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William Moloney 美国履行全球义务的能力和意愿正在迅速减弱
威廉·莫洛尼，观点撰稿人 - 08/09/21
英国历史学家保罗·肯尼迪在其 1987 年的经典著作《大国的兴衰》中提出了“帝国过度扩张”的主题，他写道：“如今，美国的全球利益和义务总和远远超过了该国同时保卫所有利益和义务的能力。”三分之一世纪前，相对较少的敏锐观察者看到了这一点，而今天，这对世界各地的人民和领导人来说是一个不言而喻的现实。
因此，美国正在相对快速地（尽管这已经是迟来的，而且并非总是经过深思熟虑的）削减其全球军事承诺，阿富汗和最近的伊拉克就是这种趋势的明显例证。
这种不祥的趋势很可能将继续下去，甚至会加速——对叙利亚的混乱干预可能是下一个——而且每一次连续的退位都会比前一次产生更大的后果。
目前已经出现的还有另外两个潜在的“解脱”，它们的问题要严重得多——乌克兰和台湾——因为它们有可能让美国与世界上另外两个超级大国俄罗斯和中国发生直接冲突，并伴随危险误判的风险。
乌克兰长期存在的危机始于 1991 年，当时苏联解体后，乌克兰宣布独立，而此前几个世纪乌克兰一直是俄罗斯不可分割的一部分。 2014 年，俄罗斯通过吞并克里米亚和支持乌克兰东部俄语区军事叛乱来重申其在乌克兰的权力，危机急剧升级。
奥巴马政府强烈谴责俄罗斯的侵略行为，但仅向乌克兰提供财政和物质支持，而特朗普政府则将支持范围扩大到有限的军事武器。俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京完全不为这种反对所吓倒，这一点从他 7 月发表的一篇 5,000 字论文《论俄罗斯人和乌克兰人的历史团结》中可以看出，他在文中回顾了俄罗斯和乌克兰一千年的历史，并得出结论，他们的共同命运永远不会被打破。
在《华尔街日报》最近的一篇文章《普京为何仍觊觎乌克兰》中，沃尔特·罗素·米德表示，“西方国家最好认真对待这篇文章”，并进一步指出“西方在对俄政策上陷入了无可救药的分裂”。
这个问题的核心是一个难题：由于乌克兰不是美国的盟友，也不是北约或欧盟 (EU) 的成员，那么美国进一步介入这场位于俄罗斯历史心脏地带的激烈冲突，对美国的国家利益有什么好处？美国人民在多大程度上会支持就这一问题与俄罗斯直接和不断加深的冲突？
与乌克兰形成鲜明对比的是，台湾长期以来与美国有着密切的政治和军事关系。从 1955 年到 1980 年，这种关系表现为直接军事联盟，美国承诺保卫台湾免受任何外国（即中国）的侵略。然而，1979年，当卡特政府正式承认大陆共产党政权并与其建立外交关系时，这项军事保证被从1980年的《台湾关系法》中删除，而该法至今仍是美国与台湾关系的基础。
因此，40年来，美国一直与台湾保持着法律和军事上的模糊关系，被名副其实的“战略模糊”理论所包围，根据这一理论，我们在外交上宣布“一个中国”政策，但同时在军事上支持台湾作为事实上的独立国家，并继续提供先进武器，以进一步阻止北京以武力夺取该岛的任何企图。
在整个任期内，中国领导人习近平明确表示，他决心重建中国对他所认为的“分离省份”台湾的完全主权，而且，正如普京对乌克兰的追求一样，历史和地理都为习近平实现这一目标提供了重要筹码。虽然这两个专制的独裁者都无法完全衡量美国当前政治混乱的深度和持续时间，但他们知道这对他们各自的“统一计划”来说是个好兆头。
民意调查显示，美国从阿富汗撤军得到了广泛支持，这清楚地表明美国人民对美国作为“世界警察”的角色越来越厌倦和失望。不太清楚的是，这条美国撤军之路将通向何方，以及世界将变成什么样子。
America's ability and will to meet worldwide obligations is eroding rapidly
https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/566921-americas-ability-and-will-to-meet-worldwide-obligations-is-eroding/
Expanding upon the theme of “imperial overstretch” that he introduced in his 1987 classic, “The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers,” English historian Paul Kennedy wrote that “the sum total of the United States’s global interests and obligations is nowadays far larger than the country’s power to defend them all simultaneously.” What was seen by relatively few perceptive observers a third of a century ago is today a self-evident reality to people and leaders throughout the world.
Accordingly, the United States is implementing a relatively rapid — albeit overdue and not always well-thought-out — reduction in its global military commitments, with Afghanistan, and more recently Iraq, being highly visible illustrations of the same.
This ominous trend very likely will continue and even accelerate — the muddled intervention in Syria probably will be next — and each successive abdication will have greater consequences than the previous.
Already on the horizon are two other potential “extrications” that are vastly more problematic — Ukraine and Taiwan — because they threaten to bring the United States into direct conflict with the world’s other two superpowers, Russia and China, with all the attendant risks of dangerous miscalculation.
The long-simmering crisis regarding Ukraine began in 1991 when, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine declared its independence after centuries of being an integral part of the Russian state. The crisis dramatically escalated in 2014 when Russia reasserted its power in Ukraine via annexation of Crimea and sponsorship of a military revolt against the central government in the heavily Russian-speaking eastern portions of the country.
The Obama administration strongly denounced Russia’s aggression but went no further than offering financial and material support to Ukraine, which the Trump administration expanded to include limited military weaponry. That Russian President Vladimir Putin is utterly undeterred by this opposition was made clear through a 5,000-word essay, “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” that he published in July, in which he reviews a thousand years of Russian/Ukrainian history, concluding that their common destiny shall never be broken.
In a recent Wall St. Journal article, “Why Putin Still Covets Ukraine,” Walter Russell Mead states that “Western powers would be well advised to take the essay seriously,” and further notes that “the West is hopelessly disunited on Russia policy.”
At the heart of this matter is a conundrum: Because Ukraine is not a U.S. ally and not a member of NATO or the European Union (EU), what U.S. national interest would be served by increased involvement in a bitter conflict geographically located inside the historic heartland of the Russian state — and to what extent would the American people be supportive of a direct and deepening conflict with Russia on this issue?
In stark contrast to Ukraine, Taiwan has a long history of close political and military alignment with the United States. From 1955 to 1980, this relationship took the form of a direct military alliance, which pledged the United States to defend Taiwan against any foreign (i.e., Chinese) aggression. However, in 1979, when the Carter administration formally recognized and established diplomatic relations with the mainland communist regime, that military guarantee was omitted from the Taiwan Relations Act of 1980, which remains the basis of U.S. relations with Taiwan today.
Thus, for 40 years the U.S. has maintained a legally and militarily murky relationship with Taiwan, compassed in the aptly- named doctrine of “strategic ambiguity” under which we diplomatically proclaim a “One China” policy but at the same time militarily sustain Taiwan as a de-facto independent nation and continue to provide sophisticated weaponry to further deter Beijing from any effort to seize the island by force.
Throughout his tenure, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has made abundantly clear his strong determination to re-establish China’s full sovereignty over what he regards as the “breakaway province” of Taiwan and, as is the case with Putin’s quest for Ukraine, both history and geography give Xi important leverage in pursuit of that goal. While neither of these willful authoritarians can fully gauge the depth or duration of America’s current political disarray, they know it bodes well for their respective “unification projects.”
Polls showing broad-based support for U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan make clear the American people’s growing fatigue and disillusionment with their country’s role as “world policeman.” What is less clear is where this road to American retrenchment leads and what the world will look like in the aftermath.
William Moloney is a fellow in conservative thought at Colorado Christian University’s Centennial Institute who studied at Oxford and the University of London and received his doctorate from Harvard University. He is a former Colorado Commissioner of Education.
