傅立民： 美帝的终结 [美国媒体]

-------------译者：阳光灿烂的标叔-审核者：bnge------------

CHAS W. FREEMAN, JR. APRIL 11, 2016

A retired senior U.S. diplomat diagnoses America’s amnesia and its dysfunctional approach to strategy and foreign affairs. He also offers a cure. Will Washington listen?

一个美国的前外交官诊断了美国的失忆症和它功能失调的战略和外交。他同时提出了治疗的药方。华盛顿会听吗？



One of our most charming characteristics as Americans is our amnesia. We are so good at forgetting what we’ve done and where we did it that we can hide our own Easter eggs.

作为米帝人民我们最具魅力的性格就是失忆。我们擅长于忘记我们在哪儿做了什么所以我们可以藏好我们的“复活节彩蛋”。

I’m reminded of the geezer — someone about my age — who was sitting in his living room having a drink with his friend while his wife made dinner. He said to his friend, “you know, we went to a really terrific restaurant last week. You’d like it. Great atmosphere. Delicious food. Wonderful service.”

这让我想起了一个老头子——被我的同龄人——他在客厅和朋友喝酒，而他的妻子正在做饭。他对他的朋友我说“你知道吗，我们上周去了一个非常棒的餐馆，你会喜欢的。，优异的气氛，美味的食物，完美的服务”

“What’s the name of it?” his friend asked.

“餐馆叫什么名字？”他朋友问。

He scratched his head. “Ah, ah. Ah. What do you call those red flowers you give to women you love?”

他挠了挠他的脑袋“啊，啊，啊，你怎么称呼你送所爱女子的红色花朵？”

His friend hesitated. “A rose?”

他朋友犹豫地回答“玫瑰？”

“Right. Um, hey, Rose! What was the name of that restaurant we went to last week?”

“对，嗯，嘿，玫瑰，我们上周去的餐馆的名字是啥？”

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

Americans like to forget we ever had an empire or to claim that, if we did, we never really wanted one. But the momentum of Manifest Destiny made us an imperial power. It carried us well beyond the shores of the continent we seized from its original aboriginal and Mexican owners. The Monroe Doctrine proclaimed an American sphere of influence in the Western Hemisphere, but the American empire was never limited to that sphere.

美国人倾向于忘记我们曾经是一个帝国，亦或宣称我们从来没有真的想要成为那样（即使我们曾经是）。但是天意注定使我们成为帝国力量。它让我们的足迹远远的超越了我们从土着人和墨西哥人那里抢来的大陆的海岸线。门罗主义宣告了西半球的美国势力影响范围，但是美帝国还远未被限制在这种范围内。

In 1854, the United States deployed the Marines to China and Japan, where they imposed our first treaty ports. Somewhat like Guantánamo, these were places in foreign countries where our law, not theirs, prevailed, whether they liked it or not. Also in 1854, U.S. gunboats began to sail up and down the Yangtze River (the jugular vein of China), a practice that ended only in 1941, when Japan as well as China went after us.

1854年，美国在中国和日本部署了海军陆战队并在那里强行打开我们的第一个通商口岸。有点儿像关塔那摩，这里虽然是国外但是实行的确是我们自己的法律优先于他们本国的，而不是反之，也不管他们是否愿意。同年，美国战舰开始来回行驶于长江（中国颈静脉），这样的事实持续到了1941年，直到日本和中国开始对抗我们。

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

In 1893, the United States engineered regime change in Hawaii. In 1898, we annexed the islands outright. In that same year, we helped Cuba win its independence from Spain and confiscated the Spanish Empire’s remaining holdings in Asia and the Americas: Guam, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico. Beginning in 1897, the U.S. Navy contested Samoa with Germany. In 1899, we took Samoa’s eastern islands for ourselves, establishing a naval base at Pago Pago.

1893年，美国促使了夏威夷的政权更迭。1898年，我们彻底吞并了这些岛屿。同年，我们帮助古巴从西班牙独立出来并且没收了西班牙帝国在亚洲及美洲的所有物：关岛、菲律宾、波多黎各。从1897年开始，美国海军同德国争抢萨摩亚。1899年，我们占领了萨摩亚东部岛屿并在帕果-帕果（东萨摩亚首府）成立了一个海军基地。

From 1899 to 1902, Americans killed an estimated 200,000 or more Filipinos who tried to gain independence for their country from ours. In 1903, we forced Cuba to cede a base at Guantánamo to us and detached Panamá from Colombia. In later years, we occupied Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, parts of Mexico, and Haiti.

从1899到1902年，美国屠杀了将近20万甚至更多的试图从我们手上争取国家独立的菲律宾人。1903年，我们强制古巴在关塔纳摩割让出一开基地并且从哥伦比亚分离出巴拿马。在随后的岁月里，我们占领了尼加拉瓜、多米尼加共和国、部分墨西哥和海地。

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

Blatant American empire-building of this sort ended after World War II, when it was replaced by a duel between us and those in our sphere of influence on one side and the Soviet Union and countries in its sphere on the other. But the antipathies our earlier empire-building created remain potent. They played a significant role in Cuba’s decision to seek Soviet protection after its revolution in 1959. They inspired the Sandinista movement in Nicaragua. In 1991, as soon as the Cold War ended, the Philippines evicted U.S. bases and forces from its territory.

这类明目张胆的美帝国建设止于二战之后，那时是被我们以及我们的势力范围内的国家同苏联阵营的国家之间的斗争所取代。但是我们的帝国建设所引发的反感情绪依然存在。它们在1959年古巴革命之后寻求苏联保护的决定中占据了重要的作用。它们也启发了尼加拉瓜的桑地诺解放阵线运动。在1991年，随着冷战的结束，菲律宾从他们的领土上驱逐出了美军基地和部队。

Spheres of influence are a subtler form of dominance than empires per se. They subordinate other states to a great power informally without the necessity of treaties or agreements. In the Cold War, we ruled the roost in a sphere of influence called “the free world” — free only in the sense that it included every country outside the competing Soviet sphere of influence, whether democratic or aligned with the United States or not. With the end of the Cold War, we incorporated most of the former Soviet sphere into our own, pushing our self-proclaimed responsibility to manage everything within it right up to the borders of Russia and China. Russia’s unwillingness to accept that everything beyond its territory is ours to  is the root cause of the crises in Georgia and Ukraine. China’s unwillingness to acquiesce in perpetual U.S. dominance of its near seas is the origin of the current tensions in the South China Sea.

势力范围是一种比帝国本身都更加微妙的统治形式。它让其他国家非正式的臣服于一个强国，而不用签订任何的条约和协定。冷战时，我们在一个被称为“自由世界”的势力范围内占据着主导地位，这所谓的自由世界指的是除竞争对手苏联的势力范围之外的其他任何国家，不论这些国家是否民主也不论是否与美国结盟。随着冷战的结束，我们将前苏联大部分的势力范围纳入我们的势力范围，并且我们自称有责任管理这个新的势力范围内的一切事务，直到接近中国和俄罗斯的边界。俄罗斯不愿意接受其领土之外的所有地方都归我们管，这是格鲁吉亚和乌克兰危机的根本原因。中国不情愿长期默许美国主导其附近海域是造成当前南中国海紧张局势的根本原因。

 -------------译者：clear-审核者：bnge------------

The notion of a sphere of influence that is global except for a few no-go zones in Russia and China is now so deeply ingrained in the American psyche that our politicians think it entirely natural to make a number of far-reaching assertions, like these:

除了俄罗斯和中国这些地方，美国的势力范围包括全球，这一理念深深植入美国精神，以至于我们的政治家们认为做一些深远的断言完全是自然而然的。诸如浙西：

(1) The world is desperate for Americans to lead it by making the rules, regulating global public goods, policing the global commons, and doing in “bad guys” everywhere by whatever means our president considers most expedient.

全世界迫切需要美国人通过制定规则、监管全球公共事务、维持全球公共资源，以及在任何时候我们总统认为最有利的情况下世界各地扮演“坏人”的方式来领导。

(2) America is losing influence by not putting more boots on the ground in more places.

如果美国不向更多地方派出更多部队，那么美国将失去自己的影响力。

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(3) The United States is the indispensable arbiter of what the world’s international financial institutions should do and how they should do it.

美国是世界国际金融机构做什么以及怎么做的不可或缺的仲裁者。     

(4)  Even if they change, American values always represent universal norms, from which other cultures deviate at their peril. Thus, profanity, sacrilege, and blasphemy — all of which were not so long ago anathema to Americans — are now basic human rights to be insisted upon internationally. So are homosexuality, climate change denial, the sale of genetically modified foodstuffs, and the consumption of alcohol.

即使他们变化了，美国价值观也会一直代表着普遍准则，其他国家脱离这个准则就要自负后果。因此，不久前对美国人来说还是诅咒的事情，比如亵渎神明的行为，如今却成为了美国在国际上所坚持的基本人权。同性恋、否认气候变化、基因改制食品等的销售以及酒精的消耗亦是如此。

-------------译者：clear-审核者：bnge------------

These American conceits are, of course, delusional. They are all the more unpersuasive to foreigners because everyone can see that America is now in a schizophrenic muddle — able to open fire at perceived enemies, but delusional, distracted, and internally divided to the point of political paralysis. The ongoing “sequester” is a national decision not to make decisions about national priorities or how to pay for them. Congress has walked off the job, leaving decisions about war and peace to the president and turning economic policy over to the Federal Reserve, which has now run out of options. Almost half of our senators had time to write to America’s adversaries in Tehran to disavow the authority of the president to represent us internationally as the Constitution and the laws prescribe, but they won’t make time to consider treaties, nominees for public office, or budget proposals. Politicians who long asserted that Washington is broken appear to take pride in themselves for finally having broken it. The run-up to the 2016 presidential election is providing ongoing evidence that the United States is currently suffering from the political equivalent of a nervous breakdown.

这些美国人的自以为是当然是妄想。他们对外国人来说并无多大的说服力因为每个人都可以看到美国现在身受精神错乱——它有能力向臆想中的敌人开火，但却是妄想的，心烦意乱的，而且国内意见不一，甚至到了政治瘫痪的地步。正在持续进行的“自动缩支”是一个国家决策，可是却没有用来决定国家的优先项或者如何为这些优先项买单。国会已经罢工，把战争与和平的决定权丢给总统，把经济决策权交到美联储手中，而他们已经黔驴技穷了。我们近半的参议员有时间给美国在德黑兰的敌人写信来削弱总统的威信，否认了宪法和法律的规定，但是却没有时间空出来考虑协议条约，公职候选人，或者预算提议。那些长期断言华盛顿破产的政治家们似乎引以最终破产为傲。2016年的总统竞选正好提供了现有的证据体现出美国目前正在遭受着政策性神经衰弱。

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

Congress may be on strike against the rest of the government, but our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines remain hard at work. Since the turn of the century, they have been kept busy fighting a series of ill-conceived wars — all of which they have lost or are losing.  The major achievement of multiple interventions in the Muslim world has been to demonstrate that the use of force is not the answer to very many problems, but that there are few problems it cannot aggravate. Our repeated inability to win and end our wars has damaged our prestige with our allies and adversaries alike. Still, with Congress engaged in a walkout from its legislative responsibilities and the public in revolt against the mess in Washington, American global leadership is not much in evidence except on the battlefield, where its results are not impressive.

为了反对其他政府部门，国会可以罢工，但战士、水兵、空军和陆战队依然要辛苦工作。本世纪以来，他们不停地参与考虑不周的战争——不是已经输了，就是正在走向失败。对穆斯林的多次干涉，主要成果就是告诉我们：使用暴力解决不了太多问题，但是却能使大多数问题升级。我们总是无法结束战争、赢得战争，损害的是我们在盟友和对手间的声誉。然而，当国会丢下他的立法责任，公众则对华盛顿的混乱表示不满时，美国的全球领导只有在战场上才能体现出来，取得的成果也不突出。

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

Diplomacy-free foreign policy blows up enough things to liven up the TV news, but it generates terrorist blowback and it is expensive. There is a direct line of causation between European and American interventions in the Middle East and the bombings in Boston, Paris, and Brussels as well as the flood of refugees now inundating Europe. And so far this century, we’ve racked up over $6 trillion in outlays and future financial obligations in wars that fail to achieve much, if anything, other than breeding anti-American terrorists with global reach.

不要使用外交手段的对外政策所产生的爆炸让电视新闻热闹起来，但它也招致恐怖分子的反击，同时代价很高。欧洲和美国对中东的干涉，与波士顿、巴黎和布鲁塞尔的爆炸有清楚的因果关系，与正在欧洲泛滥的难民也有关系。本世纪以来，我们在战争上累积了6万亿美元支出和未来的财政责任，而所获不多，只是在全球培养了一批反美恐怖分子。

We borrowed the money to conduct these military activities abroad at the expense of investing in our homeland. What we have to show for staggering additions to our national debt is falling living standards for all but the “one percent,” a shrinking middle class, a rising fear of terrorism, rotting infrastructure, unattended forest fires, and eroding civil liberties. Yet, with the notable exception of Bernie Sanders, every major party candidate for president promises not just to continue — but to double down on — the policies that produced this mess.

我们将借债投入到军费，而不是在我们自己家园投资。尽管债务增加高的惊人的，我们得到的却是生活水平下降（除了1%的富人），中产阶级减少，对恐怖主义恐惧日增，破败的基础设施，无人看管的森林火灾和正在削弱的公民自由。然而，对于造成这种混乱的政策，除了伯纳德桑德斯之外其他主要党派的总统候选人都承诺不仅要延续，还要加倍。

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

Small wonder that both U.S. allies and adversaries now consider the United States the most erratic and unpredictable element in the current world disorder. You cannot retain the respect of either citizens or foreigners when you refuse to learn from experience. You cannot lead when no one, including you yourself, knows what you’re up to or why. You will not have the respect of allies and they won’t follow you if, as in the case of Iraq, you insist that they join you in entering an obvious ambush on the basis of falsified intelligence. You cannot retain the loyalty of protégés and partners when you abandon them when they’re in trouble, as we did with Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak. You cannot continue to control the global monetary system when, as in the case of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, you renege on promises to reform and fund them.

所以毫不奇怪，美国盟友和敌人现在都认为，美国是如今混乱的世界秩序中最不稳定、最不可预测的因素。如果无法从经验中学习，就无法保持国内外人民的尊敬。如果所有人包括你自己，都不知道你准备做什么，为什么要这么做，你是无法当领导的。如果你要求盟友跟你进入一个由明显的假情报构成的埋伏，就像在伊拉克那样，你的盟友不会尊敬你，也不会跟随你。如果你的亲信和伙伴陷入麻烦就被你抛弃，就像我们对埃及的穆巴拉克那样，他们是不会对你忠心的。如果承诺对IMF和世界银行改革和注资，然而却食言了，你将无法继续控制全球货币系统。

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

And you cannot expect to accomplish much by launching wars and then asking your military commanders to figure out what their objectives should be and what might constitute sufficient success to make peace. But that is what we have been doing. Our generals and admirals have long been taught that they are to implement policy instead of formulating it. But what if the civilian leadership is clueless or deluded? What if there is no feasible policy objective attached to military campaigns?

你也不能先发起一场战争，再问军队指挥官他们的，目标是什么，足够停战的胜利条件是什么，但我们一直在做这种事。军方的将军们一直以来受到的教导是他们要执行政策而不是制定政策，但如果平民领导层无知或是被欺骗了怎么办？如果军事行动连政策的可执行目标都找不到怎么办？

We went into Afghanistan to take out the perpetrators of 9/11 and punish the Taliban regime that had sheltered them. We did that, but we’re still there. Why? Because we can be? To promote girls’ education? Against Islamic government? To protect the world’s heroin supply? No one can provide a clear answer.

我们到阿富汗解决911的凶手，并惩罚包庇他们的塔利班政权，我们成功了。但为什么现在还在那里？仅仅因为我们能？要提高女孩的教育水平？反对伊斯兰政府？保护世界海洛因供应？没人有明确的答案。

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

We went into Iraq to ensure that weapons of mass destruction that did not exist did not fall into the hands of terrorists who did not exist until our arrival created them. We are still there. Why? Is it to ensure the rule of the Shia majority in Iraq? To secure Iraq for Iranian influence? To divide Iraq between Kurds and Sunni and Shia Arabs? To protect China’s access to Iraqi oil? To combat the terrorists our presence creates? No one can provide a clear answer.

我们到伊拉克是为了并不存在的大规模杀伤性武器，防止他们落到恐怖分子手中，这些恐怖分子本来也不存在，是我们的到来创造的。为什么我们还留在那里？是为了维护伊拉克什叶派主体的统治？防止伊拉克受伊朗影响？把伊拉克分给库尔德人、逊尼派和什叶派阿拉伯人？保护中国开采伊拉克的石油？与我们创造的恐怖分子战斗？没人有明确答案。

Amid this inexcusable confusion, our Congress now routinely asks combatant commanders to make policy recommendations independent of those proposed by their civilian commander-in-chief or the secretary of defense. Our generals not only provide such advice; they openly advocate actions in places like Ukraine and the South China Sea that undercut White House guidance while appeasing hawkish congressional opinion. We must add the erosion of civilian control of the military to the lengthening list of constitutional crises our imperial adventurism is brewing up. In a land of bewildered civilians, the military offers can-do attitudes and discipline that are comparatively appealing. But American militarism now has a well-attested record of failure to deliver anything but escalating violence and debt.

在这种无法辩解的困惑中，我们的国会开始要求战斗指挥官日常提供政策建议，独立于文职总司令和国防部的提案。我们的将军不只提供这种意见，他们公开提倡在乌克兰和南中国海采取行动，削弱了白宫的影响，安抚了国会的鹰派意见。我们帝国式的冒险主义正在酝酿一系列的宪法危机，而文职官员对军队的控制正遭到侵蚀，这也是宪法危机之一。在一个国民茫然的国家中，来自军队的"可以做"的态度和准则相对有吸引力，但这种美式军国主义在一事无成方面有着确凿的记录，增加的只有暴力和债务。

-------------译者：阳光灿烂的标叔-审核者：龙腾翻译总管------------

This brings me to the sources of civilian incompetence. As President Obama recently said, there’s a Washington playbook that dictates military action as the first response to international challenges. This is the game we’ve been playing — and losing — all around the world. The cause of our misadventures is homemade, not foreign. And it is structural, not a consequence of the party in power or who is in the Oval Office. The evolution of the National Security Council (NSC) staff helps explain why.

这让我想起了文职官员无能为力的原因。正如奥巴马最近所言，说华盛顿有一个不成文的规定，那就是在面对国际挑战时第一个应对举措就是采取军事行动。这就是我们在全球正在玩——正在输——的游戏。我们不幸遭遇的原因是自产的而不是来源于外国。这也是结构上的，不是执政党导致的，也不是谁当总统导致的。国家安全委员会（NSC）的人员的变化可以解释其原因。

The NSC is a cabinet body established in 1947 as the Cold War began to discuss and coordinate policy as directed by the president. It originally had no staff or policy role independent of the cabinet. The modern NSC staff began with President Kennedy. He wanted a few assistants to help him run a hands-on, activist foreign policy. So far, so good. But the staff he created has grown over decades to replace the cabinet as the center of gravity in Washington’s decisions on foreign affairs. And, as it has evolved, its main task has become to make sure that foreign relations do not get the president in trouble in Washington.

作为内阁机构的国家安全委员会是1947年冷战开始时所建立的，主要是用于讨论和协调总统所执导的政策。起初该机构的人员及其所扮演的政策角色都依赖于内阁。现代NSC的职员开始于肯尼迪总统。他像获取一些协助以帮助他运行一个亲手执行的的积极的外交政策。目前为止，都很好。几十年来，该机构成长到取代了内阁，成为华盛顿外交事务的决策中心。随着它的演变，其主要任务已经变成确保总统不会因为外交关系而在华盛顿陷入麻烦。

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Kennedy’s initial NSC staff numbered six men, some of whom, like McGeorge Bundy and Walt Rostow, achieved infamy as the authors of the Vietnam War. Twenty years later, when Ronald Reagan took office, the NSC staff had grown to around 50.  By the time Barack Obama became president in 2009, it numbered about 370, plus another 230 or so people off the books and on temporary duty, for a total of around 600. The bloat has not abated. If anyone knows exactly how many men and women now staff the NSC, he or she is not talking. The NSC staff, like the Department of Defense, has never been audited.

肯尼迪最初的国家安全委员会有6人，有些像McGeorge Bundy和Walt Rostow，背上了越南战争制造者的骂名。20年后，罗纳德里根上任时，国家安全委员会扩大到50人左右。2009年奥巴马成为总统时，人数到达370，再加上名单外约230人负责临时任务，一共约600人。这种增长还在持续，即使有人知道国家安全委员会的具体人数，他也不会说出来。国家安全委员会的职员，例如负责国防的部门，从未经过审核。

What was once a personal staff for the president has long since become an independent agency whose official and temporary employees duplicate the subject expertise of executive branch departments. This relieves the president of the need to draw on the insights, resources, and checks and balances of the government as a whole, while enabling the centralization of power in the White House. The NSC staff has become a bureaucracy whose officers look mainly to each other for affirmation, rather than to the civil, military, foreign, or intelligence services. Their focus is on protecting or enhancing the president’s domestic political reputation by trimming foreign policy to the parameters of the Washington bubble. Results abroad are important mainly to the extent they serve this objective.

曾经是专属总统个人的工作人员，经过长时间发展成为一个独立机构，而它的正式和非正式雇员拥有的专业知识，与对应的政府行政机构相同。这就免去了总统从整体上参考政府的见解、资源和收支平衡的需求，而将权力集中到白宫。国家安全委员会成了官僚机构，这些成员主要通过相互之间来获得肯定，而不用向公民，军队，外国和情报机构寻求肯定。他们关注于保护或提高总统国内的政治声望，因而调整对外政策满足来自华盛顿的幻想，国外事务结果的重要程度，就是它满足这个目标的程度。

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From the national security adviser on down, NSC staff members are not confirmed by the Senate. They are immune from congressional or public oversight on grounds of executive privilege. Recent cabinet secretaries — especially secretaries of defense — have consistently complained that NSC staffers no longer coordinate and monitor policy formulation and implementation, but instead seek to direct policy and to carry out diplomatic and military policy functions on their own. This leaves the cabinet departments to clean up after them as well as to cover for them in congressional testimony. Remember Oliver North, the Iran-Contra fiasco, and the key-shaped cake? That episode suggested that the Keystone Cops might have seized control of our foreign policy. That was a glimpse of a future that has now arrived.

从国家安全顾问往下，NSC成员都没有得到参议院的批准，他们以行政特权为由，免于国会和公众的监督。最近，内阁部长-尤其是国防部长们-不停抱怨NSC成员已经不限于协调和监督政策的制定和施行，而是力求自己去改变政策的方向，实施外交和军事政策。这就让内阁部门为他们善后，还要在国会质询的时候为他们掩护。还记得奥利佛诺思，伊朗门事件和那个钥匙形蛋糕吗？（译注：伊朗门事件是里根时期一大丑闻。为了解救人质和中东问题，里根与伊朗进行军火交易，派人带了钥匙形蛋糕到伊朗象征“打开两国友好大门”。当时整个美国与伊朗由于德黑兰事件正处于尖锐对立，而军火交易行为由里根和幕僚私下决定，违反了美国一贯不与恐怖分子交易的政策，政府和民众都不知情，被曝光后引起强烈反对。作为参与者，奥利佛诺思面对国会质询时坚持说“总统不知情”。）这个故事就意味着，我们的外交政策可能已经掌握在基斯东警察手中（译注：基斯东警察来自于无声电影中笨拙追犯人的警察形象，现在一般指一群没有合作，费了好大力气却一事无成的乌合之众），而过去对未来的担心已经变成了现实。

Size and numbers matter. Among other things, they foster overspecialization. This creates what the Chinese call the 井底之蛙 [“jĭng dĭ zhī wā”] phenomenon — the narrow vision of a frog at the bottom of a well. The frog looks up and sees a tiny circle of light that it imagines is the entire universe outside its habitat. With so many people now on the NSC staff, there are now a hundred frogs in a hundred wells, each uating what is happening in the world through the little bit of reality it perceives. There is no effective process that synergizes a comprehensive appreciation of trends, events, and their causes from these fragmentary views.

大小和人数很重要，在某些事情上，它们会引起过度专业化。这就造成了中国人说的“井底之蛙 [“jĭng dĭ zhī wā”]”现象，在井底的青蛙视野是有限的，他向上看的时候只看到一小圈光，而认为这就是他生活的全部世界。而当现在NSC有这么多人时，就有了100口井中的100只青蛙，每个人都根据自己了解的一点点现实去评估世界发生了什么。缺乏一种有效手段，将这种对趋势、事件和原因的碎片化的观点，整合出一个全面的理解。

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This decision-making structure makes strategic reasoning next to impossible. It all but guarantees that the response to any stimulus will be narrowly tactical. It focuses the government on the buzz du jour in Washington, not what is important to the long-term well-being of the United States. And it makes its decisions mainly by reference to their impact at home, not abroad. Not incidentally, this system also removes foreign policy from the congressional oversight that the Constitution prescribes. As such, it adds to the rancor in relations between the executive and legislative branches of the federal establishment.

这种决策结构使得战略性推理几乎不可能，它完全保证了对任何的外部刺激，回应都仅限在战术上。它使得政府关注于华盛顿内人们的交谈声，而不是重要的美国的长期利益，同时更关注政策对于国内的影响，而不是国外的。这种系统移除了宪法要求的国会对外交政策的监督也并非偶然，这样一来增加了政府中立法机构和执行机构的矛盾。

In many ways, the NSC staff has evolved to resemble the machinery in a planetarium. It turns this way and that and, to those within its ambit, the heavens appear to turn with it. But this is an apparatus that projects illusions. Inside its event horizon, everything is comfortingly predictable. Outside — who knows?— there may be a hurricane brewing. This is a system that creates and implements foreign policies suited to Washington narratives, but detached from external realities often to the point of delusion, as illustrated by America’s misadventures in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. And the system never admits mistakes. To do so would be a political gaffe, even if it might be a learning experience.

在很多方面，NSC的员工变得像天文馆中的仪器，当它向这边或那边转时，对于内部的人来说，整个天空都跟着变了。但这种设备只能投射幻影，在它范围内的人，看到的与预测一样，而在外面也许正酝酿着一场飓风，谁知道呢。这个系统创造和实行的外交政策符合华盛顿的立场，但是脱离外部现实，以至于产生幻觉，从美国在阿富汗、伊拉克、利比亚和叙利亚的错误冒险中就可以看出。而且这个系统从不承认错误，这么做会导致政治丑闻，即使这种经验可能值得学习。

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We have come up with a hell of a way to run a government, let alone an informal empire manifested as a sphere of influence. In case you haven’t noticed, it isn’t effective at either task. At home, the American people feel that they have been reduced to the status of the chorus in a Greek tragedy. They can see the blind self-destructiveness of the actors on the political stage and can moan out loud about it. But they cannot stop the actors from proceeding toward their (and our) doom.

我们想出的是一种地狱式的政府运行机制，更不用说从势力范围来看，我们还是一个帝国。提醒你一下，这两者都是没有效率的。在国内，美国人感觉自己落到了希腊悲剧中的合唱团的地位：能看见政治舞台上的演员进行盲目的自毁行为，能对此发出哀嚎，但却不能阻止演员走向他的（和我们的）灭亡。

Abroad, our allies watch and are disheartened by what they see. Our client states and partners are dismayed. Our adversaries are simply dumbfounded. And our influence is ebbing away.

而在国外，我们的盟友对他们的所见所闻而心寒，我们的客户和伙伴国家感到沮丧，我们的敌人完全傻眼了，我们的影响力正在慢慢消失。

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Whatever the cure for our foul mood and foreigners’ doubts about us may be, it is not spending more money on our armed forces, piling up more debt with military Keynesianism, or pretending that the world yearns for us to make all its decisions for it or to be its policeman. But that’s what almost all our politicians now urge as the cure to our sense that our nation has lost its groove. Doing what they propose will not reduce the threat of foreign attack or restore the domestic tranquility that terrorist blowback has disturbed.

我们自己的坏心情和外国人对我们的怀疑，不管解决方法是什么，但至少不是军事凯恩斯主义，花更军费因而累积更多的债务。也不是假装其他国家向往我们为它做一切决定，或是做它的警察。我们的国家不在正轨上，而对于我们这种想法，几乎所有政客都推荐以上的措施为解决方案。照他们的提案做，并不能减少外国袭击的威胁，或是帮助国内从恐怖袭击的阴影下恢复平静。

It will not rebuild our broken roads, rickety bridges, or underperforming educational system. It will not reindustrialize America or modernize our infrastructure. It will not enable us to cope with the geo-economic challenge of China, to compete effectively with Russian diplomacy, or to halt the metastasis of Islamist fanaticism. And it will not eliminate the losses of international credibility that foolish and poorly executed policies have incubated. The cause of those losses is not any weakness on the part of the U.S. military.

这种做法并不能重建我们破损的道路，摇摇晃晃的桥梁和表现不佳的教育系统，也不能使美国再度工业化，或是让基础设施现代化。也不能让我们应对来自中国的地缘经济挑战，与俄罗斯的外交有效竞争，或是阻止伊斯兰狂热主义的扩散。同时它也不能消除由于愚蠢和执行不力的政策，造成的国际信誉损失，这种损失并不是美国军方的弱点造成的。

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The United States will not regain its national composure and the respect of allies, friends, and adversaries abroad until it recognizes their interests and perspectives as well as its own, stops lecturing them about what they need to do, and concentrates on fixing the shambles we’ve made here at home. There is a long list of self-destructive behaviors to correct and an equally long list of to-dos before us. Americans need both to focus on getting our act together domestically and to rediscover diplomacy as an alternative to the use of force.
Both the president and the Congress now increasingly honor the Constitution in the breach. In our system, money talks to such an extent that the Supreme Court has equated it to speech. Our politicians are prepared to prostitute themselves to both domestic and foreign causes for cash.

美国不能恢复国家的控制力，赢得外国盟友、朋友和对手的尊重，除非美国能认识到别的国家的利益和自己的利益，停止教育别人他们需要做什么，专注于解决我们在国内产生的废墟。需要纠正的自毁行为能列出一个长长的清单，需要做的事情清单也一样长。美国需要在国内同心协力，同时重新认识到外交是使用武力之外的另一个选择。
总统和国会正在越来越违背宪法，在我们的系统中，金钱的地位如此之高，以至于最高法院将它等同于发言，我们的政客做好准备把自己卖给国内外的金主。

Policy dialogue has become tendentiously representative of special interests, uncivil, uninformed, and inconclusive. American political campaigns are interminable, uncouth, and full of deliberately deceptive advertising. We are showing the world how great republics and empires die, not how they make sound decisions or defend spheres of influence.

政策对话逐渐倾向成为以下含义的代表：特殊群体的利益，不具普遍性，很多人不知情，而且没有定论。美国的政治竞选没完没了，粗鲁，充满刻意欺骗性广告，我们正向世界展示伟大的共和国和帝国是如何灭亡的，而不是如何做出正确的决定或保护自己的势力范围。

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Spheres of influence entail liabilities for those who manage them, but not necessarily for the countries they incorporate. Take the Philippines, for example. Secure in the American sphere, it did not bother to acquire a navy or an air force before suddenly — in the mid-1970s — asserting ownership of islands long claimed by China in the nearby South China Sea and seizing and settling them. China has belatedly reacted. The Philippines still has no air and naval power to speak of. Now it wants the United States to return in sufficient force to defend its claims against those of China. Military confrontations are us! So we’re dutifully doing so.

势力范围对于它的管理者们意味着责任，但对被并入的国家并不是一定如此。以菲律宾为例，在美国的势力范围内它十分安全不需要海军或空军。直到19世纪70年代中期，突然对附近中国南海上一直是中国的岛屿宣示主权，占领并驻扎了这些岛屿，中国的反应姗姗来迟。菲律宾的空军和海军仍然不值一提，现在它想让美国回报足够的军事力量，维护它与中国对抗的主权要求。负责军事对抗的是我们！因此，我们尽职尽责地这么做。

It is gratifying to be wanted. Other than that, what’s in this for us? A possible American war with China? Even if such a war were wise, who would go to war with China with us on behalf of Filipino claims to worthless sandbars, rocks, and reefs? Surely it would be better to promote a diplomatic resolution of competing claims than to help ramp up a military confrontation.

被人需要是一件高兴的事，除此之外我们还有什么好处？可能会有一场中美战争？即使这场战争是合理的，谁会为了菲律宾要求的几个沙洲，岩石和暗礁，站在我们一边与中国开战？显然通过外交手段解决主权冲突，比帮助升级为一场军事冲突更有好处。

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The conflicts in the South China Sea are first and foremost about the control of territory — sovereignty over islets and rocks that generate rights over adjacent seas and seabeds. Our arguments with China are often described by U.S. officials as about “freedom of navigation.” If by this they mean assuring the unobstructed passage of commercial shipping through the area, the challenge is entirely conjectural. This sort of freedom of navigation has never been threatened or compromised there. It is not irrelevant that its most self-interested champion is China. A plurality of goods in the South China Sea is in transit to and from Chinese ports or transported in Chinese ships.

南海冲突最重要的是领土的控制——拥有小岛和岩石的主权，从而产生了对周围海域和海床的权力。美国官员对于我们和中国的争论一般描述为“航行自由”，如果他们的目的是想保证这片区域航道的通畅的话，那么这种挑战完全是基于猜测的。这种航行自由在南海从来没有受到威胁或需要妥协，它完全与争议无关因为最大的受益者就是中国，南海上大量货物往来于中国的港口或是通过中国货船运输。

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But what we mean by freedom of navigation is the right of the U.S. Navy to continue unilaterally to police the global commons off Asia, as it has been for 70 years, and the right of our Navy to lurk at China’s 12-mile limit while preparing and practicing to cross it in the event of a U.S.-China conflict over Taiwan or some other casus belli. Not surprisingly, the Chinese object to both propositions, as we would if the People’s Liberation Army Navy were to attempt to do the same 12 miles off Block Island, Pearl Harbor, Norfolk, or San Diego.
We persist, not just because China is the current enemy of choice of our military planners and armaments industry, but because we are determined to perpetuate our unilateral dominance of the world’s seas. But such dominance does not reflect current power balances, let alone those of the future. Unilateral dominance is a possibility whose time is passing or may already have passed. What is needed now is a turn toward partnership.

但是我们说航行自由的真正目的，是让美国海军单方面在亚洲的国际公共区域继续当警察，就像70年来我们一直做的那样。还包括了美国海军停留在中国12海里限制附近的权利，当美国与中国因为台湾发生冲突或有其他开战理由时，做好跨越12海里的练习和准备。不出意料，这两点中国都反对，当然如果中国海军对布洛克岛，珍珠港，诺福克或者圣迭戈做同样的事，我们也会反对。
我们的坚持，不只是因为中国是我们军方指挥者和军备工业认定的敌人，而是因为我们要坚定地延续对世界海洋的单方面统治。但这种统治反映的不是当前的力量平衡，更不用说将来的。单方面统治的可能性正在消失，或者已经消失了，现在需要的是转向伙伴关系。

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This might include trying to build a framework for sharing the burdens of assuring freedom of navigation with China, Japan, the European Union, and other major economic powers who fear its disruption. As the world’s largest trading nation, about to overtake Greece and Japan as the owner of the world’s largest shipping fleet, China has more at stake in the continuation of untrammeled international commerce than any other country. Why not leverage that interest to the advantage of a recrafted world and Asian-Pacific order that protects our interests at lower cost and lessened risk of conflict with a nuclear power?

这可能意味着尝试建立一种框架，让各个国家来共同承担航行自由的负担，包括中国，日本，欧盟以及其他主要的经济体。中国作为世界最大的贸易国，也即将超越希腊和日本在拥有最大的船队，中国比其他任何国家都看重不受限制的国际贸易的延续。为什么不利用这种利益的优势，从而重新创造世界和亚太秩序，在更低成本下保护我们的利益，减少核大国冲突的危险。

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We might try a little diplomacy elsewhere as well. In practice, we have aided and abetted those who prefer a Syria in endless, agonized turmoil to one allied with Iran. Our policy has consisted of funneling weapons to Syrian and foreign opponents of the Assad government, some of whom rival our worst enemies in their fanaticism and savagery. Five years on, with at least 350,000 dead and over 10 million Syrians driven from their homes, the Assad government has not fallen. Perhaps it is time to admit that we did not just ignore international law, but seriously miscalculated political realities in our effort to overthrow the Syrian government.

我们在其他地方也可以尝试外交手段，实际上，我们一直帮助那些想要叙利亚陷入无穷无尽的痛苦混乱，而不想让叙利亚和伊朗结盟的人。我们的政策包括向叙利亚国内外的阿萨德政府的反对者输送武器，而这些人中有一部分人的狂热和野蛮，与我们最坏的敌人不相上下。5年以来，至少35万人死亡，超过1000万叙利亚人流离失所，阿萨德政府依然没有垮台。也许现在是时候承认，在试图推翻叙利亚政府的努力过程中，我们不仅无视了国际法，还误判了政治形势。

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Russia’s deft empowerment of diplomacy through its recent, limited use of force in Syria has now opened an apparent path to peace. Perhaps it’s time to set aside Cold War antipathies and explore that path. This appears to be what Secretary of State John Kerry is finally doing with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov. Peace in Syria is the key to putting down the so-called “caliphate” that straddles the vanished border between Syria and Iraq. Only peace can end the refugee flows that are destabilizing Europe, as well as the Levant. It is good that we seem at last to be recognizing that bombing and strafing are pointless unless tied to feasible diplomatic objectives.

俄罗斯最近在叙利亚有限的武力使用，这种轻快的外交手段现在为走向和平指出一条明路，也许是时候放开冷战的反感，探索这条新路。这也是国务卿约翰克里与他的俄罗斯同行，谢尔盖拉夫罗夫，终于开始做的事情。叙利亚的和平，是击垮目前横跨叙利亚和伊拉克的“哈里发国家”的关键，也只有和平才能结束造成欧洲和黎凡特地区不稳定的难民潮。我们终于认识到轰炸和扫射是没有用的，除非伴随着可行的外交目标，这是件好事。

There is also some reason to hope that we may be moving toward greater realism and a more purposive approach to Ukraine. Ukraine needs political and economic reform more than it needs weapons and military training. Only if Ukraine is at peace with its internal differences can it be secured as a neutral bridge and buffer between Russia and the rest of Europe. Demonizing Mr. Putin will not achieve this.  Doing so will require embarking on a search for common ground with Russia.

另外我们有理由认为，我们也许在乌克兰问题将上采取更现实和有目的性的解决方法。乌克兰更需要经济和政治改革，而不是武器和军事训练。只有乌克兰在内部存在分歧的情况下保持和平，才能确保成为俄罗斯和其余欧洲国家之间的中立的桥梁和缓冲，将普京妖魔化并不能达到这一目的，想要实现必须着手寻找和俄罗斯的共同点。

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

Unfortunately, as the moronic Islamophobia that has characterized the so-called debates between presidential candidates illustrates, there is at present no comparable trend toward realism in our approach to Muslim terrorism. We need to face up to the fact that U.S. interventions and other coercive measures have killed as many astwo million Muslims in recent decades. One does not need an elaborate review of the history of European Christian and Jewish colonialism in the Middle East or American collusion with both to understand the sources of Arab rage or the zeal of some Muslims for revenge. Reciprocating Islamist murderousness with our own is no way to end terrorist violence.

不幸的是，愚蠢的伊斯兰恐惧症体现在所谓总统候选人的辩论中，这说明当下我们对穆斯林恐怖主义的方式并没有趋向现实主义。我们必须面对的一个现实是，美国的干涉和其它强制措施在过去几十年内杀死了200万穆斯林。要理解阿拉伯人愤怒的来源，以及某些穆斯林对于复仇的狂热，人们并不需要一份详细的关于欧洲基督徒和犹太人在中东的殖民，以及美国如何和他们勾结的历史报告，我们对伊斯兰进行多次屠杀是没法消灭恐怖主义的。

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

Twenty-two percent of the world’s population is Muslim. Allowing bombing campaigns and drone warfare to define our relationship with the Islamic world is a recipe for endless terrorist backlash against us. In the Middle East, the United States is now locked in a death-filled dance with fanatic enemies, ungrateful client states, alienated allies, and resurgent adversaries. Terrorists are over here because we are over there. We’d be better off standing down from our efforts to sort out the problems of the Islamic world. Muslims are more likely to be able to cure their own ills than we are to do this for them.

我们的世界有百分之22的人是穆斯林。用允许轰炸战役和无人机战争 来定义我们与穆斯林的关系，这造成了无穷无尽反对我们的恐怖分子。在中东，现在美国这是在下定决心和疯狂的敌人、忘恩负义的附庸国、疏远的盟国以及不断复苏的敌人跳一场充满死亡的舞蹈。我们这里出现了恐怖分子，那是因为我们干涉了那里。我们在努力地解决伊斯兰世界的问题。但相对起我们为他们做的这些，穆斯林更有可能自己解决自己的毛病。
 -------------译者：bnge-审核者：龙腾翻译总管------------

The next administration needs to begin with the realization that unilateralism in the defense of a global sphere of influence does not and cannot work. The pursuit of partnership with the world beyond our borders has a much better chance of success. Americans need to bring our ambitions into balance with our interests and the resources we are prepared to devote to them.

下一届政府一开始必须认识到，在维护全球势力范围时内采取单边主义，是不会也不可能成功的，而在国界外追求伙伴关系成功的几率高得多。美国的的野心应该与我们的利益以及我们准备付出的资源形成平衡。

We need a peaceful international environment to rebuild our country. To achieve this, we must erase our strategy deficit. To do that, the next administration must fix the broken policymaking apparatus in Washington. It must rediscover the merits of measures short of war, learn how to use military power sparingly to support rather than supplant diplomacy, and cultivate the habit of asking “and then what?” before beginning military campaigns.

我们需要一个和平的国际环境来重建我们的国家，为此我们必须抹去我们的战略赤字。因此，下一届政府必须改正华盛顿破碎的决策系统，它必须重新认识非战争措施的优点，学习谨慎使用军事力量来支持外交而不是取代外交，养成习惯在开展军事行动前先问一问“打完怎么办？”。

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

When he was asked in 1787 what system he and our other founding fathers had given Americans, Benjamin Franklin famously replied, “a republic, if you can keep it.” For two centuries, we kept it. Now, if we cannot repair the incivility, dysfunction, and corruption of our politics, we will lose our republic as well as our imperium. America’s problems were made in the USA by Americans — not by refugees, immigrants, or foreigners. They cry out for Americans to fix them.

当本杰明·富兰克林在1787年被问及他和其他开国元勋给美国人带来了什么样的制度时，他回答道，“共和制，如果你们能遵守它。”（本杰明·富兰克林：美国独立战争的重要领导人之一，着名的政治家、物理学家、外交家和发明家，发明了避雷针。）两个世纪以来，我们一直遵守着它。而现在，若是我们不能修复我们制度的野蛮、功能失调和腐败，我们将会既失去我们的共和制，更失去我们霸权！美国的问题是由美国制造的，而不是由难民、移民或外国人制造的。他们哭着要美国解决它们。

Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr., a retired diplomat, is a Senior Fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.

Chas W.Freeman,Jr大使，一位退休的外交官，还是一名在沃森国际与公共事务学院学院的高级研究员。

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