外交政策失败：美国未从战争中吸取教训 [美国媒体]

It's time for the Washington foreign-policy establishment toconsider the seemingly unthinkable: perpetual foreign-military operations andoccupations do not enhance American national security and economic prosperity.

考虑到似乎不可想象的情形：永久性对外军事行动和职业不会提高美国的国家安全和经济繁荣，所以，现在是华盛顿外交政策确立的时候了。

Overwhelming evidence-currently on painful display in Syria,Afghanistan and Yemen -reveals the stark reality that these operations drainour nation of critical resources, produces a slow-bleed of U.S. troops, anddeteriorates our ability to respond to potentially existential battles in thefuture. Changes must be urgently made if we are to reverse this negativecondition.

目前，叙利亚、阿富汗和也门沉重地显示出压倒性的证据，它们揭示了这些军事行动耗尽我们国家关键资源的严峻现实，造成美军缓慢流血，并恶化了我们应对未来可能存在战争的能力。如果我们想扭转这种消极的状况，那我们必须立即做出改变。

After the catalyzing and emotionally powerful attacks that struckAmerica on 9/11, a succession of U.S. presidents and senior officials havesettled into the belief that the only way to handle difficult internationalproblems is to use lethal military force.

9/11袭击美国的催化和情感上强大的冲击之后，一连串的美国总统和高级官员开始相信，处理棘手国际问题的唯一途径是使用大规模军事力量。

This tendency has become so deeply ingrained that even theconsideration of using nonlethal means to address tough problems is almostreflexively dismissed as appeasement.

这种倾向已经变得根深蒂固，甚至考虑使用非致命手段解决棘手问题几乎都被轻蔑地驳斥为绥靖政策。

Shortly after his inauguration, President Trump sent meaningfulnumbers of U.S. troops into Syria to provide air support and other assistanceto the Syrian Democratic Forces in their effort to wrest Raqqa, theself-proclaimed capital of the Islamic State, from ISIS fighters. Thatobjective was accomplished in October 2017. By all rights, with the missionaccomplished, the troops should have redeployed to their home bases.

就职后不久，特朗普总统派遣了相当数量的美军进入叙利亚，向叙利亚民主力量提供空中支援和其他援助，以从ISIS手中夺取伊斯兰国(Islamic State)自称为首都的拉卡(Raqqa)。这个目标是在2017年10月完成的，所有权力，随着任务的完成，军队应该重新部署到他们的基地。

Instead, the troops have remained and numerous officials in theWhite House and Pentagon have been searching for other jobs the troops canaccomplish. Rather than strategy driving troop deployments, Washington fiercelyresists bringing any troops home, almost irrespective of the lack of need; oncea mission has begun, the mission itself becomes the objective. The operation inYemen is a case in point.

相反，军队一直驻留，并且许多白宫和五角大厦的官员一直在寻找部队可以完成的其他工作。与战略驱动部队部署不同的是，华盛顿强烈反对将部队带回国家，几乎不考虑缺乏所需要的。一旦任务开始，任务本身就成为目标，也门的行动就是一个很好的例证。

There was never a threat to American security in the Yemen civilwar. While it may be argued that the United States has an interest in seeingits ally Saudi Arabia succeed in general terms, Riyad's intent to intervene inthat war was solely related to its security, not America's. The war has been anabysmal failure from every perspective, with no side close to victory-andupwards of twenty million people who suffer acute food shortages and more thanten thousand people killed.

也门内战从来没有威胁到美国的安全。虽然有人认为，美国有兴趣看到其盟友沙特阿拉伯在总体上取得成功，但利雅得干涉这一战争的意图是与它的安全有关，而不是美国的。这场战争从各个角度来看都是一场惨痛的失败，没有任何一方胜利，超过二千万人遭受了严重的食物短缺，另外超过一万人丧生。

Yet despite this obvious failure and absence of any American vitalnational interests at play, the Pentagon has lobbied hard to ensure the missioncontinues without restriction and select members of Congress have blockedefforts to end America's involvement. A bipartisan ground of senators tried toforce a vote to end support of the mission last month, but the measure wasdefeated 55-44. Today, the war continues without purpose or resolution.

然而，尽管明显的失败与没有任何美国重要的国家利益在发挥作用，五角大楼却一直游说，以确保这项任务不受限制地继续进行，并使国会成员阻止结束美国的参与。两党议员的立场试图迫使投票结束支持上个月的任务，但这项措施以55-44的结果被击败。如今，这场战争仍在以没有目的和决心的状态继续下去。

While on active duty in the U.S. Army, I twice served combatdeployments in Afghanistan. In 2011, I observed directly and graphically thatour war, which was ten years old at the time, had failed to accomplish ourobjectives and reported that U.S. leaders were claiming success where they knewthere was none.

在美国陆军服役期间，我曾两次在阿富汗服役。2011年，我直接而生动地观察了当时我们那已经经历十年的战争，它未能完成我们的目标，并报告说，美国领导人在他们知道并非如此的地方宣称取得成功。

The results of the past seven years have proven my assessment tohave been correct, yet every effort to end the failing mission and return thetroops to their home stations continues to be intensely resisted. Major suicideattacks-like the one on Sunday that killed fifty-seven people-continue toplague Kabul, and as the most recent report from the Special Inspector Generalfor Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) confirms, measures of American involvementhave been overwhelmingly negative

过去七年的结果证实了我的评估是正确的，但每一次努力结束失败的任务，并且让部队重新返回到自己的驻地继续受到强烈抵制。重大自杀性袭击事件一直困扰着喀布尔，比如星期日发生的自杀式袭击事件造成五十七人遇害，正如阿富汗重建行动特别督察长（SIGAR）最近的报告所证实的，美国参与的措施绝大多数都是负面的。

SIGAR's report revealed it hasn't mattered whether it was in thesecurity realm, the economic sphere, or domestic government corruption, theevidence overwhelmingly confirm mission failure. Yet America's militaryinvolvement there has no set of metrics it seeks to accomplish and thus nocriteria the accomplishment of which could ever signal an end to the mission.

阿富汗重建行动特别督察长（SIGAR）的报告显示，无论是在安全领域、经济领域还是国内政府腐败方面，证据都压倒性地证实了任务失败。然而，美国在军事上的介入并没有一套衡量标准试图完成，因此，没有任何标准能够完成这项标志着结束的任务。

The unsuccessful mission in Afghanistan costs American taxpayersabout $45 billion a year. Last year, fifteen Americans were killed inAfghanistan and many more wounded. In 2019, the United States is expected tospend $16 billion on the mission in Syria; to date, four Americans have beenkilled in Syria. Those two missions alone will cost taxpayers more than $60billion and some unknown number of American lives.

在阿富汗的失败任务每年花费美国纳税人约450亿美元。去年，有十五名美国人在阿富汗丧生，另有更多人受伤。2019年，预计美国将花费160亿美元在叙利亚执行的任务上，到目前为止，已有四名美国人在叙利亚遇害。仅这两项任务将花费纳税人超过600亿美元，以及一些未知数目的美国生命。

It is time to take a hard, critical, and unemotional look at ourforeign policy in the post-9/11 era and admit that the routine andnear-permanent use of lethal military power abroad has not made us safer,continues to squander billions that could be better used in other ways, andneedlessly sacrifices the lives of our service members.

是时候对我们的外交政策采取强硬、批判和非情绪化的态度来看待9/11以后的时代了，承认在国外的常规和近乎永久的致命军事力量使用并没有使我们更安全，继续挥霍数十亿美元，而这笔费用可以更好地以其他方式使用，以及我们现役人员不必要地牺牲。

For the sake of our national security and economic prosperity, wemust stop the reflexive use of lethal military power abroad in an attempt tosolve problems and rediscover that sometimes other instruments of nationalpower are better suited to achieve positive outcomes for the nation.

为了维护国家安全和经济繁荣，我们必须停止在国外大规模投射军事力量这种解决问题的方式，并重新发现，有时国家权力的其他用处更适合于实现国家的积极结果。

Daniel L. Davis is a senior fellow for Defense Priorities and aformer lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army who retired in 2015 after twenty-oneyears, including four combat deployments.

DanielL. Davis是国防优先级别的高级研究员，也是二十一年后的2015年退役的美国陆军上校，包括四次战斗部署