《全球脑库》： 历史创造特朗普，还是特朗普创造历史？
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本期导读：本期将要与大家共享的文章的作者，是哈佛大学国际政治领域著名学者约瑟夫·奈。约瑟夫·奈生于1937年，1964年获哈佛大学政治学博士学位后留校任教，曾出任卡特政府助理国务卿、克林顿政府国家情报委员会主席和助理国防部长，后来重回哈佛，曾任肯尼迪政府学院院长，现为该院教授。约瑟夫·奈是国际关系理论中新自由主义学派的重要代表人物，以最早提出“软实力”概念而闻名。
How Much Does Trump Matter?
特朗普有多重要？
With a narcissistic personality and a short attention span, and lacking experience in world affairs, Donald Trump tends to project slogans rather than strategy in foreign policy. But just as US global primacy never depended on the personality of its president, so America's ability to retain its geopolitical role may not depend on Trump's.
提要：特朗普超级自恋，注意力多变，缺乏国际事务经验，对外政策方面，只会发些豪言壮语，少有什么战略性可言。不过，正如美国的全球老大地位所依靠的从来都不是某位总统一样，美国要保持其全球范围内的地缘政治影响，靠的也不会是特朗普。
The United States has never had a president like Donald Trump. With a narcissistic personality and a short attention span, and lacking experience in world affairs, he tends to project slogans rather than strategy in foreign policy. Some presidents, like Richard Nixon, had similar personal insecurities and social biases, but Nixon had a strategic view of foreign policy. Others, such as Lyndon Johnson, were highly egotistical, but also had great political skill in working with Congress and other leaders.
美国历史上的所有总统，都没像特朗普这样，超级自恋，注意力多变，缺乏国际事务经验，对外政策方面，只会发些豪言壮语，少有什么战略性可言。某些总统，比如尼克松，个性也不那么靠谱，也抱有社会偏见，但尼克松却在对外政策方面具有战略眼光。其他总统，比如约翰逊，也非常任性自傲，但却在处理与国会和其他领导人关系方面有着高超的政治伎俩。
Will future historians look back at Trump’s presidency as a temporary aberration or a major turning point in America’s role in the world? Journalists tend to focus too heavily on leaders’ personalities, because it makes good copy. In contrast, social scientists tend to offer broad structural theories about economic growth and geographic location that make history seem inevitable.
将来，历史学家回望特朗普任期美国在全球中的作用时，会把它看成是一个短暂性畸变，还是一个重大转折点？不过，毫无疑问的是，媒体记者会把焦点死死盯在领导人的个性上，因为这样才能更吸引眼球。相较来说，社会学家则会从经济增长、地缘因素等更为宏观的结构性理论视角进行分析，以论证出历史貌似所具有的某种必然性。
I once wrote a book that tried to test the importance of leaders by examining important turning points in the creation a century ago of the “American era” and speculating about what might have happened had the president’s most plausible contender been in his place instead. Would structural forces have brought about the same era of US global leadership under different presidents?
我曾写过一本书，试着通过分析一个世纪前“美国时代”形成过程中的重要转折点，并试着探讨假设当时美国总统在大选中的竞争对手胜选的情况下后来的发展情势将会怎样，以此来对领导人的重要性进行分析评估。总统换人的话，结构性力量同样会把美国推上全球的领导地位么？
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Theodore Roosevelt was an activist leader, but he affected mostly timing. Economic growth and geography were the powerful determinants. Woodrow Wilson broke with America’s hemispheric traditions by sending US forces to fight in Europe; but where Wilson made a bigger difference was in the moral tone of American exceptionalism in his justification of – and, counterproductively, his stubborn insistence on – all-or-nothing involvement in the League of Nations.
20世纪初的美国总统西奥多·罗斯福，是一位积极作为的领导人，不过，他的影响几乎仅限于政策时机的选择，而经济增长和地缘因素却是当时最具影响力的决定性因素。威尔逊总统打破了美国固守西半球的传统，把美军派往欧洲参战，不过，威尔逊更为显著的影响力表现在，他针对参与国际联盟的那种“要么全要、要么什么都不要”的凛然，抑或称之为决绝，并赋予了美国例外论以浓重的道义色彩。
As for Franklin Roosevelt, it is at least debatable whether structural forces would have brought the US into World War II under a conservative isolationist. Clearly, FDR’s framing of the threat posed by Hitler, and his preparation for taking advantage of an event like Pearl Harbor, were crucial factors.
至于作为保守孤立主义者的美国总统富兰克林·罗斯福，若要说是当时的结构性因素把美国卷入了二战，则至少是有待商榷的。毕竟，富兰克林·罗斯福对希特勒所具有的威胁进行的宣传，以及他在珍珠港事件前后所做的各项准备，都起到了关键性作用。
The post-1945 structural bipolarity of the US and the Soviet Union set the framework for the Cold War. But a Henry Wallace presidency (which would have occurred if FDR had not switched him for Harry Truman as vice president in 1944) might have changed the style of the US response. Similarly, a Robert Taft or Douglas MacArthur presidency might have disrupted the relatively smooth consolidation of the containment system over which Dwight Eisenhower presided.
战后形成的美苏两极结构性格局，框定了冷战的主体架构。不过，若亨利·华莱士能担任总统（如果富兰克林·罗斯福1944年不把华莱士替换掉任命哈里·杜鲁门为副总统，华莱士就能当上总统）的话，美国对苏联的回应方式可能就会有所不同。同样，若罗伯特·塔夫脱或道格拉斯·麦克阿瑟当上总统，艾森豪威尔主导下对遏制围堵政策体系的巩固，可能就不会那么顺利成形。
At the end of the century, the structural forces of global economic change caused the erosion of the Soviet superpower, and Mikhail Gorbachev’s attempts at reform accelerated the Soviet Union’s collapse. However, Ronald Reagan’s defense buildup and negotiating savvy, along with George H.W. Bush’s skill in managing the end of the Cold War, were important to the final outcome.
到了二十世纪末，全球经济变革产生的结构性力量，侵蚀了苏联的影响力，而戈尔巴乔夫的改革举措，加速了苏联的倒台。不过，里根任期内防御体系的加强，以及他在谈判方面的攻势，加上老布什对结束冷战所采取的措施，都对最终结局起到了重要作用。
Is there a plausible story in which, owing to different presidential leadership, America would not have achieved global primacy by the end of the twentieth century?
会不会有这么一种貌似可能的情况，若当上美国总统的不是那几位的话，美国就不会在二十世纪末登上全球老大的地位？
Perhaps if FDR had not been president and Germany had consolidated its power, the international system in the 1940s could have realized George Orwell’s vision of a conflict-prone multipolar world. Perhaps if Truman had not been president and Stalin had made major gains in Europe and the Middle East, the Soviet empire would have been stronger, and bipolarity might have persisted longer. Perhaps if Eisenhower or Bush had not been president and a different leader had been less successful in avoiding war, the American ascendency would have been driven off track (as it was for a time by US intervention in Vietnam).
或许，如果富兰克林·罗斯福没当上总统，而且德国的力量得到巩固，那么1940年代的国际体系就可能成为如乔治·奥威尔所描述的那种易产生冲突的多极世界。也或许，如果杜鲁门没当上总统，而且斯大林在欧洲、中东地区获得更多影响，那么苏联帝国可能就会变得更为强大，两极世界持续的时间可能就会更长。亦或许，如果艾森豪威尔或老布什没当上总统，而且当上总统的领导人没能避免战争，那么美国地位的上升过程可能就会中途脱轨（正如美国干涉越南期间发生的那样）。
Given its economic size and favorable geography, structural forces would likely have produced some form of American primacy in the twentieth century. Nonetheless, leaders’ decisions strongly affected the timing and type of primacy. In that sense, even when structure explains a lot, leadership within the structure can make a difference. If history is a river whose course and flow are shaped by the large structural forces of climate and topography, human agents can be portrayed as ants clinging to a log swept along by the current, or as white-water rafters steering and avoiding rocks, occasionally overturning and sometimes succeeding.
不过，即使那些“如果”都变成现实，鉴于美国拥有可观的经济实力和有利的地缘位置，在各种结构性力量综合驱动下，美国依然也很可能在二十世纪获得某种形式的全球老大地位。但是，美国领导人的决策，却对全球老大地位的获得时间以及形式有着重要影响。这样看来，即使结构性因素能解释很多，但处于结构性因素形成的架构中的领导人，也能起到一定作用。若我们把历史看作是一条河，河道与河流则由诸如气候和地形等重要结构性力量决定，那么，人的因素就可看作是附着于随河水漂流的木头上的蚂蚁，或可看作是引导木筏方向避免撞上礁石的船夫，有时会犯错误带来破坏导致翻覆，有时会顺风顺水取得成功。
So leadership matters, but how much? There will never be a definitive answer. Scholars who have tried to measure the effects of leadership in corporations or laboratory experiments have sometimes come up with numbers in the range of 10% or 15%, depending on the context. But these are highly structured situations where change is often linear. In unstructured situations, such as post-apartheid South Africa, the transformational leadership of Nelson Mandela made a huge difference.
因此，领导人是能起到作用的，不过，领导人的作用有多重要呢？关于这个问题，恐怕永远不 47 32221 47 15288 0 0 2447 0 0:00:13 0:00:06 0:00:07 3054有一个具体的确定性答案。有专家学者曾试图对公司里领导人的作用或通过实验室中进行模拟对领导人的作用进行测量评定，依据具体情况不同，领导人的作用大概在10%至15%这个范围内。不过，这些情况都是高度结构化的情况，相关的变化都是线性的，而在非结构化的情况下，如种族隔离制度废除后的南非，曼德拉这位变革性领导人，就带来了巨大作用。
American foreign policy is structured by institutions and a constitution, but external crises can create a context much more susceptible to leaders’ choices, for better or worse. If Al Gore had been declared president in 2000, the US probably would have gone to war in Afghanistan, but not in Iraq. Because foreign-policy events are what social scientists call “path dependent,” relatively small choices by leaders, even in the range of 10-15% early on a path, can lead to major divergences in outcomes over time. As Robert Frost once put it, when two roads diverge in a wood, taking the one less traveled can sometimes make all the difference.
美国的对外政策所处的结构性状况，主要由组织机制和根本性体制决定，不过外部危机性因素则可能让具体情况更易受领导人决策的影响，影响是好是坏，当然需另当别论。2000年如果是戈尔当上总统的话，美国很可能会在阿富汗发动战争，而不会在伊拉克。正是因为对外政策事件具有如社会学家所说的“路径依赖性”，领导人的一个小决策，即使其作用也处在10%至15%的范围内，那么有了早期的路径依赖，过段时间后呈现出来的结果，也会表现出重大不同。正如罗伯特·弗罗斯特曾指出的那样，树林里道路分叉时，选择较少有人通行的那条，有时会带来天翻地覆的变化。
Finally, the risks created by the personality of a leader may not be symmetrical; they may make more of a difference for a mature power than for a rising power. Striking a rock or causing a war can sink the ship. If Trump avoids a major war, and if he is not re-elected, future scholars may look back at his presidency as a curious blip on the curve of American history. But those are big “ifs.”
还有，领导人个性所带来的风险，可能不具有对称性，对已经崛起的大国所造成的影响，比对正在崛起的大国所造成的影响，要更为明显。触礁或卷入战争，都能让整艘船覆没。如果特朗普能避免卷入规模战争，而且如果他再次竞选失败，将来，专家学者则可能把特朗普的总统任期看作是美国国力历史沉浮曲线上有意思的短暂一闪。不过，所有这些，都是基于“很多如果”。
约瑟夫·奈
著有
Is the American Century Over?
《美国世纪结束了？》
往期精彩：
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