreign policies.  Can the architects of today’s foreign policies really believe that Acheson and his colleagues, or the policymakers in the Johnson or Nixon or Carter administrations, had an easier time of it?

深埋在無用論裏頭的某個迷思，也是造成逃避主義的主因之一。我們在回顧歷史時，美化了冷戰時期，以為過去的美國魅力十足、所向披靡，以為美國過去操作權力輕而易舉。然而事實上，當年美國雖然獲得最後勝利，在過程中卻充滿了錯誤、愚蠢，許多次險釀大禍，也的確闖了幾次大禍。從一開始，盟邦背叛、易怒、難以應付。美國國內政策也窒礙難行。世界經濟與美國經濟，捱過一次又一次的危機。美國軍力，很不可靠，不管是政策錯誤還是天意如此，越戰與韓戰都很淒慘。冷戰時期的歷任總統，從杜魯門到雷根，並未在當時被認定為成功的總統，外交政策都曾遭受嚴重挫敗。今日操控外交政策的官員，真的相信 Acheson 團隊，或者詹森、尼克森、或卡特政府的決策者，日子過得比較輕鬆嗎？

Any nation’s foreign policy is bound to fail more often than it succeeds.  The attempt to influence the behavior of people even in the domestic setting is difficult enough.  To influence other peoples and other nations without simply annihilating them is the most difficult of all human tasks.  It is also in the very nature of foreign policy, as in human affairs generally, that all solutions to problems only breed more problems.  This is certainly true of all wars.  There is no perfect ending to any war, even those fought with the clearest and most straightforward of objectives.  The Civil War did not put an end to the terrible plight of blacks in America, though it cost over half a million lives.  World War II ended with the Soviet Union in control of half of Europe and opened the way to another four decades of superpower confrontation.

任何國家的外交政策必定是失敗比成功還頻繁。想影響國內人民的行為，已經夠困難了，妄想不必殲滅其他民族與國家就能影響他們的行為，簡直就是人類最困難的任務。而且，解決一個問題又產生另外的問題，是外交政策的本質 (人類事務大都如此)。戰爭當然也如此，沒有任何戰爭能夠產生完美的結局，即使目標清楚而直接了當。南北戰爭犧牲五十萬生命，卻未能結束黑人的痛苦。二戰慘烈，結果是蘇聯控制一半的歐洲，開始長達四十年超級強國的對峙。

When a nation uses its power to shape a world order, rather than merely for self-defense or conquest, the tenuousness of solutions is even more pronounced.  Military actions for world order preservation are almost by definition limited both in scope and objectives.  World order maintenance requires operating in the gray areas between victory and defeat.  The measure of success is often not how wonderful the end result is, but whether the unsatisfying end result is better or worse than the outcome if there had been no action.  To insist on outcomes that always achieve maximum ends at minimal cost is yet another form of escapism.

當一個國家試圖以它自身的權力去創造世界秩序，而不只是自衛或征服時，解決之道的脆弱甚至更明顯。以武力維持世界秩序，視野與目標當然有限。維持世界秩序，必須在成敗之間的灰色地帶操作。成功的標準，不在於結果有多麼精彩，而是行動後令人失望的結果，是否比沒有行動更好。堅持以最小的代價換取最好的結果，其實只是另外一種逃避主義的表現。

Today, however, Americans seem overwhelmed by the difficulty and complexity of it all.  They yearn to return to what Niebuhr called “the innocency of irresponsibility,” or at least to a normalcy in which the United States can limit the scope of its commitments.  In this way America has perhaps returned to the mood of the 1920s.  There is a difference, however.  In the 1920s, it was not America’s world order that needed shoring up.  Americans felt, mistakenly as it turned out, that it was Britain’s and Europe’s job to preserve the world order they had created.  Today, it is America’s world order that needs propping up.  Will Americans decide that it matters this time, when only they have the capacity to sustain it?

然而，今天的美國人似乎被這個任務的困難度與複雜度打垮了。他們似乎渴望回到 Niebuhr 所謂的「無責任的純真」年代，或至少回到國家常態。這一來就回到20年代的氛圍了，不過，那個時代與現在還是有所不同。當時需要支撐的並不是美國所建立的世界秩序，而是英國與歐洲建立的，美國原本也以為應該由英國與歐洲自己去維持這個秩序。今天，需要大力支撐的則是美國自己建立的世界秩序，也只有美國撐得起來。美國人是否覺得這是個要緊的任務？

You never miss the water ’til the well runs dry, or so the saying goes.  One wonders whether Americans, including their representatives and their president, quite understand what is at stake.  When President Obama first took office five years ago, Peter Baker of The New York Times reported that he intended to deal “with the world as it is rather than as it might be.”  It is a standard realist refrain and has been repeated time and again by senior Obama officials as a way of explaining why he decided against pursuing some desirable but unreachable “ideal” in this place or that.  What fewer and fewer seem to realize, however, is that the last 70 years have offered Americans and many others something of a reprieve from the world “as it is.”

失去了，才懂得珍惜。但不知美國人 (包括他們的代表與總統) 是否真正了解目前的風險所在？歐巴馬五年前初上任時，《紐約時報》報導，他打算處理的是「真實的世界」，而非「可能的理想世界」。每當歐巴馬決定放棄遙不可及的「理想」時，他的高階官員總是會一次又一次地複頌這段標準的現實主義副歌，以解釋總統的行為。似乎愈來愈少人能夠體悟，過去的這七十年，其實讓美國以及許多世人暫時避過了「真實世界」的殘酷。

Periods of peace and prosperity can make people forget what the world “as it is” really looks like, and to conclude that the human race has simply ascended to some higher plateau of being.  This was the common view in Europe in the first decade of the twentieth century.  At a time when there had not been a war between great powers in 40 years, or a major Europe-wide war in a century, the air was filled with talk of a new millennium in which wars among civilized nations had become impossible.  Three-quarters of a century and two world wars and a cold war later, millennial thoughts return.  Studies cited by Fareed Zakaria purport to show that some “transformation of international relations” has occurred.  “Changes of borders by force” have dropped dramatically “since 1946.” The nations of Western Europe, having been responsible for two new wars a year for 600 years, had not even started one “since 1945.” Steven Pinker observes that the number of deaths from war, ethnic conflict, and military coups has declined—since 1945—and concludes that the human race has become “socialized” to prefer peace and nonviolence.

一段時間的和平與繁榮，會使人忘卻「真實世界」的原貌，斷定人類就是會逐漸升級到較高的生存境界。二十世紀的最初十年，歐洲就是處於這樣的氛圍，當時大國之間已經四十年沒打仗了，大家都以為太平盛世會繼續下去。四分之三個世紀與兩次世界大戰過去了，健忘的人們又開始太平盛世了。Fareed Zakaria 試圖顯示「國際關係的質變」已經發生，「以武力改變國界」從1945以來大幅下降，曾於六百年間每年開啟兩次新戰火的歐洲從1945以來不曾開戰過。Steve Pinker 也注意到，「自1945以來」死於戰爭、種族衝突、與軍事政變的人數已經下降，並論斷人類已深諳群體生活，喜好和平與非暴力主義。

The dates when these changes supposedly began ought to be a tip-off.  Is it a coincidence that these happy trends began when the American world order was established after World War II, or that they accelerated in the last two decades of the twentieth century, when America’s only serious competitor collapsed?  Imagine strolling through Central Park and, after noting how much safer it had become, deciding that humanity must simply have become less violent—without thinking that perhaps the New York Police Department had something to do with it.

這些改變的開始日期，透漏了重要的訊息。幸福起始於二戰後美國世界新秩序的建立，或者幸福隨著美國唯一真正的敵人垮台而快速提升，這些都純屬巧合嗎？想像你在中央公園散步，發現它比以前安全，然後就下個結論說人類不再那麼暴力了，卻忘了這或許跟紐約警察局有點關係。

In fact, the world “as it is” is a dangerous and often brutal place.  There has been no transformation in human behavior or in international relations.  In the twenty-first century, no less than in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, force remains the ultima ratio.  The question, today as in the past, is not whether nations are willing to resort to force but whether they believe they can get away with it when they do.  If there has been less aggression, less ethnic cleansing, less territorial conquest over the past 70 years, it is because the United States and its allies have both punished and deterred aggression, have intervened, sometimes, to prevent ethnic cleansing, and have gone to war to reverse territorial conquest.  The restraint showed by other nations has not been a sign of human progress, the strengthening of international institutions, or the triumph of the rule of law.  It has been a response to a global configuration of power that, until recently, has made restraint seem the safer course.

事實上，「真實世界」很危險且經常是殘暴的地方。人類的行為與國際關係，未曾改變。武力是十九世紀最後的手段，二十一世紀依然如此。今天跟過去的問題都一樣，不是某個國家願不願意動武的問題，而是動武之後能否逍遙法外。如果過去七十年來的侵略、種族清洗、領土征服變少了，那是因為：美國及其盟友懲罰並阻嚇侵略行為，有時候會加以干涉以避免種族被屠殺，並且出兵奪回被征服的領土。一些國家的收斂行為，並不表示人類進步了，也不是國際制度加強了，更不是法治佔了上風。那其實是對全球權力結構的反應，這個結構使得收斂比較保險 (這情況到最近才有所改變)。

When Vladimir Putin failed to achieve his goals in Ukraine through political and economic means, he turned to force, because he believed that he could.  He will continue to use force so long as he believes that the payoff exceeds the cost.  Nor is he unique in this respect.  What might China do were it not hemmed in by a ring of powerful nations backed by the United States?  For that matter, what would Japan do if it were much more powerful and much less dependent on the United States for its security? We have not had to find out the answers to these questions, not yet, because American predominance, the American alliance system, and the economic, political, and institutional aspects of the present order, all ultimately dependent on power, have mostly kept the lid closed on this Pandora’s box.

當普亭無法以政治或經濟手段在烏克蘭遂其心願時，他訴諸武力，因為他知道他可以這麼做。只要收穫大於付出，他就會繼續使用武力。但他不是特例。如果中國四周沒有靠美國撐腰的國家包圍，中國會怎樣？單就應對此現象而言，日本如果比現在更強大、不這麼依賴美國保護，它會怎樣？目前這些問題沒有答案。因為美國的強勢、美國的盟邦組織、以及目前世界秩序的經濟、政治、制度各方面，這些依賴權力運作的一切，目前鎖住了潘朵拉的盒子。

Nor have we had to find out yet what the world “as it is” would do to the remarkable spread of democracy.  Skeptics of “democracy promotion” argue that the United States has often tried to plant democracy in infertile soil.  They may be right.  The widespread flowering of democracy around the world in recent decades may prove to have been artificial and therefore tenuous.  As Michael Ignatieff once observed, it may be that “liberal civilization” itself “runs deeply against the human grain and is achieved and sustained only by the most unremitting struggle against human nature.” Perhaps this fragile democratic garden requires the protection of a liberal world order, with constant feeding, watering, weeding, and the fencing off of an ever-encroaching jungle.  In the absence of such efforts, the weeds and the jungle may sooner or later come back to reclaim the land.

我們也還不知道「真實世界」會怎麼應付這麼了不起的民主擴散。「民主推銷」的懷疑者認為美國常常在不毛之地白費力氣栽種民主。這個說法或許是對的。最近幾十年在世界各地開放的民主花朵，或許真的是膚淺、脆弱的。Michael Ignatieff 曾觀察到，「自由文明」本身可能「反人類本性的，必須以最強韌的奮鬥才能達陣並堅持下去。」或許，這個脆弱的民主花園需要自由世界秩序的保護，不斷涵養、澆水、除草，並隔絕隨時犯境的叢林。少了這樣的努力，雜草與叢林就會攻佔花園。

One wonders if even the current economic order reflects the world “as it is.” A world in which autocracies make ever more ambitious attempts to control the flow of information, and in which autocratic kleptocracies use national wealth and resources to further their private interests, may prove less hospitable to the kind of free flow of commerce the world has come to appreciate in recent decades.

目前的經濟秩序是否也反映出「真實世界」的原貌呢？在獨裁當道的經濟體制下，獨裁者控制資訊，竊盜統治將國家財富與資源放進私人的口袋，這與數十年來大家所體會的自由物流相較，可能難以讓人接受。

In fact, from the time that Roosevelt and Truman first launched it, the whole project of promoting and defending a liberal world order has been a concerted effort not to accept the world “as it is.”  The American project has aimed at shaping a world different from what had always been, taking advantage of America’s unique situation to do what no nation had ever been able to do.  Today, however, because many Americans no longer recall what the world “as it is” really looks like, they cannot imagine it.  They bemoan the burdens and failures inherent in the grand strategy but take for granted all the remarkable benefits.

事實上，自羅斯福與杜魯門啟動大戰略之初，整個推展並維護自由世界秩序的計畫，向來就是一種拒絕接受「真實世界」原貌的共同努力。這個記劃利用美國獨步全球的優勢，創造一個與過去截然不同的世界。可是今天的美國人已經忘了「真實世界」，難以想像它的樣貌。他們哀怨大戰略的負荷與挫敗，同時卻又將眼前的自由美好視為理所當然。

Nor do they realize, perhaps, how quickly it can all unravel.  The international system is an elaborate web of power relationships, in which every nation, from the biggest to the smallest, is constantly feeling for shifts or disturbances.  Since 1945, and especially since 1989, the web has been geared to respond primarily to the United States.  Allies observe American behavior and calculate America’s reliability.  Nations hemmed in or threatened by American power watch for signs of growing or diminishing power and will.  When the United States appears to retrench, allies necessarily become anxious, while others look for opportunities.

或許他們也不明白這一切的崩解會有多快。國際結構是個微妙的權力關係網絡，大大小小的國家不停地觸探它的變化或者騷動。1945之後 (尤其在1989之後更是如此)，整著網絡都隨著美國的動靜而調整。盟友觀察美國的行為，推測它的可靠度。受美國包圍或威脅的國家，則細心觀察它權力與意志的消長。一旦美國樽節保守，盟友必然焦慮，其他國家則尋求有利的機會。

In recent years, the world has picked up unmistakable signals that Americans may no longer want to carry the burden of global responsibility.  Others read the polls, read the president’s speeches calling for “nation-building at home,” see the declining defense budgets and defense capabilities, and note the extreme reticence, on the part of both American political parties, about using force.  The world judges that, were it not for American war-weariness, the United States probably would by now have used force in Syria—just as it did in Kosovo, in Bosnia, and in Panama.  President Obama himself recently acknowledged as much when he said, “It’s not that it’s not worth it.  It’s that after a decade of war, you know, the United States has limits.”  Such statements set the web vibrating.  In East Asia, nations living in close proximity to an increasingly powerful China want to know whether Americans will make a similar kind of calculation when it comes to defending them; in the Middle East, nations worried about Iran wonder if they will be left to confront it alone; in Eastern Europe and the Baltic states, American security guarantees are meaningless unless Americans are able and willing to meet them.

最近幾年，這世界已經確認美國可能不願意繼續承擔全球任務。世人解讀著民調，解讀轉而呼籲建設本國的總統演講，看到國防預算與軍力的衰落，並發現兩黨絕口不提使用武力。大家認為，要不是厭戰，美國可能早就進軍敘利亞了，就像之前進軍科索沃、波希米亞、巴拿馬。歐巴馬總統自己也承認：「不是值不值得這樣做的問題，而是經過十年的戰爭，各位也知道的，美國總是有極限的。」這番話使得整個國際網絡顫動了。緊挨著日漸強大的中國的東亞小國，想知道美國對他們是否也這樣地盤算。擔憂伊朗的中東，也想知道美國會不會讓他們勢單力孤地面對伊朗的侵略。在東歐與波羅的海，美國如果沒有能力與意願去履行安全承諾，再多的盟約保證都沒有意義。

Are they? No one has taken a poll lately on whether the United States should come to the defense of its treaty allies in the event of a war between, say, China and Japan; or whether it should come to the defense of Estonia in a Ukraine-like conflict with Russia.  The answers might prove interesting.

是這樣嗎？近期沒有人做過調查，所以也不知道大家是否認為美國在戰爭爆發時應該保衛盟國，譬如說，如果中國與日本打起來？或者，俄國以侵犯烏克蘭的方式侵犯愛沙尼亞？答案可能會很有趣。

Meanwhile, the signs of the global order breaking down are all around us.  Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and seizure of Crimea was the first time since World War II that a nation in Europe had engaged in territorial conquest.  If Iran manages to acquire a nuclear weapon, it will likely lead other powers in the region to do the same, effectively undoing the nonproliferation regime, which, along with American power, has managed to keep the number of nuclear-armed powers limited over the past half century.  Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Russia are engaged in a proxy war in Syria that, in addition to the 150,000 dead and the millions displaced, has further destabilized a region that had already been in upheaval.  In East Asia, nervousness about China’s rise, combined with uncertainty about America’s commitment, is exacerbating tensions.  In recent years the number of democracies around the world has been steadily declining, while the number of autocracies grows.  If these trends continue, in the near future we are likely to see increasing conflict, increasing wars over territory, greater ethnic and sectarian violence, and a shrinking world of democracies.

在此同時，四周出現了世界秩序崩毀的警訊。俄國侵犯烏克蘭，佔據克里米亞，是歐洲二戰後首宗的領土侵犯。如果伊朗核武得手，該區域的其他國家也會仿效，那可就毀了防止核武擴散的國家 (包括美國) 半世紀的努力。在敘利亞的領土上，伊朗、沙烏地阿拉伯、俄國正在打一場代理戰爭，造成十五萬人喪生、數百萬人流離失所，使得這個原本就動盪不安的地區更加混亂。對中國崛起的不安，加上對美國安全承諾的不確定，東亞的緊張加劇。最近幾年，民主國家也減少了，獨裁國家增加了。如果這種狀況持續下去，在不久的將來我們會見到更多的衝突、更多的領土戰爭、更多的種族與派系暴力、以及日漸萎縮的民主世界。

How will Americans respond? If the test is once again to be “national interests” narrowly construed, then Americans may find all of this tolerable, or at least preferable to doing something to stop it.  Could the United States survive if Syria remains under the control of Assad or, more likely, disintegrates into a chaos of territories, some of which will be controlled by jihadi terrorists?  Could it survive if Iran acquires a nuclear weapon, and if in turn Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt acquire nuclear weapons?  Or if North Korea launches a war on the South? Could it survive in a world where China dominates much of East Asia, or where China and Japan resume their old conflict? Could it survive in a world where Russia dominates Eastern Europe, including not only Ukraine but the Baltic states and perhaps even Poland?  Of course it could.  From the point of view of strict “necessity” and narrow national interest, the United States could survive all of this.  It could trade with a dominant China and work out a modus vivendi with a restored Russian empire.  Those alarmed by such developments will be hard-pressed, as Roosevelt was, to explain how each marginal setback would affect the parochial interests of the average American.  As in the past, Americans will be among the last to suffer grievously from a breakdown of world order.  And by the time they do feel the effects, it may be very late in the day.

到時候美國要如何反應？如果檢驗的標準依然是狹義的「國家利益」，那麼美國人可能會覺得這一切都可以容忍，或至少比起而行動更好。美國可以倖存嗎？如果敘利亞繼續讓阿薩德統治，或者更可能的狀況，敘利亞分崩離析，而部分領土由聖戰士控制？如果伊朗擁有核武，而沙烏地阿拉伯、土耳其、埃及也都擁有核武？如果北韓對南韓發動戰爭？如果中國主宰東亞，而中日恢復戰爭？如果俄國控制東歐，包括波羅的海甚至波蘭？這樣美國能夠倖存嗎？當然可以。從單純的「需求」、狹隘的國家利益觀點來看，美國可以倖存。美國可以跟強勢的中國做貿易，可以跟復活的俄羅斯帝國搞個權宜措施相處。對此有所警覺的人會像羅斯福一樣，極力說明，每個遠在天邊的挫敗會如何影響到一般美國人的利益。跟以前一樣，美國會是最後一個因為世界秩序崩毀而受到影響的國家。等他們確實感受到影響時，可能已經太晚了。

Looking back on the period before World War II, Robert Osgood, the most thoughtful of realist thinkers of the past century, discerned a critical element missing from the strategic analyses of the day.  Mere rational calculations of the “national interest,” he argued, proved inadequate.  Paradoxically, it was the “idealists,” those who were “most sensitive to the Fascist menace to Western culture and civilization,” who were “among the first to understand the necessity of undertaking revolutionary measures to sustain America’s first line of defense in Europe.” Idealism, he concluded, was “an indispensable spur to reason in leading men to perceive and act upon the real imperatives of power politics.” This was Roosevelt’s message, too, when he asked Americans to defend “not their homes alone, but the tenets of faith and humanity on which their churches, their governments, and their very civilization are founded.”

上個世紀最有創見的現實主義者 Robert Osgood 回顧二戰前的歷史，察覺到一個當年被遺漏的戰略分析的關鍵元素。他說，單純對「國家利益」做理性研判，是不夠的。很弔詭地，最先理解到必須採取革命性手段以支撐美國在歐洲防線的人士當中，是對威脅西方文明的法西斯最敏感的「理想主義者」。他的結論是：「要領導人們去察覺政治權力最緊急事項並付諸行動，理想主義者是不可缺席的理性刺激。」羅斯福傳遞的也是一樣的訊息，當年他要求美國人保衛的「不只是自己的家園，還有他們的教會、政府、文明所賴以建立的信念與人性。」

Perhaps Americans can be inspired in this way again, without the threat of a Hitler or an attack on their homeland.  But this time they will not have 20 years to decide.  The world will change much more quickly than they imagine.  And there is no democratic superpower waiting in the wings to save the world if this democratic superpower falters.

或許，美國人可以再次受到同樣的感召，而且是在沒有希特勒的威脅或者家園受到攻擊的情況下。但這次他們沒有二十年的時間去細細斟酌了。世界變化之快速，超乎他們的想像。如果這個民主超級強國畏縮不前，就無民主超級強國可當作救援投手以拯救這個世界。

Robert Kagan is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a contributing editor at The New Republic.  He is the author, most recently, of The World America Made.

Robert Kagan: Superpowers Don't Get to Retire--1/4

Robert Kagan: Superpowers Don't Get to Retire--2/4

Robert Kagan: Superpowers Don't Get to Retire--3/4

Robert Kagan: Superpowers Don't Get to Retire--4/4