印度：下一场世界大战将发生在南海 [印度媒体]

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LONDON: Climb into my time machine and come fly with me two years into the future. Here we are, November 2018, with celebrations of the centenary of the end of the First World War in full swing. And we find ourselves part of the grand coalition that has just declared war on China.

伦敦：爬进我的时间机器，和我一起飞到未来两年。2018年11月，我们在这里正如火如荼地庆祝第一次世界大战结束一百周年庆典。我们发现我们自己成为了刚刚宣布对中国作战的大联盟的一部分。

Throughout the noughties and beyond, the itch we couldn't stop scratching was the Muslim world. Our war was the war on terror, we were told, and when that "crusade" collided head-on with the Arab Spring, the result was Syria. Seven years on, the bloody stalemate grinds on. Nobody can win. Nobody is prepared to yield an inch. It's Flanders Field all over again.

二十一世纪的头十年及以后，我们不停地抓的痒是穆斯林世界。我们被告知，我们的战争是反恐战争，当“十字军东征”与阿拉伯之春迎头相撞，结果是叙利亚。七年来，血腥的僵局咬磨着。没有人愿意屈服一英寸。这里是法兰德斯地区的翻版。

【译者注: （背景知识扩充，来自“百度知道”）
法国的法兰德斯地区,历来是兵家必争之地,拿破仑战争时期,那里战事不断,以至于血流成河,哀鸿遍野.后来,大片大片的罂粟花从浸染了鲜血的土壤里钻了出来,茁壮地生长起来,一望无际地盖满了阵亡战士的坟头.1915年第一次世界大战时期，在法兰德斯又发生了数次激烈的战斗，无数年轻的生命葬送在这里。据说红罂粟是一种奇怪的植物，在它们深埋于地下时很难发芽，但当它们被翻到地面时，就会很快地生根并钻出土壤。随着一批批阵亡将士被埋葬在这里，土地一次次地被翻开，越来越多沉睡的罂粟被唤醒，开出了眩目的花朵。
加拿大的一位军医JohnMcCrae受命来到法兰德斯地区救助伤员，他亲眼目睹了这惨烈的战场,目睹了无数鲜活的生命在瞬间归于尘土，目睹了无尽的罂粟花海如泣如诉，于是，他写下了一首名为《在法兰德斯战场》的诗，诗开头是这样描写的：
In Flanders field the poppies blow between the crosses
（在法兰德斯战场，罂粟花随风飘摇在十字架之间）
正因为这不朽的诗篇，1921年，罂粟花被正式定为纪念阵亡将士的标志。在这纪念日快要到来的日子 里，人们出售纸做的红罂粟，一方面为伤残老兵和阵亡将士的家属募捐，一方面表达着对战争的控诉和对和平的祈愿。】

-------------译者：Advance-审核者：龙腾翻译总管------------

But meanwhile, at the beginning of 2016, a real old-fashioned war was boiling up in the South China Sea, only we were not paying attention. And now the British government is talking about conscription - a century after the heroes came home. It's so funny it hurts.

但与此同时，在2016年初，一场真正的老式战争在南中国海加剧，只是我们没有注意到。现在，英国政府正在讨论征兵，而这正是在（译者注:参加一战的）英雄们回家之后的一个世纪以后。它是如此有趣，它也如此之痛
。
It was when politicians started talking about Thucydides that we should have pricked up our ears. President Xi Jinping started it in a speech in Seattle in September 2015 - only to flatly deny the ancient Greek historian any relevance to the growing rivalry between the US and China. "We want to deepen mutual understanding with the US on each other's strategic orientation and development path," he said. "There is no such thing as the Thucydides Trap in the world. But should major countries time and time again make the mistake of strategic miscalculation, they might create such traps for themselves."

那时正是政治家们开始谈论修昔底德的时候，我们本该竖起耳朵听。2015年9月，习近平主席在西雅图的一篇演讲中提出它，仅仅为了断然否认这位古希腊历史学家和美中之间日益增长的敌对有任何关联。“对于彼此的战略方向和发展路径，我们想要和美国加深相互的理解。“他说。”世界上根本不存在像“修昔底德陷阱”那样的东西。但是如果主要国家一次又一次地做出战略误判的错误，他们会为自己创造这样的陷阱。”

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The "Thucydides Trap" explained the origins of the Peloponnesian War. "It was the rise of Athens, and the fear that this inspired in Sparta," Thucydides wrote with classical crispness, "that made war inevitable." And that ancient conflict set the tone for 2,400 years of organised butchery, with the First and Second World Wars as the most recent specimens. Until now.

“修昔底德陷阱”曾用来解释伯罗奔尼撒战争的根源。”它指的是雅典的崛起，以及由此引发的斯巴达的恐惧，“修昔底德愉快地写到，“那使战争不可避免。”那一场古老的冲突为2400年里有组织的屠杀定调，并以第一和第二次世界大战作为最新的标本。直到现在。

What makes just 16 missiles such a deadly threat in the South China Sea: https://t.co/F1lZXtRrdl https://t.co/hp1adT28j8
— Reuters Opinion (@ReutersOpinion) 1455883967000

是什么使16枚导弹成为在南中国海如此致命的威胁:https://t.co/F1lZXtRrdl https://t.co/hp1adT28j8
——路透社观点(@ReutersOpinion) 1455883967000

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The rise of Germany and the threat that Germany's ever-expanding navy posed to Britain set the scene for the Thucydides Trap of the First World War. The nature of the danger was spelled out in 1907 in a note by a British Foreign Office official called Eyre Crowe. "Germany would clearly build as powerful a navy as she can afford," Crowe wrote, and that navy would pose a fatal challenge to the British Empire whatever Germany's protestations to the contrary. As Crowe noted, dry as sandpaper, "Ambitious designs...are not as a rule openly proclaimed, and even the profession of unlimited and universal political benevolence [is] not conclusive evidence" against "unpublished intentions." Seven years later these two brotherly powers were duly fighting to the death.

德国的崛起以及德国不断扩充的海军给英国造成的威胁，为第一次世界大战的“修昔底德陷阱”布下了景。危险的本性，由一位叫艾尔.克罗（Eyre Crowe）的英国外交部官员在一个笔记中被阐明。”德国显然会建立她足以负担得起的强大的海军，”克罗写到，那支海军将对大英帝国造成致命的挑战，无论德国做出什么与之相反的严正声明。克洛指出，干（译者注:“干”字在此念一声），像砂纸一样。“有野心的计划…不会按公开宣布的规则来，甚至是无限的、普世的政治仁慈的声明也不能说明你没有不可告人的意图。“七年后这俩兄弟般的强国正如预期的那样战斗到死。

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The growth in tensions between the US and China has been uncannily similar. In Seattle, Mr Xi pooh-poohed the dead Greek but in the years before that speech, China had converted thousands of merchant ships for military use, developed a "carrier killer" missile specifically designed to sink American aircraft carriers, tested hypersonic glide vehicles said to be capable of striking the US with nuclear warheads, and stealthy submarines armed with ballistic missiles. In 2015, despite the general slowdown of the economy, China increased its military budget by 10 per cent, and one Chinese general warned that once the build-up was complete, "No enemy will dare to bully us."

美中之间紧张局势的日益加剧（译者注:与一战前的英德）是如此惊人的相似。在西雅图，习近平先生贬斥了故去的希腊，但在那场演讲前的几年中，中国已经把成千上万的商船转为军事用途，研制了专门用来击沉美国航空母舰的“航母杀手”导弹，测试了据说能够携带核弹头打击美国的高超声速滑翔飞行器，和武装了弹道导弹的隐身潜艇。在2015年，不管经济的总体减速，中国的军费预算增加了10个百分点，一位中国上将警告说，（战斗部队的）集结一旦完成，“将没有敌人敢欺凌我们。”

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That is the assertion that is now to be tested. February 2016 marked the point of no return. Five years before, as its economic power ballooned, Beijing submitted a diplomatic note to the UN Secretary-General asserting its sovereignty over islands in the South China Sea - batting aside rival claims to coastal zones by Vietnam, Taiwan, the Phillipines, Malaysia and Brunei. Instead China claimed the lot. Regional hegemony was in China's national DNA. Historically all its petty neighbours had tried to ensure peace by paying annual tribute. In the modern world, tribute took the form of unresisting obedience.

这就是现在要测试的断言。2016年2月标记了一个不可逆的（时间）点。五年前，由于经济实力的增长，北京向联合国秘书长提交了一份外交照会，坚持她对南中国海岛屿享有的主权主张，将越南、台湾、菲律宾、马来西亚和文莱对沿海区域的竞争的声索要求撂在一边。中国反而声称了很多。区域霸权是中国的国家基因。历史上所有的小邻居都试图通过每年的进贡来确保和平。在现代世界，贡品采取了不抵抗的屈从的形式。

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But then Barack Obama came to power in Washington and he and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton chose to execute a "pivot to Asia", to bolster the morale of those Asian small fry while making it clear that China would not have it all its own way. And as has happened in international summitry since the time of Pericles, sweet talk, fraternal visitations and hearty dinners proceeded in tandem with steely military build-ups on both sides. The Chinese version is sketched above. The US military budget continued to dwarf those of all its possible rivals put together, and America carried out huge war games in the Pacific to practice fighting China. Then in February 2016, after American incursions into the South China Sea, the US accused China of installing surface-to-air missiles on Woody Island, one of the uninhabited atolls on which tension had focused. China retorted that it was US air and naval patrols in the region that had "escalated tensions." And there was to be no looking back.

另一方面奥巴马在华盛顿掌权，他和国务卿希拉里.克林顿选择执行“转向亚洲”，为的是鼓舞这些亚洲丁丁国的士气，同时明确表示中国不能为所欲为。和自从伯里克利时代（译者注:古希腊全盛时代，始于波希战争结束，止于伯里克利离世或伯罗奔尼撒战争结束）国际间以使用最高级会议作为外交手段中发生的一样，进行甜蜜的交谈，兄弟般的访问和丰盛的晚宴的同时，钢铁般的军事集结也在双方上演。中国的版本已经简述于上。美国的军事预算继续使其所有可能的对手们加在一起也相形见绌，而且美国在太平洋战场上进行大规模的军事演习以练习对抗中国的战斗。然后在2016年2月，在入侵南中国海之后，美国指责中国在永兴岛上安装地空导弹，紧张气氛已经聚焦于这个无人居住的环礁上。中国反驳说，正是美国空军和海军在这个区域的巡逻，“使得紧张局势逐步升级”。没有要回头的。

-------------译者：龙腾翻译总管-审核者：龙腾翻译总管------------

Is this, then, the dawn of the nuclear Doomsday we have lived in fear of since Hiroshima? In a study some years back, Harvard professor Graham Allison analysed 16 cases of the Thucydides Trap during the past 500 years, noting that 12 of them resulted in war. The good news - the glass half-full - was that four of them didn't. Three of those, notably the Soviet-US Cold War, post-date the Second World War. The nuclear threat was part of the reason. But where war was avoided, Professor Allison wrote: "It required huge, painful adjustments in attitudes and actions on the part not just of the challenger but the challenged."
Huge, painful adjustments are hard to achieve once war has been declared. If only we - and they - had made a start on them earlier in the game.

这是自广岛以来我们所担忧的核末日的开端吗？几年前，哈佛教授Graham Allison分析了过去500年来的16个“修昔底德陷阱”案例，其中12个都导致了战争。好消息——半满的水杯——在于还有四个没有导致战争的发生。其中一个是美苏冷战，核威胁是部分原因。但是在避免战争的地方，该教授写道：“不仅仅是挑战者，被挑战者也都需要在态度和行为上进行巨大痛苦的调整。”
一旦宣战，巨大痛苦的调整就很难实现了。要是我们——和他们——在一开始的时候就进行调整那该多好啊。

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