【译文】
Why the U.S. won’t pivot to Asia anytime soon
为什么美国不会再把战略重心转移到亚洲
Editor’s Note: Robert E. Kelly, Senior Analyst at Wikistrat, is a professor of political science at Pusan National University, South Korea. A longer version of this essay may be found at his website, Asian Security Blog.
By Robert E. Kelly – Special to CNN
编者按：罗伯特·E·凯利，维基战略网的资深分析员，是韩国釜山国立大学的政治学教授。此文的更长版本登在他的网站上——亚洲安全博客（Asian Security Blog）
作者:罗伯特·E·凯利，CNN特稿。
A U.S. ‘pivot’ to Asia is the foreign policy talk of the moment, but I think Americans are unlikely to embrace it. True, Asia outweighs other global regions as a U.S. interest. Europe and Latin America are mostly democratic, fairly prosperous and at peace. Africa, sadly, remains a U.S. backwater. The Middle East is overrated. Israel and oil are important but hardly justify the vast U.S. presence. The terrorist threat is ‘overblown.’
美国的“战略重心”转移到亚洲是此间的外交政策话题，但我认为美国不可能采纳这个政策。确实，对于美国利益来说，亚洲的分量超过了其他环球地区。欧洲和拉丁美洲是大都民主、相当繁荣、太平无事的。非洲，悲哀地说，仍然是美国的一潭死水。中东地区的重要性则被高估了。以色列和石油确实重要但并不足以解释美国在此地如此庞大的势力存在。恐怖主义的威胁被过分夸张了。
By contrast, Asia’s economies are growing fast. Asian savers and banks fund the U.S. deficit. Asia’s addition of two billion people to the global labor pool kept world inflation down for a generation. Asian markets are now major export destinations for American industries. Five hundred million people live in the Middle East but three times that just in India. Half the world’s population lives in South, Southeast, and Northeast Asia.
与此形成对比的是，亚洲经济在高速增长。亚洲的储户和银行家填补了美国的亏空。亚洲涌入世界劳动力市场的20亿人把全世界的通胀拉低位保持了一代人之久。亚洲市场现在是美国工业产品的主要出口目的地。中东地区生活着5亿人，但是印度有三倍于这个数字的人口。这个世界的半数人口生活在亚洲的南部、东南和东北地区。
Lots of people mean friction, and lots of money means weapons. Big, tightly packed, fast-growing economies spend more for bigger militaries, while nationalism and territorial grievances create sparks. Regional conflict would dwarf anything the world has seen since the Cold War. China’s rise to regional hegemony would have obvious ramifications for the U.S.
人多摩擦多，钱多干戈多。体量巨大、包裹严实、快速增长的经济体为越来越庞大的军队开支越来越多，与此同时民族主义和领土争端导致是非横生。区域冲突会使其他任何事情都相形见绌，对于这一点，整个世界自冷战以来已经有目共睹。 中国的崛起对于地区霸权的影响对于美国来说会产生显著后果。
But four trends in U.S. domestic politics contravene this narrative:
但是美国国内政治的四个趋势是与这个路线相左的：
1. Americans don’t care that much about Asia
第一，美国人并没有那么在乎亚洲
Which constituency in America cares enough about this region to drive a realignment away from long-standing U.S. interests in Europe and the Middle East? The business community might, but they’re souring today because of China’s relentless mercantilism. Asian-Americans are few and have not loudly organized to demand this. Asian security is still scarcely on the media radar compared to the coverage of U.S. domestic politics or the Middle East.
美国有哪个选区的选民在意该地区在欧洲和中东问题上的政策正在偏离美国长期利益的道路上渐行渐远？也许商人们在意，但是现在他们变得越来越尖酸刻薄了，因为中国那冷酷无情的重商主义政策。亚裔美国人很少，并且他们并未高调组织起来提出这种诉求。有关亚洲安全的问题在嗅觉灵敏的媒体上仍然是凤毛麟角，反之，美国国内政治或有关中东的话题则是铺天盖地。
Does Obama’s electoral coalition care? As a rule of thumb, the less wealthy you are, the less you care about far-off issues like foreign policy. So it’s unlikely that the underprivileged and youth who helped Obama win care much. While college-educated whites, who also broke for Obama, likely support this, the rest of the Democratic coalition traditionally focuses on domestic issues.
奥巴马的竞选团队在乎此事吗？根据经验法则，你越穷，对于遥远的话题比如外交政策就越不关心。所以那些帮助奥巴马胜选的社会底层阶级和年青人是不可能关心这种问题的。受过高等教育的白领阶层，也是奥巴马的拥趸，可能会支持这个政策，民主党阵营的其他人传统上还是聚焦于国内议题。
By contrast, the GOP deeply cares about the Middle East. Something like 30-40% of Americans claim to have had a born-again experience. For them, Israel is, easily, America’s most important ally, which the Republican primary on made very obvious. A Kulturkampf with Islam, not Asia, mobilizes these ‘Jacksonian-Christianist’ voters.
与此形成鲜明对比的是，共和党对中东关切甚深。大约有30%到40%左右的美国人声称曾经有过再生经历。对于他们来说，以色列自然而然是美国最重要的盟友，这一点在共和党初选中表现的非常明显。与伊斯兰教而不是与亚洲进行一场“文化战争”的观念是这些“杰克逊-基督主义者”投票的动力。
What does the Tea Party know or care about China or India, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Shintoism, or Taoism? It’s all about culture and religion to the base of the American right these days, and Asia is like another planet to those voters.
茶党对中国或印度、印度教、佛教、儒家学说、神道教或道家学说了解或关心吗？就在当下，这些话题对美国人来说都是最基本的文化和宗教问题，然而对于那些投票者来说，亚洲就像是另一个星球。
2. Americans know less about Asia than any other region bar central Africa
第二，美国对亚洲知之甚少，仅仅略高于对中部非洲的了解。
Of course, it’s true Americans don’t know a lot about the world generally. As a superpower, we don’t have to know about others; others have to know about us. But Asia is the most culturally different social space in the world from the U.S. I can think of, with the possible exception of Bantu Africa.
当然，美国人确实普遍对这个世界了解不多。作为一个超级大国，我们无须去了解其他国家，其他国家倒是不得不来了解我们。但是亚洲是全世界在文化上与美国差别最大的社会空间。在这方面我所能想到的可能的例外只有班图非洲。
Latin America, Europe, Oceania, and Russia are all in, or close enough to, Western Civilization that our memory of high school civics classes applies. They look like us (kind of); they eat like us, their languages are fairly similar (Indo-European roots); they dress like us; they worship like us. The tribal cultural gap (how others eat, dress, talk, worship, look, write, etc.) is not that wide.
拉丁美洲，欧洲，大洋洲，和俄罗斯，都在西方文明范畴之内或与之非常接近，也就是我们记忆中高校的公民课所教的那些东西。他们与我们相貌相似（有点），饮食相当，语言相近（都源出印欧语系），穿戴相仿，信仰相亲。他们与我们之间的文化鸿沟（饮食、服饰、言谈、信仰、相貌、书写，等等）没有那么宽。
But consider how many Americans can speak a non-Latinate Asian language, identify a major Asian author, discuss even the basics of Buddhism or Confucianism, use chopsticks properly, distinguish Hindu gods, recognize Angkor Wat, etc.?
但是，想一想有多少美国人能说一口非拉丁语系的亚洲语言、辨识一位主要的亚洲作者、讨论一点佛教或儒家学说的哪怕最基本的概念、正确的使用筷子、分清印度的众神们、认识吴哥窟，等等等等？
What does that say about the American electorate’s cultural-intellectual interest in this pivot? The U.S. public, mostly descended from European immigrants, had a fair idea of Europe, so a ‘North Atlantic Treaty Organization’ was a coherent concept.
面对美国选民们在文化和智识方面对亚洲如此兴趣索然，以上问题对于这个“战略重心”来说意味着什么？美国公众，大部分是欧洲移民的后裔，对欧洲有相当多的认识，所以“北大西洋公约组织”是一个名副其实的概念。
When the U.S. rose to dominance over the Middle East in the 1990s, the deeply religious attachment of many Americans provided a strong foundation. What exactly is the U.S. cultural, intellectual, linguistic, religious, etc. connection to Asia that will sell this to a public wary of more wars and interventions? If you wonder why tiny Iran is so much more important to Americans than huge China or India, well here you go…
当美国在1990年代对中东取得支配地位时，许多美国人深厚的宗教热情对促进此事提供了坚实的基础。然而美国在文化、智识、语言、宗教等方面与亚洲之间有何种联系能够让警惕于更多战争和干涉的公众接受这种（战略重心转移到亚洲的）政策？如果你讶异于为何小伊朗比大中国对于美国重要得多，那么你就去这里看看吧……
3. U.S. allies can do a lot of the work
第三，美国的盟友可以代劳很多事情
The Middle East is characterized by so many non-democracies that the U.S. must be heavily invested to meet current goals - oil, Israel, counterterrorism. America has no strong subordinate anchor-state in the region, so an enduring presence is necessary for actions like dual containment (Iran and Iraq) of the 90s, and or the Iraq war of the 2000s.
中东以众多的非民主政权著称，美国却必须大把砸钱支持他们以达到现行目标——石油、以色列、反恐。美国在该地区没有强大的仆从桩脚国，所以，美国在该地区保持长久的存在，——像90年代的双重遏制（伊朗和伊拉克）和2000年之后的伊拉克战争之类的行动而言，——就是一种必需了。
By contrast, in Asia America has lots of allies and semi-friends who are strong and functional - Japan, Australia, Korea, and Taiwan - with improving relations with India and Vietnam too.
与此形成对比的是，美国在亚洲有很多强大的、能干的盟友和“准盟友”，比如日本、澳大利亚、韩国，和台湾，以及关系持续改善的的印度和越南。
Smart policy would push a lot of the costs of American goals in Asia onto them. Why should America encircle, contain, or otherwise fence with China, when the frontline states should do it first? They don’t want to be dominated by China, and they will suffer a lot more than the U.S. if China becomes the regional hegemon. So America can hover in the background, offshore, over the horizon.
巧政策把美国在亚洲目标的成本转移到了这些盟友身上。当这些前线国家本来应该首当其冲的包围中国、遏制中国、与中国交手的时候，为什么美国还要做这些事呢？他们并不希望被中国左右，而且一旦中国成为地区霸主，他们所被祸及的程度远甚于美国。所以美国可以远远徘徊在幕后、海外、地平线另一边。
4. America can’t really afford it anymore
第四，美国真的承受不起这个代价了
America obviously needs to spend less, and money which could fund domestic entitlements is going to defense instead. The opportunity cost of buying aircraft carriers to semi-contain China is cutting Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
很明显，美国需要减少开支，本该用于支持国内民生的钱却在源源不断的流入国防开支。购买飞机用于半遏制中国的机会成本就是，用于医疗保险、医疗补助和社会保障的开支被削减了。
Those programs, plus Defense, comprise around 70% of the U.S. budget, making the ‘pivot’ a classic guns vs. butter trade-off. America’s debt exceeds ten trillion dollars and its deficit a trillion. Bush borrowed hugely, and the Great Recession worsened the red ink.
那些开支计划，包括国防，构成了美国财政预算的70%左右，这使得“战略支点”变成了一个经典的“大炮与黄油不可兼得的两难取舍权衡”。美国的债务已经超过了十万亿美元，赤字则达一万亿之巨。布什大手大脚的借钱，经济衰退则使得赤字问题雪上加霜。
Given China’s enormity, a U.S. build-up in the region could cost massive sums that just aren’t there anymore. The average American voter will see that domestic entitlements are suffering to fund the continuing post-9/11 U.S. military expansion. It is unlikely Americans will choose guns over butter (aircraft carriers instead of checks for grandma) in the medium-term.
考虑到中国的个头巨大，美国在该地区的扩张可能会耗费巨大，而这些钱根本毫无着落。普通美国选民们会看着国内民生开支正在惨遭削减去支持后911时期的美国军事扩张。在中期，美国人不可能舍黄油而取大炮（宁养航母，不养祖母）。
The views expressed in this article are solely those of Robert E. Kelly
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