The Self-Destruction of American Power
美国霸权的自我毁灭
原文 (Foreign Affairs)：https://tinyurl.com/y6bzvx9u
中译(观察者)：
https://www.guancha.cn/FaLiDe-ZhaKaLiYa/2019_06_23_506710_s.shtml
Fareed Zakaria
《华盛顿邮报》专栏作家
Sometime in the last two years, American hegemony died. The age of U.S.
dominance was a brief, heady era, about three decades marked by two moments,
each a breakdown of sorts. It was born amid the collapse of the Berlin Wall,
in 1989. The end, or really the beginning of the end, was another collapse,
that of Iraq in 2003, and the slow unraveling since. But was the death of the
United States’ extraordinary status a result of external causes, or did
Washington accelerate its own demise through bad habits and bad behavior?
That is a question that will be debated by historians for years to come. But
at this point, we have enough time and perspective to make some preliminary
observations.
美利坚的全球霸权已经崩塌，具体时间就在过去两年里的某一刻。美利坚合众国曾经是这
个世界上唯一的超级大国，那是短暂的、令人陶醉的30年。在这段历史里发生了两个标志
性的事件，它们在某种意义上都可以被看成是一种崩塌：1989年柏林墙的倒塌，美利坚超
级大国时代便是从那一刻开始的；2003年伊拉克的分崩离析，美利坚超级大国时代从那一
刻开始逐渐走向终结。美国在全世界范围内失去自己的卓越地位是外部因素导致的吗？还
是说这一结果是华盛顿自己的不良心态和糟糕政策造成的呢？这是一个可供历史学家们在
未来详细讨论的话题。然而此时此刻，我想我们应该可以对这一现象进行一些初步的分析
。
As with most deaths, many factors contributed to this one. There were deep
structural forces in the international system that inexorably worked against
any one nation that accumulated so much power. In the American case, however,
one is struck by the ways in which Washington—from an unprecedented position
—mishandled its hegemony and abused its power, losing allies and emboldening
enemies. And now, under the Trump administration, the United States seems to
have lost interest, indeed lost faith, in the ideas and purpose that animated
its international presence for three-quarters of a century.
正如许多事物的消亡一样，美国超级大国地位的消亡也是多种因素共同作用的结果。对于
一个已经累积了如此庞大实力的国家来说，在国际体系中一定存在着与其相对立的某种深
刻的结构性力量。很多人也许已经注意到，第一次坐上超级大国宝座的美国对于手中的霸
权并没有形成正确的认识，华盛顿滥用了自己的力量。在这一过程中，它不但失去了盟友
，而且还鼓舞了敌人的士气。如今美国进入了川普时代，这个国家似乎已经对那些使自己
在过去四分之三个世纪里令全世界景仰的理想和目标失去了兴趣，或者也可以说，失去了
信仰。
A STAR IS BORN
新星诞生
U.S. hegemony in the post-Cold War era was like nothing the world had seen
since the Roman Empire. Writers are fond of dating the dawn of “the American
century” to 1945, not long after the publisher Henry Luce coined the term.
But the post-World War II era was quite different from the post-1989 one.
Even after 1945, in large stretches of the globe, France and the United
Kingdom still had formal empires and thus deep influence. Soon, the Soviet
Union presented itself as a superpower rival, contesting Washington’s
influence in every corner of the planet. Remember that the phrase “Third
World” derived from the tripartite division of the globe, the First World
being the United States and Western Europe, and the Second World, the
communist countries. The Third World was everywhere else, where each country
was choosing between U.S. and Soviet influence. For much of the world’s
population, from Poland to China, the century hardly looked American.
美国在冷战结束后获得了世界霸权，美国成为了自罗马帝国时代以来人类从未经验过的一
支全球性力量。一些文章喜欢将“美国世纪”（the American century）的起始点设定在
1945年，《时代》周刊共同创办人亨利·卢斯（Henry Luce）1941年第一次使用了这一表
述。不过，二战后时代与冷战后时代，两者之间还是存在着巨大差异的。1945年以后，在
世界上的大片地区，英国和法国仍然保留着自己的帝国遗产，这两个国家仍然在很多地区
发挥着巨大的影响力。二战后不久，苏联便以美国的超级对手的身份登上了历史舞台，这
个国家开始在地球的每一个角落与美国争夺影响力。还记得人们对“三个世界”的划分吗
？美国和西欧是第一世界，共产主义国家是第二世界，其他国家则被划入第三世界，那些
国家都面临着在美苏之间站队的选择。从波兰到中国，这个世界上的大部分人口当时并没
有感受到自己生活在“美国世纪”。
The United States’ post-Cold War supremacy was initially hard to detect. As
I pointed out in The New Yorker in 2002, most participants missed it. In
1990, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher argued that the world was
dividing into three political spheres, dominated by the dollar, the yen, and
the deutsche mark. Henry Kissinger’s 1994 book, Diplomacy, predicted the
dawn of a new multipolar age. Certainly in the United States, there was
little triumphalism. The 1992 presidential campaign was marked by a sense of
weakness and weariness. “The Cold War is over; japan and Germany won,” the
Democratic hopeful Paul Tsongas said again and again. Asia hands had already
begun to speak of “the Pacific century.”
美国在冷战结束后成为了唯一的超级大国，然而美国的这种优势地位在当时并未被人们清
晰地感知到。2002年，我曾在《纽约客》杂志的一篇文章中指出：大多数国际体系的参与
者并没有及时注意到美国已经在冷战后取得世界主导地位的现实。1990年，时任英国首相
撒切尔认为，世界正在分裂为被美元、日元和德国马克统治的三个阵营；基辛格在其1994
年出版的名著《大外交》（Diplomacy）一书中则预测多极化时代即将到来。当然，在美
国国内你也很难感受到很明显的乐观情绪。1992年，正在举行总统大选的美国给人留下了
一种虚弱和疲惫的印象。“冷战结束了，日本和德国才是最终的胜利者”，当时民主党颇
有希望获胜的候选人保罗·桑格斯（Paul Tsongas）曾到处宣扬这样的观点。而美国的亚
太事务专家们早在那时便已经开始提出“太平洋世纪”（the Pacific century）的概念
了。
There was one exception to this analysis, a prescient essay in the pages of
this magazine by the conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer: “The
Unipolar Moment,” which was published in 1990. But even this triumphalist
take was limited in its expansiveness, as its title suggests. “The unipolar
moment will be brief,” Krauthammer admitted, predicting in a Washington Post
column that within a very short time, Germany and Japan, the two emerging “
regional superpowers,” would be pursuing foreign policies independent of the
United States.
不过，例外也是有的。颇具保守色彩的评论家查尔斯·克劳萨默（Charles Krauthammer
）1990年在《外交事务》杂志发表了一篇很有前瞻性的文章《单极时刻》（The
Unipolar Moment）。正如此文标题所揭示的，文章作者对情况的乐观判断还是被“时刻
”这个概念侷限住了。“单极时刻将是短暂的”，查尔斯·克劳萨默在《华盛顿邮报》的
一篇专栏文章中指出，德国和日本这两个正在崛起的“地区性超级大国”将很快在美国设
定的框架之外寻求自己独立的外交政策。一些决策者很愿意送走“单极时刻”，他们相信
那是很快就会发生的现实。1991年，巴尔干半岛陷入了战火。时任欧盟理事会主席雅克·
普斯（Jacques Poos）宣称：“欧洲有所作为的时刻到了……如果欧洲人只能解决一个问
题，那么它一定是南斯拉夫问题。南斯拉夫是一个欧洲国家，那里的问题不应该由美国人
来插手”。然而事实证明，只有美国具备进行有效干预并成功处理危机的综合实力和影响
力。
Similarly, toward the end of the 1990s, when a series of economic panics sent
East Asian economies into tailspins, only the United States could stabilize
the global financial system. It organized a $120 billion international
bailout for the worst-hit countries, resolving the crisis. Time magazine put
three Americans, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, Federal Reserve Chair Alan
Greenspan, and Deputy Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, on its cover with
the headline “The Committee to Save the World.”
另一个类似的事件发生在上世纪90年代末，当时经济危机使东亚经济完全失控，只有美国
展现出了稳定全球金融体系的能力。美国为受到冲击最严重的亚洲国家筹集了1200亿美元
国际紧急财政援助资金，并让那些国家平安度过了危机。《时代》周刊把美国财政部长罗
伯特·鲁宾（Robert Rubin）、联邦储备委员会主席艾伦·格林斯潘（Alan Greenspan）
和财政部副部长劳伦斯·萨默斯（Lawrence Summers）作为封面人物放在一起并为文章冠
以《拯救世界三人组》的标题。
THE BEGINNING OFTHE END
结束的开始
Just as American hegemony grew in the early 1990s while no one was noticing,
so in the late 1990s did the forces that would undermine it, even as people
had begun to speak of the United States as “the indispensable nation” and “
the world’s sole superpower.” First and foremost, there was the rise of
China. It is easy to see in retrospect that Beijing would become the only
serious rival to Washington, but it was not as apparent a quarter century
ago. Although China had grown speedily since the 1980s, it had done so from a
very low base. Few countries had been able to continue that process for more
than a couple of decades. China’s strange mixture of capitalism and Leninism
seemed fragile, as the Tiananmen Square uprising had revealed.
美国在上世纪90年代初开始确立自己在世界上的主导地位，这一趋势当时并没有引发太多
人的关注；90年代末，那些有潜力削弱美国地位的力量也逐渐崛起，而那时人们已经开始
把美国视为一个“不可或缺的国家”和“全球唯一的超级大国”。在那些有潜力削弱美国
地位的国家中，如今人们首先会想到的便是中国。在今天看来，我们很容易得出“北京是
华盛顿唯一真正意义上的对手”的结论，然而在四分之一个世纪前，历史的轮廓并没有今
天这样清晰。中国的快速发展早在80年代就已经开始了，不过这个国家的起点非常低。人
们当时认为一个贫穷国家的快速增长是很难持久的，而且人们从中国80年代的历史中得出
结论：将列宁主义和资本主义结合在一起的社会是十分脆弱的。
But China’s rise persisted, and the country became the new great power on
the block, one with the might and the ambition to match the United States.
Russia, for its part, went from being both weak and quiescent in the early
1990s to being a revanchist power, a spoiler with enough capability and
cunning to be disruptive. With two major global players outside the
U.S.-constructed international system, the world had entered a post-American
phase. Today, the United States is still the most powerful country on the
planet, but it exists in a world of global and regional powers that can—and
frequently do—push back.
然而中国的崛起势头一直持续到今天，中国已经成为一个有能力和意图与美国平起平坐的
国家。至于俄罗斯，这个国家在上世纪90年代初还十分虚弱、沉寂，如今它已经变身为一
股复仇的力量、一个颇具智慧和实力的搅局者。在美国构建的国际体系之外已经出现了两
个强大的全球性玩家，因此我们完全可以说，这个世界已经进入了后美国时代。今天的美
国仍然是这个星球上最具实力的国家，然而这个星球上存在着很多全球性和地区性强国，
他们有能力与美国对立而且也的确十分频繁地表现出与美国对立的态度。
The 9/11 attacks and the rise of Islamic terrorism played a dual role in the
decline of U.S. hegemony. At first, the attacks seem to galvanize Washington
and mobilize its power. In 2001, the United States, still larger economically
than the next five countries put together, chose to ramp up its annual
defense spending by an amount—almost $50 billion—that was larger than the
United Kingdom’s entire yearly defense budget. When Washington intervened in
Afghanistan, it was able to get overwhelming support for the campaign,
including from Russia. Two years later, despite many objections, it was still
able to put together a large international coalition for an invasion of Iraq.
The early years of this century marked the high point of the American
imperium, as Washington tried to remake wholly alien nations—Afghanistan and
Iraq—thousands of miles away, despite the rest of the world’s reluctant
acquiescence or active opposition.
在美国霸权衰落的过程中，911事件以及伊斯兰恐怖主义势力的崛起不仅使美国本土受到
了攻击，它们实际上扮演了双重角色。最初，911恐怖袭击事件似乎使华盛顿深受震动并
促使其动员起手中大批力量。2001年，GDP规模比排在后面5个国家之和还要大的美国决定
增加500亿美元国防开支，仅这个增加的数目就已经比英国全年的国防预算还要多了。当
华盛顿决定对阿富汗进行干预的时候，甚至俄罗斯也表达了支持。而两年之后，虽然面临
不少反对声音，可美国仍然能在入侵伊拉克之前组织起一个强大的国际联盟。在本世纪最
初的几年里，美国以自身意志行事的心态发展到了顶点——虽然其他国家并不愿表达支持
甚至有些国家十分反对，可美国还是执意要让阿富汗和伊拉克这两个数千英里之外与己无
关的国家改天换地。
Iraq in particular marked a turning point. The United States embarked on a
war of choice despite misgivings expressed in the rest of world. It tried to
get the un to rubber-stamp its mission, and when that proved arduous, it
dispensed with the organization altogether. It ignored the Powell Doctrine—
the idea, promulgated by General Colin Powell while he was chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War, that a war was worth entering only
if vital national interests were at stake and overwhelming victory assured.
The Bush administration insisted that the vast challenge of occupying Iraq
could be undertaken with a small number of troops and a light touch. Iraq, it
was said, would pay for itself. And once in Baghdad, Washington decided to
destroy the Iraqi state, disbanding the army and purging the bureaucracy,
which produced chaos and helped fuel an insurgency. Any one of these mistakes
might have been overcome. But together they ensured that Iraq became a costly
fiasco.
对美国来说，伊拉克战争是一个关键的转折点。虽然其他国家都对入侵伊拉克顾虑重重，
但美国还是发动了这场并不十分必要的战争。美国曾试图获得联合国的授权，然而当发现
这几乎没有可能时，美国干脆绕开了联合国。当时的美国领导人完全忽视了“鲍威尔原则
”（1993年，时任美国参谋长联席会议主席鲍威尔在《外交》杂志上发表《美国军队——
今后的挑战》一文，列举了美国决策者在发动战争之前应该对自己提出的几个问题：关键
的国家安全利益是否已经受到威胁？美国是否具有明确而现实的战争目标？美国是否充分
并坦率地分析了战争的风险和代价？是否其他所有非暴力手段都宣告无效？美国政府是否
获得了美国人民的支持？美国的战争行为是否能获得广泛的国际支持？上述内容后来被称
为“鲍威尔原则”——观察者网注）的存在，他们并没有在发动伊拉克战争前问自己如果
不发动这场战争美国的核心利益是否会受到损害，他们更不具备赢得战争的完全把握。小
布什政府认为，对伊拉克实施占领并不需要太多军队，伊拉克并不是一块太难啃的骨头。
而根据当时的说法，伊拉克自会承担美军行动的一切成本。当美军进入巴格达后，华盛顿
决定彻底摧毁伊拉克政府，伊拉克军队遭解散，政府官员遭清洗，伊拉克社会很快就陷入
了混乱，武装暴动的引信被点燃了。对美国来说，也许上述任何一个错误所带来的问题都
是可以解决的，然而当所有这一切一起发生的时候，代价高昂的伊拉克战争便注定会以失
败收场。
After 9/11, Washington made major, consequential decisions that continue to
haunt it, but it made all of them hastily and in fear. It saw itself as in
mortal danger, needing to do whatever it took to defend itself—from invading
Iraq to spending untold sums on homeland security to employing torture. The
rest of the world saw a country that was experiencing a kind of terrorism
that many had lived with for years and yet was thrashing around like a
wounded lion, tearing down international alliances and norms. In its first
two years, the George W. Bush administration walked away from more
international agreements than any previous administration had. (Undoubtedly,
that record has now been surpassed under President Donald Trump.) American
behavior abroad during the Bush administration shattered the moral and
political authority of the United States, as long-standing allies such as
Canada and France found themselves at odds with it on the substance,
morality, and style of its foreign policy.
911恐怖袭击事件发生后，华盛顿深受一些重大决策的负面影响的困扰，那些决策都是陷
入恐惧的华盛顿在非常仓促的情况下做出的。美国觉得自己到了生死关头。入侵伊拉克、
在国土安全领域投入数目无法公开的巨资、对犯人严刑拷打……美国政府认为，为了实现
保障国家安全的目的可以使用任何手段。在世界上其他国家看来，美国所经历的恐怖主义
在很多国家那里不过是持续多年的常态，而美国却像一头受伤的狮子，不断破坏国际规则
和自己的国际联盟体系。在小布什政府的最初两年里，这位总统比此前任何一位美国总统
破坏的国际协议都要多（小布什的这个记录毫无疑问已经被今天的唐纳德·川普打破了）
。在小布什政府时期，美国在国外的所作所为在道德层面和政治层面破坏了美国的公信力
，诸如加拿大和法国这样的长期盟友在一些基本原则、道德标准和对外政策方面都与美国
发生了分歧。
OWN GOAL
乌龙球
So which was it that eroded American hegemony—the rise of new challengers or
imperial overreach? As with any large and complex historical phenomenon, it
was probably all of the above. China’s rise was one of those tectonic shifts
in international life that would have eroded any hegemon’s unrivaled power,
no matter how skillful its diplomacy. The return of Russia, however, was a
more complex affair. It’s easy to forget now, but in the early 1990s,
leaders in Moscow were determined to turn their country into a liberal
democracy, a European nation, and an ally of sorts of the West. Eduard
Shevardnadze, who was foreign minister during the final years of the Soviet
Union, supported the United States’ 1990-91 war against Iraq. And after the
Soviet Union’s collapse, Russia’s first foreign minister, Andrei Kozyrev,
was an even more ardent liberal, an internationalist, and a vigorous
supporter of human rights.
使美国全球霸权受到侵蚀的到底是什么？是新出现的挑战者还是帝国力量的过度使用？就
像任何宏大而复杂的历史现象一样，单一原因无法提供全面的解释。中国崛起是国际体系
中的一种结构性变化，任何一个超级大国（无论其外交艺术多么娴熟完美）都无法做到自
己手中的霸权能丝毫不受其侵蚀。至于俄罗斯作为大国的再度归来，那是一个更加复杂的
故事。如今人们大多已经忘记了，在90年代初，当时莫斯科的领导人是很希望自己的国家
能走上自由民主的道路的，是很希望俄罗斯能成为一个真正意义上的欧洲国家的，甚至是
很希望自己能成为西方某种意义上的盟友的。在前苏联存在的最后几年里，爱德华·谢瓦
尔德纳泽（Eduard Shevardnadze）这位外交部长还对美国在1990年发动的海湾战争表达
了支持。苏联解体之后，俄罗斯联邦的首位外交部长安德烈·科济列夫（Andrei Kozyrev
）甚至是一个更加激进的自由主义者、国际主义者和西方人权理念的支持者。
Who lost Russia is a question for another article. But it is worth noting
that although Washington gave Moscow some status and respect—expanding the
G-7 into the G-8, for example—it never truly took Russia’s security
concerns seriously. It enlarged nato fast and furiously, a process that might
have been necessary for countries such as Poland, historically insecure and
threatened by Russia, but one that has continued on unthinkingly, with little
concern for Russian sensitivities, and now even extends to Macedonia. Today,
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggressive behavior makes every action
taken against his country seem justified, but it’s worth asking, What forces
produced the rise of Putin and his foreign policy in the first place?
Undoubtedly, they were mostly internal to Russia, but to the extent that U.S.
actions had an effect, they appear to have been damaging, helping stoke the
forces of revenge and revanchism in Russia.
谁应该为我们失去俄罗斯负责？就这个话题我完全可以单独再写一篇文章。不过应该指出
的是，虽然华盛顿对莫斯科表达了一些尊重、给了它某种身份（比如将G7扩大为G8），但
华盛顿从未认真看待俄罗斯的安全关切。美国疯狂地推进北约东扩，把像波兰这样在历史
上深受俄罗斯威胁、严重缺乏安全感的国家纳入北约的确有些道理，然而北约东扩的推进
的确是欠缺考虑的，美国并没有认真对待俄罗斯的安全关切，如今甚至马其顿也已经加入
了北约。今天，俄罗斯总统普京对西方的强势态度似乎让我们觉得针对俄罗斯采取任何措
施都算不得太过分。不过，我们应该问自己这样一个问题：到底是什么力量促成了推行强
势对外政策的普京的崛起？毫无疑问，这股力量大多来自俄罗斯国内。不过当我们把美国
对俄政策所造成的结果纳入考虑，这股力量显然是带有一定的复仇主义色彩的。
The greatest error the United States committed during its unipolar moment,
with Russia and more generally, was to simply stop paying attention. After
the collapse of the Soviet Union, Americans wanted to go home, and they did.
During the Cold War, the United States had stayed deeply interested in events
in Central America, Southeast Asia, the Taiwan Strait, and even Angola and
Namibia. By the mid-1990s, it had lost all interest in the world.
Foreign-bureau broadcasts by nbc fell from 1,013 minutes in 1988 to 327
minutes in 1996. (Today, the three main networks combined devote roughly the
same amount of time to foreign-bureau stories as each individual network did
in 1988.) Both the White House and Congress during the George H. W. Bush
administration had no appetite for an ambitious effort to transform Russia,
no interest in rolling out a new version of the Marshall Plan or becoming
deeply engaged in the country. Even amid the foreign economic crises that hit
during the Clinton administration, U.S. policymakers had to scramble and
improvise, knowing that Congress would appropriate no funds to rescue Mexico
or Thailand or Indonesia. They offered advice, most of it designed to require
little assistance from Washington, but their attitude was one of a distant
well-wisher, not an engaged superpower.
美国在“单极时刻”所犯下的最为严重的错误（无论在对俄政策方面还是在更加广泛的对
外事务上），就是美国突然对外面的世界不再感兴趣了。苏联解体之后，很多美国人都觉
得该收收心在家里好好过日子了，而且他们真地这样做了。冷战时期，美国曾对中美洲、
东南亚、台湾海峡甚至安哥拉和纳米比亚的事务十分关注。然而到了90年代中期，美国已
经对全世界失去了兴趣。美国全国广播公司（NBC）的国际新闻内容从1988年的1013分钟
下降到了1996年的327分钟。在小布什时期，无论在白宫还是国会，人们对与俄罗斯加强
接触或对其加以改造的话题都缺乏胃口，他们对推出新版“马歇尔计画”也毫无兴趣。即
便在克林顿政府时期国外发生经济危机时，美国的政策制定者们也只能仓促应对，他们知
道国会不会为了救援墨西哥、泰国或印尼批准任何拨款。不过他们还是对那些陷入危机的
国家提供了建议，他们在那些建议里丝毫没有提到美国会如何拨款援助，他们只是从远处
向那些国家送上了祝福，其表现完全不像一个有担当的超级大国的样子。
Ever since the end of World War I, the United States has wanted to transform
the world. In the 1990s, that seemed more possible than ever before.
Countries across the planet were moving toward the American way. The Gulf War
seemed to mark a new milestone for world order, in that it was prosecuted to
uphold a norm, limited in its scope, endorsed by major powers and legitimized
by international law. But right at the time of all these positive
developments, the United States lost interest. U.S. policymakers still wanted
to transform the world in the 1990s, but on the cheap. They did not have the
political capital or resources to throw themselves into the effort. That was
one reason Washington’s advice to foreign countries was always the same:
economic shock therapy and instant democracy. Anything slower or more complex
— anything, in other words, that resembled the manner in which the West
itself had liberalized its economy and democratized its politics—was
unacceptable. Before 9/11, when confronting challenges, the American tactic
was mostly to attack from afar, hence the twin approaches of economic
sanctions and precision air strikes. Both of these, as the political
scientist Eliot Cohen wrote of airpower, had the characteristics of modern
courtship: “gratification without commitment.”
自第一次世界大战大战结束以来，美国一直希望能按照自己的意愿重塑这个世界。到了上
世纪90年代，美国距离这个目标的实现比此前任何时期都要接近。当时全球各国都在向美
国模式靠拢。在世界秩序的演化历史上，海湾战争的爆发是一个具有里程碑意义的事件。
这场范围有限的战争获得了诸多大国的支持，在国际法层面也无可指摘，而且这场战争还
为各国确立了一套行为规范。可是在所有这些积极因素汇聚在一起时，美国却突然对一切
都失去了兴趣。美国的政策制定者们在90年代的确还有意重塑这个世界，但他们希望能以
较低的成本、简化的手段进行操作。他们实际上已经没有政治资本或政治资源对这个世界
进行真正意义上的重塑了。这也就解释了为何华盛顿在对其他国家提供建议时给出的总是
万年不变的同一套方案——休克疗法和快速民主化。那些见效缓慢、过程复杂的方案对美
国来说都是不可接受的，然而西方自身经济自由化和政治民主化的过程却的确是缓慢而复
杂的。在911事件发生前，每当遭遇挑战时，美国大多数时候采取的都是经济制裁或空中
精确打击等远距离攻击的战术。政治学者埃略特·科恩（Eliot Cohen）认为上述两种手
段与现代人追逐爱情的方式之间有某种相似之处：在使自己获得愉悦的同时，却不愿做出
任何承诺。
Of course, these limits on the United States’ willingness to pay prices and
bear burdens never changed its rhetoric, which is why, in an essay for The
New York Times Magazine in 1998,1 pointed out that U.S. foreign policy was
defined by “the rhetoric of transformation but the reality of accommodation.
” The result, I said, was “a hollow hegemony.” That hollowness has
persisted ever since.
美国在重塑世界时缺乏承担压力和付出代价的意愿，但这并不影响美国政府对自身政策的
官方表述。我曾在1998年的一期《纽约时报》杂志中指出，美国的对外政策“在表述时决
意重塑世界，但在实际行动上，却是希望与现实和解”。结果，美国就变成了一个虚伪的
霸权。美国对外政策的这种虚伪性一直延续至今。
THE FINAL BLOW
最后一击
The Trump administration has hollowed out U.S. foreign policy even further.
Trump’s instincts are Jacksonian, in that he is largely uninterested in the
world except insofar as he believes that most countries are screwing the
United States. He is a nationalist, a protectionist, and a populist,
determined to put “America first.” But truthfully, more than anything else,
he has abandoned the field. Under Trump, the United States has withdrawn from
the Trans- Pacific Partnership and from engaging with Asia more generally. It
is uncoupling itself from its 70-year partnership with Europe. It has dealt
with Latin America through the prism of either keeping immigrants out or
winning votes in Florida. It has even managed to alienate Canadians (no mean
feat). And it has subcontracted Middle East policy to Israel and Saudi
Arabia. With a few impulsive exceptions—such as the narcissistic desire to
win a Nobel Prize by trying to make peace with North Korea—what is most
notable about Trump’s foreign policy is its absence.
川普入主白宫后，美国的外交政策遭到进一步掏空。川普与美国第七任总统安德鲁·杰克
逊有些相似，杰克逊总统就对美国以外的世界缺乏兴趣，而且他觉得似乎全世界都在算计
美国。川普是一个民族主义者、贸易保护主义者，甚至是一个民粹主义者，他执意要一切
“以美国为优先”。然而事实上，正是川普在放弃美国已经占领的阵地。在川普政府的领
导下，美国从TPP谈判中抽身离去，美国不再认为与亚洲建立密切关系有什么必要；对于
已经有70年历史的美欧关系，川普政府也不再重视；至于拉丁美洲，它在川普眼中要么意
味着非法移民问题，要么意味着佛罗里达州的选票；在中东事务方面，川普已经把决策工
作转包给了以色列和沙特阿拉伯；甚至加拿大人也已经开始疏远美国，一位美国总统能做
到这一点也是很不容易了。川普外交政策的最大特点就是让美国在一切领域缺席。当然例
外也是有的，比如说自恋的川普就曾希望借助实现美朝和解获得诺贝尔和平奖。
When the United Kingdom was the superpower of its day, its hegemony eroded
because of many large structural forces—the rise of Germany, the United
States, and the Soviet Union. But it also lost control of its empire through
overreach and hubris. In 1900, with a quarter of the world’s population
under British rule, most of the United Kingdom’s major colonies were asking
only for limited autonomy—“dominion status” or “home rule,” in the terms
of the day. Had the country quickly granted that to all its colonies, who
knows whether it would have been able to extend its imperial life for
decades? But it didn’t, insisting on its narrow, selfish interests rather
than accommodating itself to the interests of the broader empire.
当英国作为一个超级大国开始走下坡路的时候，的确存在一些结构性因素导致其霸权遭到
侵蚀，德国、美国和苏联都是在那时崛起的。然而大英帝国时代的落幕也与其傲慢自大的
心态和国力的过度使用有关。1900年，全球四分之一的人口都在大英帝国的统治之下。当
时一些主要的英殖民地仅提出了“自治领地位”或“地方自治权”的要求。如果英国当时
能满足各殖民地的要求给予它们相应的地位，也许英国的帝国时代还能再延续几十年。然
而英国并没有那样做，它过于看重自己狭隘、自私的利益，大英帝国在宏观层面上更大的
利益却被忽视了。
There is an analogy here with the United States. Had the country acted more
consistently in the pursuit of broader interests and ideas, it could have
continued its influence for decades (albeit in a different form). The rule
for extending liberal hegemony seems simple: be more liberal and less
hegemonic. But too often and too obviously, Washington pursued its narrow
self-interests, alienating its allies and emboldening its foes. Unlike the
United Kingdom at the end of its reign, the United States is not bankrupt or
imperially overextended. It remains the single most powerful country on the
planet. It will continue to wield immense influence, more than any other
nation. But it will no longer define and dominate the international system
the way it did for almost three decades.
美国的情况与英国有些相似。如果美国能在追求更高层面的利益和理想时保持政策的连续
性，那么美国在全球的影响力就还能维持数十年之久（也许影响力的表现形式会与过去有
所不同）。一个自由主义霸权的生存法则是非常简单的：多一些自由主义，少一些霸权主
义。然而实际情况显然并非如此，美国经常过于追求自身狭隘的利益，这使得盟友们开始
疏远美国，而且敌人们的情绪还受到了鼓舞。与英国的情况不同，今天的美国还没有破产
，美国也不存在帝国过度扩张的问题。美国仍然是这个世界上最为强大的国家，美国所拥
有的影响力仍然是其他国家难以望其项背的。然而与过去30年相比，美国已经无法继续按
照自己的意愿定义并主导国际体系。
What remains, then, are American ideas. The United States has been a unique
hegemon in that it expanded its influence to establish a new world order, one
dreamed of by President Woodrow Wilson and most fully conceived of by
President Franklin Roosevelt. It is the world that was half-created after
1945, sometimes called “the liberal international order,” from which the
Soviet Union soon defected to build its own sphere. But the free world
persisted through the Cold War, and after 1991, it expanded to encompass much
of the globe. The ideas behind it have produced stability and prosperity over
the last three-quarters of a century. The question now is whether, as
American power wanes, the international system it sponsored— the rules,
norms, and values—will survive. Or will America also watch the decline of
its empire of ideas?
不过美国还有自己的理念。一直以来，美国是一个很独特的霸权，伍德罗·威尔逊（
Woodrow Wilson）总统提出了建立新的世界秩序的理想，而富兰克林·罗斯福（
Franklin Roosevelt）总统为此进行了具体的构思。美国通过构建全新的世界秩序拓展了
自己的影响力。1945年，美国人心中的世界秩序（一些人称之为“自由主义国际秩序”）
建设工程已经完成过半，然而很快前苏联就开始构建自己的世界。自由世界最终还是挨过
了冷战，1991年之后，全世界大部分国家都接受了自由主义国际秩序。在过去四分之三个
世纪里，该秩序背后所蕴含的理念为人类创造了一个稳定而繁荣的世界。如今的问题在于
，随着美国地位的衰落，它所构建的国际体系（包括相应的各种规则、规范和价值观）是
否还能继续维持下去呢？美国会见证自己的理念与自己的霸权一同走向终结吗？

平平是‘让美国再次伟大’，川普行事虽然未必能胜雷根但欧巴马的遗泽尚可，而卡特那时的美国国际地位更糟