本帖最后由 满仓 于 2014-9-18 09:01 编辑
【中文标题】曾经的我们
【原文标题】The Way We Were
【登载媒体】外交政策
【原文作者】STEPHEN M. WALT
【原文链接】http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/09/12/the_way_we_were_obama_bush_clinton_foreign_policy
仅仅在20年前，美国还是一个受人爱戴的超级大国，经济强劲，几乎没有任何外来威胁。但这一切都已经烟消云散了。
这个世界要完蛋了吗？竟然出现了伊斯兰国，当然，美国无论如何要将其“扼杀，最终摧毁”，（至少我们是这样听说的）。可不仅仅如此，还有乌克兰、利比亚、博科圣地、埃博拉、再一次的欧洲经济危机、高加索的混乱，以及针对巴格达和喀布尔没完没了的口水仗。还有，波士顿红袜队距排名第一的位置还有23场比赛。
一切都在分崩离析的感觉，主要来自美国外交政策固有的那种无病呻吟的本质，任何一种危机都被描述成独特的、迫在眉睫的、即将到来的和致命的。阴沉的末日感还反映出，人们喜欢追逐那些戏剧性的、生动的、有破坏性的事件，即使这些事件仅仅是孤立的外层表象，而不代表真正的大趋势。的确令人遗憾，火灾、地震、空难和砍头要比健康、收入、教育和整体福利水平的缓慢稳定提升，吸引了更多的眼球。
尽管如此，我们的确感觉到最近的事情进展并不顺利，如果我们把目光放长远，就更能确定这种感觉。实际上，美国的外交政策在过去20年里的表现水平持续下降，这值得我们深思，更重要的是要搞清楚为什么会这样。
让我们看看1993年的美国。共产主义被征服；萨达姆•侯赛因被赶出科威特，动弹不得；美国几乎没有任何敌对势力。美国的声望空前高涨；以色列和巴勒斯坦签订了奥斯陆协议；开放的市场和民主制度受到普遍欢迎；新的世贸组织时刻准备解放全球经济。有的人说我们已经到达了“历史的终点”，托马斯•弗里德曼忙着庆祝美国发明了“DOScapital 6.0”。未来如此光芒万丈，我们不得不带上墨镜。
快进到2014年。强权对峙的局面回归了，即使抗衡的形势还达不到冷战和历史上其它动乱时期的水平。中东和和平进程陷入停滞，该地区的大部分国家不是被世界遗弃、政治停摆，就是饱受内战蹂躏。在这个时期，预测若干中东地区的国境线将会重新施划，大以色列内部的巴勒斯坦民权斗争激化，甚至新出现几个国家，都算不上是异想天开了。欧盟依然在拼命维系经济命脉，英国可能会失去苏格兰，乌克兰东西分裂，伊斯兰极端主义分子的活动遍布从尼日利亚到巴基斯坦的广大地区。巴基斯坦和朝鲜在过去20年里加入了核武器俱乐部。在临近全面崛起的中国的水域中，领土归属和航权的争议甚嚣尘上。
就像昼夜更替那样必然的是，共和党把很多问题归罪于奥巴马总统。新保守派人士，比如Robert Kagan——他似乎嫌自己的麻烦还不够多——也在指责美国人民不像他自己一样，对于卷入愚蠢的战争不那么热衷。但公平地说，过去二十年里出现的这些问题的确有一些原因，也有一些人要承担责任。
首先必须承认，当今世界很多问题的主要根源在于地方性的发展，华盛顿并不能承担直接的责任。例如，对于中国的崛起，美国只扮演了一个间接的角色。北京目前的霸主地位主要是因为它抛弃了毛泽东思想，让中国人民的智慧和力量得以自由发挥。美国的外交政策或许与“阿拉伯春天”有些关系（见下文），但它同样是人口结构、阿拉伯独裁政权的机制紊乱和地方突发性事件所带来的后果（比如叙利亚的严重旱情）。巴西、土耳其和印度所展现出的独断力和独立性，反映出这些国家发展的必然轨迹，并不是针对美国做过什么，或者正在做什么的反应。欧盟的经济和政治困境多半是它自作自受的结果，尽管最早出现在美国的金融恐慌引发了欧元危机。共和党也并没有把苏格兰人公投的罪过推在巴拉克•奥巴马的头上——至少目前还没有，但如果他们真这么做，我也不会吃惊。
简而言之，占据当今媒体标题的一些国际问题，部分原因是地方性力量使然，并不是克林顿、布什或奥巴马的责任。但的确也有很多问题反映出一个或多个美国领导人错误的外交政策，2014年的惨状从很多方面来说，是对过去二十年中错误政策选择的延迟反应。
一个明显的错误是比尔•克林顿在90年代冲动地决定扩张北约，以及持续无限制地推动这个努力。美国和欧洲领导人认为，在能力所及范围之内散播民主、延伸美国的安全保障范围，将会营造一个崇尚安全、亲美霸权的环境，从而确保欧洲的永久和平。由于很多北约新成员实力孱弱、无力自卫，北约的国防负担越来越重，但并没有让盟友们变得强大、实力提升。但是无所谓了，因为北约扩张的支持者们认为对新成员的承诺并不重要，他们的希望寄托在俄罗斯不会变得强大，继续由像鲍里斯•叶利钦那样无能的醉鬼来统治，莫斯科会放任美国影响力的扩张，以及被动地接受矗立在国境线边上的导弹的基础上。
任何对强权政治有基本常识的人都会知道，这种自以为是的宽容大度给未来埋下了隐患，有一些明智的观察人士曾经指出这一点，但是西方吹鼓手们的合奏淹没了这个声音，反对北约扩张的呼声在90年代被边缘化了。可惜，我们首先看到了2008年的俄罗斯与格鲁吉亚的战争，现在我们看到了乌克兰，美国和欧洲决策者们天真的假设最终被证明是可怕的错误。结果是俄罗斯与西方之间持续升温的危机、欧洲越来越高的经济成本和乌克兰不可预知的未来。
但是别搞错了：今天的俄罗斯不是一个新的区域竞争对手，弗拉基米尔•普京也不是阿道夫•希特勒的化身，今天更不是1939年。俄罗斯充其量不过是一个地区性的捣乱分子，他的影响力勉强可以跨越边境。但是俄罗斯在该地区的确有几张王牌攥在手里，主要原因是它要比华盛顿和布鲁塞尔更关注地方局势。如果美国能认识到不断羞辱俄罗斯的风险，如果可以采取“和平伙伴”计划，而不是紧握北约扩张的圣杯，今天与俄罗斯的关系将会更积极，而且几乎所有的人都可以因此而受益。
同样，尽管地方性局势和政策很重要，但中东的复杂悲剧也是美国长期以来管理不善的结果。错误行为最早开始于克林顿总统，他要求美国在阿拉伯半岛驻扎大批的地面和空中部队，他在1993年开始奉行的“双重围堵”政策导致当地出现了基地组织，并让奥萨马•本•拉登把注意力集中到美国本土。美国对伊朗采取的残酷挑衅和强硬态度同样产生了副作用，这可以解释为什么这个国家在2000年的行动中齐心协力，而在今天却离心离德的原因。1993年的奥斯陆协议让克林顿有一个绝好的机会永久解除阿拉伯与以色列之间的冲突，但克林顿和他的团队没有以一个公平的调停者身份出现，而是扮演了“以色列的律师”的角色。机会失不再来，局面不可挽回。
克林顿糟蹋了不少机会，给未来埋下隐患，但是乔治•W•布什总统的错误则是独一无二的。他在2003年入侵伊拉克的决定留下了一个千疮百孔的国家，也是我们现在面临伊斯兰国家组织这个问题的主要原因。布什在中东的和平努力顶多算是不温不火，2003年的“路线图”无果而终，康妮•赖斯勉强在安纳波利斯召开的峰会，仅仅确定了美国对此既不关心也不采取有效行动的态度。而且，布什团队所犯下的各类错误让极端分子积蓄了力量。布什在2006年支持以色列对黎巴嫩进行一次草率的进攻，这次错误的战争让真主党变得更加强大、更加具有影响力。布什赖斯二人组坚持要在巴勒斯坦举行选举，之后又拒绝接受哈马斯当选的结果。之后，白宫同意埃利奥特•艾布拉姆斯支持法塔赫草率地推翻哈马斯在加沙的武装力量，而最终哈马斯胜利，阴谋策划者自食其果，法塔赫被流放，哈马斯独掌大权。如果这一切都没有发生，我们很难相信还有哪些政策制定者会如此无能。
巴拉克•奥巴马也好不到哪里去。在第一任期的开始，他在开罗有一个激动人心的演讲，但从那之后就一直在走下坡路。他的中东和平努力——包括国务卿约翰•克里不切实际的尝试——大部分都是没有成果的行动，美国领导人一直期望的两国方案似乎离达成越来越远。奥巴马对埃及采取的“时断时续”的行动激怒了很多埃及人，让美国承诺的民主改革进程变成了一场闹剧。实际上，这个所谓的“进步”政府连一场军事政变的正确名称都叫不出来，面对埃及的血腥镇压时，连一个有效的阻止计划也无法做出。美国和北约对利比亚的干涉推翻了一个臭名昭著的独裁者，但留下了一个失败的国家。奥巴马对无人机作战计划和精确制导打击青睐有加，但未能修复阿拉伯和和伊斯兰国家心目中美国的形象。值得一提的是，2011年的美国形象甚至还要低于布什执政时期。这种“死亡天注定”的趋势正是与伊拉克和叙利亚战争的走向。
这种连锁式失败的第三个主旋律，是美国的外交方式一直局限于表明美国的态度，及列举不服从将遭受到的惩罚。出于对自身实力和操守的自信（加上西半球相对安全的环境），美国领导人一直不愿放下架子与敌人谈判，并且拒绝承认除划定红线、发号施令、给予制裁之外的有效外交手段。对于大部分国际争端来说，即使再弱小的国家也有能力拒绝，也会让你遭受损失；即使再强大的国家——比如美国——也不能肆意妄为。
然而美国的外交人士通常的做法是认为，彻底的投降是他们唯一可以接受的结果。美国要求伊朗彻底停止铀浓缩项目，多年来一直拒绝与伊朗面对面谈判，即使当时德黑兰正在忙于扩张核基础设施建设。奥巴马在他的第二任期里对谈话表现出热衷的态度，并且有了一些让步的迹象，但是这样的灵活性出现得太晚了，同时议会仍然是达成协议的一块绊脚石。同样，试图说服巴勒斯坦人接受以色列单方面的要求也是美国进行巴以和谈的一贯方式。美国处理乌克兰危机的方法也是一样，华盛顿擅长的是实施制裁、支持北约、发号施令，美国外交人士从未意识到，结束这场危机需要真正的妥协（比如给俄罗斯一些甜头）。
现实主义者知道，永久的和平只不过是海市蜃楼，今天的解决方案往往会埋下未来的隐患。但是当今美国外交政策“收件箱”中的内容，大部分都不是以往成功经历所带来的无心后果，而是历史上的错误所造成的完全可以预见的后果。从诸多角度来看，我们看到的今天是在冷战后的“单极时刻”发生的各种疏漏和过错造成的直接反作用。巴拉克•奥巴马不幸地在报应的年代当选总统，但他也承担着一些没有让事态好转，以及在某些方面让问题进一步恶化的责任。
最令我们担忧的问题是，美国外交政策在过去20年里吸取的唯一教训是“不派驻兵”（或者至少是不要派太多）。在某些情况下（并不适用于全部情况），这的确是一个有效的原则，但即使坚持这么一个简单的原则也依然困难重重。除非我们有机会彻底重新评估美国的利益和能力——说句俏皮话，美国需要什么来确保安全和繁荣？有什么工具可以实现这个目的？——否则我们将继续犯下相同的错误。
原文：
Is the world is going to hell in a handbasket? There's the Islamic State (IS), of course, which the United States is now going to "degrade and ultimately destroy" (or so we're told). But there's also Ukraine, Libya, Boko Haram, Ebola, another EU recession, trouble in the Caucasus, and continued political wrangling in Baghdad and Kabul. Oh, and the Boston Red Sox are 23 games out of first place.
Perceptions that things are falling apart are due in part to the usual threat-mongering woven into the DNA of the U.S. foreign-policy establishment, which tends to portray every crisis du jour as unique, imminent, looming, and potentially deadly. The pervasive sense of doom and gloom also reflects the normal human tendency to focus on events that are dramatic, vivid, and destructive, even when these events are isolated outliers rather than part of a genuine trend. Sadly, fires, earthquakes, plane crashes, and beheadings attract more attention than slow and steady improvements in health, income, education, or overall well-being.
Nonetheless, there is a real sense that things aren't going so great right now, and that perception is confirmed if we take a somewhat longer view. In fact, America's foreign-policy performance over the past 20 years is depressing to contemplate, and it's important to understand why.
Look where the United States was in 1993. Communism had been vanquished, Saddam Hussein was out of Kuwait and fully contained, and the United States faced no hostile states of any consequence. American prestige was at an all-time high and the Israelis and Palestinians were signing the Oslo Accords. Open markets and democratic institutions were spreading and a new World Trade Organization was preparing to foster further liberalization of the world economy. Some people thought we'd reached the "End of History" and Thomas Friedman was busy congratulating America for inventing "DOScapital 6.0." The future was so bright, we had to wear shades.
Fast forward to 2014. Great-power rivalry is back, even if the level of competition has yet to reach the intensity of the Cold War or other turbulent periods in world history. The peace process in the Middle East is kaput, and most states in that region are either pariahs, politically stagnant, or convulsed by civil war. At this point, it is not outlandish to imagine a substantial redrawing of several Middle East borders and/or the emergence of several new states, along with an intensifying struggle for Palestinian civil rights inside Greater Israel. The EU is still on economic life support, the United Kingdom may lose Scotland, Ukraine is torn between East and West, and Islamic extremists are operating from Nigeria to Pakistan and beyond. Pakistan (!) and North Korea (!!) have joined the nuclear club in the past 20 years, and there are growing disputes over territorial claims and navigation rights in the waters adjacent to a rising China.
As sure as a sunrise, the GOP wants to pin the blame for a lot of these problems on President Obama. Neoconservatives like Robert Kagan -- who cannot seem to find enough quagmires to dive into -- also blame the American people for being less enthusiastic about fighting foolish wars than he is. But in fairness, there are several reasons why things have gone so poorly over the past two decades, and plenty of blame to go around.
Let's start by acknowledging that many of today's troubles are based in part on local developments for which Washington is not directly responsible. The United States has played an indirect role in China's rise, for example, but Beijing's ascendancy is mostly due to its having abandoned Maoism and let the talents and energy of the Chinese people emerge. U.S. policy has something to do with the upheavals of the "Arab Spring" (see below), but it is also a product of demography, the dysfunctions of Arab authoritarianism, and contingent local events (such as a punishing drought in Syria). The assertiveness and independence displayed by countries such as Brazil, Turkey, and India in recent years reflect their own national trajectories and are for the most part not a response to what the United States has done or is doing. And the European Union's economic and institutional travails are largely of its own making, even if the financial panic that began in America helped trigger the eurozone crisis. And the GOP hasn't blamed U.S. President Barack Obama for the Scottish referendum -- at least not so far -- though I wouldn't be surprised if they tried.
In short, some of the problems that dominate today's headlines are partly due to local forces for which neither Clinton, Bush, nor Obama are directly responsible. But many of them also reflect specific foreign-policy blunders made by one or more U.S. leaders, and the travails of 2014 are in many ways a delayed reaction to two decades of bad policy choices.
One obvious blunder was Bill Clinton's impulsive decision to expand NATO back in the 1990s, and the subsequent efforts to continue that process without any clear limit. U.S. and European leaders believed spreading democracy and extending U.S. security guarantees as far as they could go would create an expanding sphere of peace-loving pro-American democracies, thereby guaranteeing peace in Europe in perpetuity. Because many of these new members were weak and difficult to defend, adding them to NATO increased its defense obligations but did not make the alliance stronger or more capable. But no matter, because advocates of expansion assumed these new commitments would never have to be honored. And that hope rested on the assumption that Russia would remain weak, or be governed by incompetent drunks like Boris Yeltsin, and that Moscow would passively accept the extension of U.S. influence -- and ballistic missile defenses! -- right up to Russia's border.
Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of great-power politics would have known that this act of liberal hubris was sowing the seeds of future trouble, and a few wise observers tried to point this out. But the chorus of Western triumphalists drowned out and marginalized the voices of those who opposed expansion in the 1990s. Alas, as we first observed during the Russian-Georgian War of 2008 and are now seeing in Ukraine, however, the naïve assumptions that drove U.S. and European decision-making proved woefully false. The result is a simmering crisis between Russia and the West, significant economic costs for Europe, and further damage to Ukraine itself.
But make no mistake: Today's Russia isn't a new peer competitor, Vladimir Putin is not the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler, and it is not 1939. At best, Russia is a regional spoiler whose influence barely extends beyond its "near abroad." But Russia does have some high cards to play in these areas, mostly because it cares more about these issues than Washington or Brussels does. If the United States had understood the risks of repeatedly humiliating Russia and stuck with the "Partnership for Peace" initiative instead of the holy grail of NATO expansion, it would have a more positive relationship with Moscow today and nearly everyone would be better off.
Similarly, although local conditions and initiatives are obviously important, the mosaic of misery in the Middle East owes much to chronic U.S. mismanagement as well. The recent record of failure begins with President Clinton: /by forcing the United States to keep large ground and air forces on the Arabian Peninsula, the strategy of "dual containment" that he adopted in 1993 helped inspire the emergence of al Qaeda and focus Osama bin Laden's attention on the United States. America's relentlessly confrontational and intransigent policy toward Iran was equally counterproductive, and helps explain why that country had zero centrifuges in operation in 2000 but has over 10,000 spinning today. The 1993 Oslo Accords also gave Clinton a golden opportunity to end the Arab-Israeli conflict once and for all. But instead of being effective and evenhanded mediators, Clinton and his team acted like "Israel's lawyer," blew their chance, and made things worse.
Clinton squandered opportunities and sowed the seeds of future trouble, but President George W. Bush's blunders were in a class by themselves. His fateful decision to invade Iraq in 2003 created a failed state and is the main reason we now face problems from groups like IS. Bush's own efforts at Middle East peacemaking were tepid at best -- the 2003 "Roadmap" led nowhere and Condi Rice's halfhearted summit at Annapolis merely confirmed that the United States was neither serious nor effective. Moreover, the Bush team's various blunders kept empowering extremists. Bush backed Israel's ill-conceived assault on Lebanon in 2006, a misguided war that left Hezbollah stronger and more influential. Bush & Co. also insisted on holding Palestinian elections and then refused to accept the results when Hamas won. And then White House aide Elliot Abrams backed a harebrained scheme to have Fatah topple Hamas's forces in Gaza. The plot backfired when Hamas won the contest, ousted Fatah, and established sole control there. If these things hadn't really happened, it would be hard to believe that any group of policymakers could be so consistently inept.
Yet Barack Obama has done no better. He gave an inspiring speech in Cairo early in his first term, but it's been consistently downhill from there. His own efforts at Middle East peacemaking -- including Secretary of State John Kerry's last quixotic attempt -- were mostly acts of futility, and the two-state solution that U.S. leaders have consistently favored is farther away than ever. Obama's "on-again, off-again" approach to the turmoil in Egypt angered many Egyptians and made a farce of U.S. claims to be committed to democratic transformation. Indeed, this supposedly "progressive" administration couldn't even call an obvious military coup by its right name or take effective action to halt a brutal crackdown in Egypt. U.S. and NATO intervention in Libya toppled an odious dictator but created another failed state, and Obama's growing reliance on drone strokes and targeted killings did nothing to rehabilitate the U.S. image in the Arab and Islamic world. Remarkably, by 2011 that image was even lower than it had been under Bush. And this "death from above" approach is now the blueprint for a new war in Iraq and Syria.
The third theme in this litany of failure has been a tendency to approach diplomacy as if it required little more than stating the U.S. position and outlining the penalties for refusal. Confident in their own power and rectitude (and insulated from failure by America's secure position in the Western hemisphere), U.S. leaders have been reluctant to negotiate with acknowledged adversaries and slow to recognize that effective diplomacy requires something more than stating red lines, issuing demands, and imposing sanctions. In most international disputes, even much weaker powers retain some capacity to resist and some ability to impose costs, and even a very powerful country like the United States rarely gets everything it wants.
Yet U.S. diplomats have often behaved as if complete capitulation was the only outcome they would accept. The United States demanded Iran dismantle its enrichment program in toto and refused to negotiate directly with Iran for years, even as Tehran was busily expanding its nuclear infrastructure. Obama got serious about direct talks in his second term and there's been some genuine give-and-take since then, but the flexibility shown recently came very late in the process and Congress remains a serious stumbling block to any deal. Similarly, trying to convince the Palestinians to accept whatever one-sided arrangement their Israeli counterparts have on offer remains the default U.S. approach to Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. The U.S. response to the crisis in Ukraine shows a similar pattern: Washington has been good at ramping up sanctions, bolstering NATO, and issuing demands, but there's little sign U.S. diplomats realize that ending the crisis may require a genuine compromise (i.e., a deal that gave Russia some of what it wants).
Realists know perpetual peace is an illusion and that solutions to today's problems often sow the seeds of future trouble. Yet the current items in America's foreign-policy "inbox" are for the most part not the unintended consequences of past success; they are the entirely predictable results of previous errors. In many ways, what we are seeing today is a direct backlash against the various sins of omission and commission that took place during the post-Cold War "unipolar moment." It is Barack Obama's misfortune to be president when these various chickens have come home to roost, but he also bears some responsibility for not making them better and in some cases making them worse.
Most disturbing of all, the only lesson the U.S. foreign-policy establishment seems to have drawn from the past 20 years is "no boots on the ground" (or at least no more than a handful). That's a useful guideline for some contexts (but not all), and sticking to even that modest lesson is proving to be difficult. And until there's a more fundamental reappraisal of U.S. interests and capabilities -- to wit, what does America need to be safe and prosperous and which tools can best achieve those ends? -- the United States will keep making the same mistakes.
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发表于 2014-9-16 09:06
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发表于 2014-9-16 09:43
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