标题:What the presidential choice could mean By Martin Wolf Published: September 2 2008 19:02 | Last updated: September 2 2008 19:02 We are all Americans now. By this I do not merely mean that the leadership of the US shapes the world in which we live. The world we live in is the world the Americans or, more precisely, the Anglo-Americans have made. The US will retain a huge influence. How will it use it? That is the question we should ask about the presidential election. The choice also seems clear: it is between those who expect a world of conflict and those who believe in seeking co-operation. 我们现在都是美国人。我不只是在说我们活在美国领导下塑成的世界。我们活着的世界 就是美国人（或更精确地说）盎格鲁美国人造出的世界。美国保有极大的影响力。美国 要怎麽用他的影响力？这就是这次总统大选应该要提出的问题。选择项目也很明显： 选择那些预期一个充满争端的世界的人，或那些相信应该寻求合作的人。 In a brilliant new book, Walter Russell Mead of the Council on Foreign Relations places today’s US in a tradition of global power which originated in the Netherlands of the 17th century, developed in the Britain of the 18th and the 19th centuries and continued in the US of the 20th century.* Theirs, he says, is the “Anglo-American” system. 外交关系委员会的MEAD在他精彩的书里把今日的美国定位在自十七世纪的荷兰开始， 发展成十八、十九世纪的英国、以及二十世纪的美国的全球权力传统内。他认为 那套就是他所谓的「盎格鲁美国」系统。 What is this system? It has three central features: it is maritime; it is global; and it combines commerce with military power. The Anglo-Americans have a distinctive civilisation: civilian, yet bellicose, commercial, yet moralistic, individualistic, yet organised, innovative, yet conservative, and idealistic, yet ruthless. To its foes, it is brutal, shallow and hypocritical. To its friends, it is the fount of freedom and democracy. 这是什麽系统？这系统有三个中心特徵：海权的、全球的、综合商业与军事力量的。 盎格鲁美国人有个独特的文明：平民而好战的、商业而道德的、个人而有组织的、 创新而保守的、理想而无情的。对他的敌人来说他是凶残、浅漏、虚假的。对他的 友人来说，他是自由与民主的前线。 Over the past three centuries, the Anglo-Americans have brought to the world the rule of large countries by executives responsible to elected assemblies. They brought market-driven capitalism and the ongoing industrial and technological revolutions. Not least, they overthrew many powerful enemies: the Spanish empire; royal and imperial France; imperial and Nazi Germany, militaristic Japan; and, most recently, Soviet communism. They destroyed the Mughal empire in India, the shogunate in Japan and, indirectly, the last imperial dynasty of China. 过去三个世纪以来，盎格鲁美国人为世界带来行政官对选民负责的大国制度。他们带来 市场趋向的资本主义，以及仍在进行的工业与科技革命。他们也推翻过许多强大的敌人 ：西班牙帝国、王室与帝制法国、帝制与纳粹德国、军权日本、以及最近的共产苏联。 他们摧毁了印度的蒙兀尔帝国、日本的幕府，也（间接地）推翻了中国最後的帝制朝代。 The Anglo-Americans have also confronted many opposing ideologies. Marxism was just the most important alternative ideology of modernity. Its downfall as an ideological system offered Francis Fukuyama the chance to write of the “end of history”. Liberal democracy, he argued, had proved itself to be the only system consistent with modernity. 盎格鲁美国人也对抗了许多相斥的意识型态。马克斯主义是相对於现代性而言最重要 的意识型态。其作为意识型态系统的衰亡让法兰西斯‧福山有机会写下「历史的终结」 。他认为，自由派民主已证明了自己是唯一能与现代性匹敌的系统。 The grand historical narrative of the past three centuries has been that of the Anglo-American revolution and of the reactions it has evoked among the peoples and civilisations it has destroyed, defeated, humiliated and, above all, transformed. For this shift in global power was not merely external. The British and Americans brought with them internal transformation. The greatest civilisations – Islamic, Indian and even Chinese – were overwhelmed. The British and Americans are prone to regard their interventions as well-intentioned and their impact as beneficent. This is not, to put it mildly, how it has looked to the rest of humanity. One of the virtues of this book is its appreciation of the contempt and hatred felt, from Louis XIV to Osama bin Laden and Vladimir Putin, for Anglo-Americans. 过去三世纪的大历史叙述就是关於盎格鲁美国革命，以及其革命在各种人众之间所激 起的回响和其所摧毁、击败、羞辱，以及（最重要的）其革命所转化的文明。这个全球 权力变动不只是外部的。英国人和美国人自己也带给自己内部转化。最伟大的几个文明 ─伊斯兰、印度、甚至中国─都承受不住。英国人和美国人倾向认为他们的介入都是 充满善意，且造成的影响是有建设性的。好听点说，对於其他人类，这并非如此。这 本书其中的一个优点，就是该书懂得路易十四、宾拉登、以及普丁对於盎格鲁美国人的 蔑视和恨意。 So what is the future of this system and of the world it has shaped, in the 21st century? What, too, might this have to do with the presidential election now under way? 所以，在二十一世纪里，这个系统的未来，以及他所塑造的世界的未来，会是什麽？这个 问体与正在进行中的总统大选又有什麽关连性？ The first and biggest point is that the world has now largely bought into the market economy and its corollary of globalisation. This is now transforming the world’s two giants, China and India. As a result, the US is in relative economic decline. 第一个也是最重要的一个重点，是这个世界已经进入市场经济以及全球化（其必然 结果）。这已经转化了中国和印度这世界的两大国。结果，则是美国进入相对的经济 衰退。 Second, the US will, nevertheless, retain the world’s most powerful, most technologically advanced and most innovative economy over the next quarter century. It is equally sure to possess the world’s dominant military and so to remain the biggest global power over this period. It will remain the one global power. 第二，在接下来四分之一个世纪里，美国不论如何都会维持世界最强、科技最先进、 经济最有创新力的国家。美国也稳作世界武力最强大的国家，同时也会维持全球各国 力量最强的国家。美国仍会是唯一的全球强权。 Third, Barack Obama and John McCain are both Americans. Inside the US what seems striking is their differences. To most of the rest of the world what is obvious is the similarities. Both represent the Anglo-American tradition, this being a matter of culture, not of ancestry. They both believe in US destiny and the beneficence of its great power. 第三，欧巴马和马坎都是美国人。在美国国内，最令人讶异的是他们的差异。对世界 各国来说，最明显的就是他们的相似性。两人都代表盎格鲁美国传统，这是个文化问题， 不是血缘问题。他们两人都相信美国的天命，以及美国强大力量能带来的美好。 Yet they also reflect divergent elements in the tradition: the instincts for conflict and for co-operation. The first instinct seeks enemies and the latter deals. The former is manichean and the latter conciliatory. 但，他们也反应此传统内分歧的元素：对冲突的本能，以及对合作的本能。第一个本能 会寻找敌人，第二个则搞谈判。前者是善恶二元论，後者相信和谐。 The Bush administration has been a devotee of the former point of view. it has even embraced evil – torture, most notably – in order to fight it. Mr McCain, too, is a warrior against evil. In another fascinating book, Robert Kagan, most intelligent of the neo-conservatives, has laid out the ground for a new era of conflict.** The world’s democracies must, argues Mr Kagan, unite to shape the world, against opposition from “the great autocratic powers, along with the reactionary forces of Islamic radicalism”. This is an impressive “axis of evil”, one that links China to Russia, Iran and Osama bin Laden. 布希政府一向是前者的信徒。该政府甚至还拥抱邪恶─最着名的就是用酷刑─来对抗 邪恶。马坎也是个对抗邪恶的战士。在另一本同样精彩的书里，最智慧的新保守主义 学者Robert Kagan则谱出了一个以争端为本的新时代的基础。世界的民主国家必须要 联合起来塑造世界，对抗「强大的及集权主义国家，以及伊斯兰极端主义的反动派力 量」。这是个可观的「邪恶轴心」，里头把中国和俄国、伊朗、和宾拉登画做一类。 This vision is seductive, plausible and dangerous. It is dangerous because it could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is dangerous because, as the world becomes smaller and the challenges of managing the global commons greater, co-operation is essential. It is dangerous, not least, because the so-called new autocracies pose no existential threat and offer no compelling new ideology. This is a huge over-reaction to a modest threat. 这个景象诱人、可能、且危险。这景象是危险的，因为这可能会成为自我实现的预言。 这是危险的，因为世界越来越小，而管理全球共同性的挑战变大，合作势在必行。这 愿景危险，因为一些所谓新集权主义并不造成生存危机，也没有提出令人信服的新意 识型态。这愿景是对普通威胁的过度反应。 It is reasonable for a westerner to dislike the governmental systems of China, and Russia. But it is evident to any dispassionate observer that these are far from being the countries of three decades ago. This is particularly true of China, which has made a huge bet on integration into the world economy and the concomitant opening of Chinese society. Whether this will ultimately lead to a democratic China nobody knows. But it would be a brave person indeed who ruled it out. 西方人会讨厌中国和俄国政府是可理解的。但对任何旁观的观察者来说，这两个国家 与他们三十年前的样子已经完全不同了。特别是中国：这个国家为了融入世界经济体 系，以及随之而来的中国社会开放，下了极大的赌注。这是否会实现一个民主中国， 没人知道。但谁要把这个可能性排除，必定大胆。 This presidential election might well determine the character of the next, possibly final, epoch of Anglo-American global hegemony. The question is whether the American people will choose the instinct for conflict or that for co-operation. 这次总统大选可能会为下一个（或许最後一个）盎格鲁美国世界霸权时代定调。问题是， 美国人在争端本能或是合作本能之间会作何选择。 Neither Mr McCain nor Mr Obama will, in practice, embrace just one alternative. Nor will just one approach be the only answer. But the difference in tendency is clear. Is the US girding its loins for another great crusade against evil? Or is it prepared to sit down with the rest of the world and talk. The right approach for today’s complex world is not that of those who see agreement and appeasement as synonyms. The choice seems clear. It will shape our era. 马坎或欧巴马都不会真的只采用其中一条路子。两条路子的任一个都也不会是唯一 答案。但两者倾向上的差异是明显的。美国是否正在绑紧束腰准备进行又一次对抗 邪恶的十字军东争？或者美国已经准备与世界一起坐下进行对话。对今日复杂的 世界来说，正确的方法不是谁视共识与姑息为同义。选择相当明显：选择会塑出 我们的世纪。 *God and Gold: Britain, America and the Making of the Modern World (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007); ** The Return of History and the End of Dreams (London: Atlantic; 2008). [email protected] Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/78274ce0-7917-11dd-9d0c-000077b07658.html 新闻来源: (需有正确连结) -- --

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