含有〈国际〉标签的文章(67)

脱钩

【2021-04-28】

@whigzhou: 感觉即将掀起一股苏联工业史研究热潮,毕竟这是脱钩后生存条件的最佳参考 ​​​​

@捷尔任斯基的老司机:这估计不会,毕竟会被怀疑是不是高级黑[doge][doge]

@whigzhou: 瞧你又想多了,当我说研究热潮时我首先想到的是米国机构

@遁去的一1:那岂不是万劫不复了?

@whigzhou: 也没那么严重,勃列日涅夫时代的苏联人一般也饿不死

【2021-06-24】

@whigzhou: LL Hypothesis 差不多已经坐实了 ​​​​

@re(more...)

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【2021-04-28】 @whigzhou: 感觉即将掀起一股苏联工业史研究热潮,毕竟这是脱钩后生存条件的最佳参考 ​​​​ @捷尔任斯基的老司机:这估计不会,毕竟会被怀疑是不是高级黑[doge][doge] @whigzhou: 瞧你又想多了,当我说研究热潮时我首先想到的是米国机构 @遁去的一1:那岂不是万劫不复了? @whigzhou: 也没那么严重,勃列日涅夫时代的苏联人一般也饿不死 【2021-06-24】 @whigzhou: LL Hypothesis 差不多已经坐实了 ​​​​ @redemptionandliberation:那是不是意味着巨额赔偿? @whigzhou: 意味着更深更彻底的脱钩,赔偿是绝无可能的 【2021-10-19】 @whigzhou: 脱钩进程比我料想的更快啊 ​​​​ @whigzhou: 之前我可能低估了代工体系带来的供应链配置灵活性,没有代工和外包体系的话,跑路恐怕没这么方便 @猪又柴:所以中国大陆拉美化,已经不可逆了吗? @whigzhou: 拉美?您可真乐观~  
虹吸型帝国

【2021-05-25】

@黑哥在日本 2020年日本政府、企业和个人的海外资产金额1146万亿日元(10.6万亿美元,相当于2.3年份的日本国内GDP),连续9年创出历史新高。这个数字减去海外对日本的投资,日本对外净资产3.3万亿美元,连续30年世界第一。(参考:德国对外净资产2.99万亿、中国2.07万亿,美国-13.52万亿美元)

@西峯:和大部分人的理解不同,美元作为国际储备货币必然是净流出,但是美国是一个资本净流入国。

@学总2021: 美元流出≈资本流入≈商品流入(贸易逆差

@whigzhou: 资本净流入是贸易逆差(more...)

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【2021-05-25】 @黑哥在日本 2020年日本政府、企业和个人的海外资产金额1146万亿日元(10.6万亿美元,相当于2.3年份的日本国内GDP),连续9年创出历史新高。这个数字减去海外对日本的投资,日本对外净资产3.3万亿美元,连续30年世界第一。(参考:德国对外净资产2.99万亿、中国2.07万亿,美国-13.52万亿美元) @西峯:和大部分人的理解不同,美元作为国际储备货币必然是净流出,但是美国是一个资本净流入国。 @学总2021: 美元流出≈资本流入≈商品流入(贸易逆差 @whigzhou: 资本净流入是贸易逆差存在的算术前提 @whigzhou: 持续的资本与人口流入其实是盎格鲁第二帝国与盎格鲁第一帝国的关键区别,英帝始终是资本人员持续净流出的,美帝则相反,前者是扩散型帝国,后者则是虹吸型帝国, 更一般而言,可以19-20世纪之交的人口转型为分界,之前的帝国都是扩散型的,之后变成了虹吸型, 很明显,后发国家受益于虹吸型帝国的程度,远远不如扩散型帝国,后者向你输送资本,派送精英,建立制度,前者吸走你的资本和精英,而且也不是真的非常关心你的制度(除非你惹到他) @whigzhou: 美帝的虹吸性质有两小段时间是例外,一是美西战争到一战之间,二是二战后二十年,这两个阶段他是扩散的,资本和人员都在输出,但国内政界精英对这种扩散始终是不情愿的,很勉强,可见未来也不会有另一轮扩散, @叶子疏:也并非纯然如此....日台韩都是吃了全套制度输出和技术资本的..... @whigzhou: 日本是惹了人家,台韩占了冷战前线的便宜,美帝不得不关心一下 @newzeon-0093:惹了就能被输出? @whigzhou: 当然,只要有本事惹大发就行,Kim胖要是有本事往夏威夷扔几颗导弹,20年后北高丽青年平均身高至少比现在高10厘米,信不信?  
双面戏

【2020-04-05】

社交媒体带来的一个改变是,双面戏很难唱了,当年阿拉法特唱的就很熟稔,刚刚用英语对西方记者畅谈完和平理想,转身就用阿拉伯语喊打喊杀,反正西方记者都是useful idiots,不会把这些翻译给西方人听,要搁在今天,这戏就不好唱了,推上多得是会阿拉伯语的,你一喊打喊杀,视频瞬间传遍天下。(今日刷推的一点小感想)

所以脱钩应该是没悬念了

@tertio:谷歌翻译可能作用不小

@whigzhou: 不(more...)

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【2020-04-05】 社交媒体带来的一个改变是,双面戏很难唱了,当年阿拉法特唱的就很熟稔,刚刚用英语对西方记者畅谈完和平理想,转身就用阿拉伯语喊打喊杀,反正西方记者都是useful idiots,不会把这些翻译给西方人听,要搁在今天,这戏就不好唱了,推上多得是会阿拉伯语的,你一喊打喊杀,视频瞬间传遍天下。(今日刷推的一点小感想) 所以脱钩应该是没悬念了 @tertio:谷歌翻译可能作用不小 @whigzhou: 不是,有一群非常起劲的跨墙搬运工(兼翻译),我的TW时间线上平时没有中文内容,最近却时不时冒出来一些  
内塔尼亚胡的成就

【2018-03-29】

@whigzhou: 面对内塔尼亚胡的成就,不知道左派绥靖分子还有什么可说,经济繁荣了,恐怖袭击减少了,外交处境改善了(如今连沙特都成了以色列盟友),而政策则几乎在所有重要方面都与他们向来的建议背道而驰,闭上眼睛扭过头显然是他们保存脸面的唯一出路了。

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【2018-03-29】 @whigzhou: 面对内塔尼亚胡的成就,不知道左派绥靖分子还有什么可说,经济繁荣了,恐怖袭击减少了,外交处境改善了(如今连沙特都成了以色列盟友),而政策则几乎在所有重要方面都与他们向来的建议背道而驰,闭上眼睛扭过头显然是他们保存脸面的唯一出路了。
三胖究竟图啥

【2017-09-05】

@whigzhou: bear问:三胖玩这么疯究竟是图啥?依我看不难理解,就是要让美国的战略声誉破产,乘机将其长期以来所玩弄的边缘策略的边缘往前推,选择这个时机推进这么一大步,无非是吃准了川普就是个口炮党,从目前的进展看,这一着貌似又一次得手了,而且是很大的一手。 ​​​​

@whigzhou: 最近文章看的少,你球的事情没怎么跟进,只能随便说两个基本的判断,首先,积极干预和川普的孤立主义是根本冲突的,可是他同时又需要保持一种强硬姿态(more...)

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【2017-09-05】 @whigzhou: bear问:三胖玩这么疯究竟是图啥?依我看不难理解,就是要让美国的战略声誉破产,乘机将其长期以来所玩弄的边缘策略的边缘往前推,选择这个时机推进这么一大步,无非是吃准了川普就是个口炮党,从目前的进展看,这一着貌似又一次得手了,而且是很大的一手。 ​​​​ @whigzhou: 最近文章看的少,你球的事情没怎么跟进,只能随便说两个基本的判断,首先,积极干预和川普的孤立主义是根本冲突的,可是他同时又需要保持一种强硬姿态(以便迎合其基本盘对强硬个性的偏好),川普调和这一矛盾的方法是把干预说得很容易,似乎不需要长期经营和巨额投入只要轰几炮即可解决问题, @whigzhou: 其实,用漫天牛皮来调和政策矛盾是川普的一贯做法,砌边境墙的高昂成本怎么跟缩减政府调和?墨西哥人会买单的,减税怎么跟大规模基建和大涨军费调和?砍别的项目!(千万别提别的项目加起来总共多少钱),反正只要牛皮吹的够大,任何政策的成本都可以被吹掉…… @whigzhou: 这一招骗骗选民是可以,问题是不能真的实施,一实施成本就免不了了,一旦数十万军队驻扎几年,美国第一就喊不响也没人信了, @whigzhou: 其次,川普根本不具备领导一场战争的能力,他上台以后基本上处于被拔河双方竞相拉拽的境地,除了放口炮之外,迄今尚未表现出任何独立行动能力,更何况一场战争所需要的领导力,拔河竞赛中当前处于优势的阵营,包括他的整个国安团队,在外交问题上都站在他的反面,很难想象这种局面下怎么打仗。  
[译文]国际援助为非洲带去了什么?

Aid and Politics
援助与政治

作者:Angus Deaton @ 2013-08-16
译者:沈沉(@你在何地-sxy)
校对:辉格(@whigzhou)
来源:Princeton University Press,http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s2_10054.pdf

To understand how aid works we need to study the relationship between aid and politics. Political and legal institutions play a central role in setting the environment that can nurture prosperity and economic growth. Foreign aid, especially when there is a lot of it, affects how institutions function and how they change. Politics has often choked off economic growth, and even in the world before aid, there were good and bad political systems.

要理解援助是如何运作的,我们需要对援助与政治之间的关系做一番研究。在创造恰当环境以促进繁荣和经济增长方面,政治和法律制度扮演着关键的角色。外国援助,特别是大额外国援助,会影响制度的运作及其变迁。政治向来能阻碍经济增长,即便是在援助流行以前,世上也既有好的政治体系,也有坏的。

But large inflows of foreign aid change local politics for the worse and undercut the institutions needed to foster long-run growth. Aid also undermines democracy and civic participation, a direct loss over and above the losses that come from undermining economic development. These harms of aid need to be balanced against the good(more...)

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7518
Aid and Politics 援助与政治 作者:Angus Deaton @ 2013-08-16 译者:沈沉(@你在何地-sxy) 校对:辉格(@whigzhou) 来源:Princeton University Press,http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s2_10054.pdf To understand how aid works we need to study the relationship between aid and politics. Political and legal institutions play a central role in setting the environment that can nurture prosperity and economic growth. Foreign aid, especially when there is a lot of it, affects how institutions function and how they change. Politics has often choked off economic growth, and even in the world before aid, there were good and bad political systems. 要理解援助是如何运作的,我们需要对援助与政治之间的关系做一番研究。在创造恰当环境以促进繁荣和经济增长方面,政治和法律制度扮演着关键的角色。外国援助,特别是大额外国援助,会影响制度的运作及其变迁。政治向来能阻碍经济增长,即便是在援助流行以前,世上也既有好的政治体系,也有坏的。 But large inflows of foreign aid change local politics for the worse and undercut the institutions needed to foster long-run growth. Aid also undermines democracy and civic participation, a direct loss over and above the losses that come from undermining economic development. These harms of aid need to be balanced against the good that aid does, whether educating children who would not otherwise have gone to school or saving the lives of those who would otherwise have died. 但是,外国援助的大规模流入恶化了地方政治,损害了促进长期增长所必须的体制。援助还会破坏民主和公民参与,这种直接损失比破坏经济发展所导致的损失更为严重。援助的这些危害需要与援助所带来的好处进行平衡考量,不管这些好处是给那些原本无法上学的孩子提供教育,还是挽救原本会死去的生命。 From its beginnings after World War II, development economics saw growth and poverty reduction as technical problems. Economists would provide the knowledge that would tell the newly independent rulers how to bring prosperity to their people. If development economists thought about politics at all, they saw politicians as the guardians of their people, motivated by the promotion of social welfare. Politics as an end in itself, as a means of civic participation, or as a way of managing conflict was not part of their operations manual. 自二战结束后发展经济学建立伊始,这门学科就将经济增长和减少贫困视为技术问题。经济学家会向新近获得独立的统治者们提供知识,告诉他们如何为自己的人民带去繁荣。如果说发展经济学家思考过任何政治问题,那就是将政客们看作是人民的守护人,他们的动机是促进社会福利。政治,无论作为目的本身、作为公民参与手段,还是作为冲突管理方式,都不曾体现于他们的操作手册中。 Nor would development experts much concern themselves with the fact that, in many cases, the governments through which they were working had interests of their own that made them improbable partners in a broad-based development effort. There have been dissenting voices over the years, but it is only relatively recently that mainstream development economics has focused on the importance of institutions, including political institutions, and on politics itself. 发展专家们也不太关心这一事实:在许多情形下,他们的工作所需借力的那个政府,自身也拥有利益诉求,因而不太可能在一个牵涉广泛的发展计划中当好合作伙伴。历年来,持不同意见的声音一直都存在,但直到相对晚近时,主流的发展经济学才开始集中关注包括政治制度在内的制度的重要性以及政治本身。 Economic development cannot take place without some sort of contract between those who govern and those who are governed. The government needs resources to carry out its functions—preserving territorial integrity and maintaining its monopoly of violence, at the very least, and beyond that providing a legal system, public safety, national defense, and other public goods—and the resources that these functions require must be raised in taxes from the governed. It is this need to raise taxes, and the difficulty of doing so without the participation of those who are taxed, that places constraints on the government and to some extent protects the interests of taxpayers. 如果在统治者和被统治者之间不存在某种形式的契约,那么经济就不太可能得到发展。政府需要资源才能执行其功能——至少需要保持领土完整、维持垄断暴力,更进一步则需要提供法律体系、公共安全、国防和其他公共物品。而维持这些功能所需要的资源则必须从被统治者头上以税收形式获得。正是这种征税需求,再加上如果没有征税对象参与,税收很难征得,这就给政府施加了约束,并在一定程度上保护了纳税人的利益。 In a democracy, direct feedback from the electorate evaluates the government’s performance, in effect a sort of project evaluation on the programs that are carried out using taxpayers’ money. While this sort of feedback works best in a democracy, the need to raise funds exists every where, and it will often constrain the ruler to pay attention to the demands of at least some of the population. One of the strongest arguments against large aid flows is that they undermine these constraints, removing the need to raise money with consent and in the limit turning what should be beneficial political institutions into toxic ones. 在民主国家,直接来自选民的反馈可以评估政府的表现,实际上就是对那些用纳税人的钱实施的项目进行评估。虽然这种反馈只在民主国家才运作得最好,但是筹集资金的需要到处都存在,而这通常都会约束统治者,迫使他们关心至少人口中一部分人的需求。反对巨额援助涌入的最强论点之一就是:援助会破坏这种约束,移除征得同意以筹集资金的必要性,在极端情况下还会将本来有益的政治制度变成有害的。 Without an adequate capacity to tax, a state denies its citizens many of the protections that are taken for granted in the rich world. They may lack the protection of the law, because the courts do not work or are corrupt, and the police may harass or exploit poor people instead of protecting them. People may be unable to start businesses, because debts are not paid and contracts are not enforced or because civil “servants” extort bribes. They may face threats of violence from gangs or warlords. They may lack clean water or minimal sanitation facilities. There may be local endemic pests that threaten them and especially their children with medically preventable but potentially fatal diseases. They may lack access to electricity, to functioning schools, or to a decent health service. All of these risks are part of what it means to be poor in much of the world, all are causes of poverty, and all are attributable to the lack of state capacity. Anything that threatens that capacity is inconsistent with improving the lives of poor people. 如果缺乏足够的征税能力,国家就不会向其国民提供富裕世界的人认为理所当然的许多保护措施。他们可能会缺少法律保护,因为法院不起作用或者腐败不堪。警察也可能骚扰或剥削穷苦人群,而不是给他们提供保护。人们可能没法做生意,因为欠债可以不还、契约无法执行,或者因为人民“公仆”会索取贿赂。他们还可能面临黑社会或军阀分子的暴力威胁,可能缺少淡水或最基本的卫生设施。也可能存在地方性的病害虫,给他们、特别是他们的孩子带来潜在致命的疾病威胁,尽管它们医学上完全可以预防。他们可能得不到电力供应,没有学校,或者适当的医疗服务。在世界的许多地区,所有这些风险正是贫穷这一词汇的部分内涵所在,也都是贫困的原因所在,并且都可归因于国家能力的缺乏。所有一切损害这一能力的事物,都与改善穷人生活这一目的相悖。 The argument that aid threatens institutions depends on the amount of aid being large. In China, India, or South Africa, where ODA in recent years has been less than 0.5 percent of national income, and only occasionally more than 1 percent of total government expenditures, aid is not important in affecting government behavior or the development of institutions. The situation is quite different in much of Africa. Thirty-six (out of forty-nine) countries in sub-Saharan Africa have received at least 10 percent of their national income as ODA for three decades or more. 援助危及制度这一论点能否成立,取决于援助量的大小。在中国、印度或南非,近年来的政府开发援助(ODA)都只相当于国民收入的不到0.5%,而且只是偶尔才会占到政府财政支出总量的1%以上,因此援助在影响政府行为或者制度变迁方面并不重要。但在非洲的大部分地区,情况则截然不同。撒哈拉以南非洲(49国之中)有36国的国民收入中至少10%来自于ODA,这种情况已延续长达三十年甚至更久。 Given that ODA comes to governments, the ratio of aid to government expenditure is larger still. Benin, Burkina Faso, the DRC, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Mali, Niger, Sierra Leone, Togo, and Uganda are among the countries where aid has exceeded 75 percent of government expenditure for a run of recent years. In Kenya and Zambia, ODA is a quarter and a half of government expenditure, respectively. 考虑到ODA是流向政府的,因此援助在政府支出中所占比例会更高。贝宁、布基纳法索、刚果(金)、埃塞俄比亚、马达加斯加、马里、尼日尔、塞拉利昂、多哥和乌干达等国所接受的援助最近连续多年占到政府开支的75%以上。在肯尼亚和赞比亚,ODA分别是政府开支的四分之一和二分之一。 Given that much of government expenditure is pre-committed and almost impossible to change in the short run, for these countries (and others for which the data are not available) discretionary expenditures by governments are almost entirely dependent on funds from foreign donors. As we shall see, this does not mean that the donors are dictating what governments spend—far from it. Yet the behavior of both donors and recipients is fundamentally affected by the existence and magnitude of these aid flows. 考虑到大部分政府开支都有预定用途,短期内不太可能改变,因此这些国家(以及数据尚不可得的其他一些国家)政府的自由开支几乎就全部依赖于外国援助者手中的资金。我们将看到,这并不意味着援助者能够决定政府把钱花在哪里——远非如此。不过,援助者和受援者的行为都从根本上受到这类援助资金的存在与规模的影响。 Aid is not the only way in which rulers can rule without consent. A commodity price boom is another. One famous example comes from Egypt in the mid-nineteenth century. Then, at the height of the Industrial Revolution, with its insatiable demand for cotton, the two main sources were the American South and Egypt, and Egypt’s sales of cotton accounted for most of its trade with the outside world. Egypt’s ruler, Muhammad Ali Pasha, often described as the founder of modern Egypt, paid only a fraction of the world price to the fellaheen who produced the cotton, and he and his court became fabulously wealthy on the proceeds. 援助并不是统治者不经同意而实现统治的唯一途径。大宗商品价格飙升也是。一个著名的例子是19世纪中期的埃及。在这个工业革命的鼎盛时期,市场对棉花的需求无穷无尽,主要的棉花产地有美国南部和埃及,而埃及的棉花销售占了该国对外贸易的绝大部分。当时的埃及统治者穆罕默德·阿里帕夏(常被称为现代埃及的奠基人)只给种植棉花的农民支付世界市场价格的一个零头,自己及朝廷则因棉花收益而富得流油。 The American Civil War tripled the world price in only three years, and under Ali’s successor Isma’il Pasha, this led to what a British report later described as “fantastic extravagance,” while “immense sums were expended on public works in the manner of the East, and on productive works carried out in the wrong way or too soon,” including the Suez Canal. The scale of the spending was so great that it could not be supported even by the wartime cotton price, and Isma’il borrowed on the international capital market. When the price of cotton collapsed after the war, there were riots, armed intervention, and ultimately foreign occupation by Britain. 因美国发生内战,世界棉花价格三年内翻了三倍。在阿里的继任者伊斯梅尔帕夏治下,这种价格飙升导致了一份英国报告后来所称的“极端挥霍”,“发挥东方国家风格,公共工程靡费巨资,生产性项目上的巨额开销要么方向错误,要么上马太快”,其中包括苏伊士运河的开凿。开支规模如此巨大,以至于连战时棉花价格都难以支撑,伊斯梅尔只能向国际资本市场借款。随着战后棉花价格暴跌,埃及出现暴乱,接受武装调停,最后引来英国的占领。 Cotton prices rose from $9.00 for 112 pounds in 1853 to $14.00 in 1860, to a peak of $33.25 in 1865, and they fell to $15.75 in 1870. One might have thought that the foreign lenders—if not Isma’il—would have understood the trouble that lay ahead, but then, as now, the lenders could rely on another government—Britain—to protect and recover their investments. Yet this story of catastrophe is not without its bright side; the Suez Canal, after all, was a useful investment whose benefits need to be counted. 棉花价格从1853年的每112磅9美元上升到1860年的14美元,再于1865年攀至最高价33.25美元,然后在1870年回落到15.75美元。你也许会想,即便伊斯梅尔想不到,那外国放款人本来总该能认清即将发生的麻烦。但那个时候跟现在一样,放款人可以依靠另外一个国家——英国——来保护和收回自己的投资。当然,这场灾难并非全无是处;苏伊士运河毕竟是个有用的投资,其好处需要承认。 There are many parallels between commodity price booms and foreign aid. One is that cash flows come and go in a way that is divorced from domestic needs or domestic politics. In the cotton boom, the cause was the Civil War in America; with aid, it is the economic and political conditions in the donor countries, or international events such as the Cold War, or the war on terror. That aid stimulates government expenditure has been repeatedly documented, and, as in the Egyptian case, the government is freed of the need to consult or to gain the approval of its people. 大宗商品价格和外国援助之间存在许多相似之处,其中之一就是:现金流的进出与国内需求或国内政治脱节。棉花热的原因是美国内战;援助则视乎援助国的经济政治状况,或如冷战一类的国际事件,或反恐战争。援助会刺激政府开支,此类事例史载不绝,如埃及案例所显示的,此时政府已不再需要征询民众意见或寻求民众认可。 With state-owned mines, a high world price, an unlimited supply of poor workers, or a well-funded army, a ruler can stay in power without the consent of his people. With sufficient foreign aid, the ruler can even do without the mines, as eventually happened in Zaire under Mobutu. Aid from abroad kept the regime in business, and most of the aid went to doing so, so that when the regime eventually fell, there was little left, in Swiss bank accounts or elsewhere. 如果统治者拥有国有矿藏,国际市场价格高企,贫穷工人源源不断,或军队资金充裕,那他就能无需其人民同意而掌握大权。若有充足的外国援助,统治者甚至可以无需占有矿藏,蒙博托治下的扎伊尔最终就是如此。外国援助维持着政权运转,而且绝大多数援助款都被用在这方面,所以最终政权垮台时,不管是瑞士的银行账户还是别的什么地方,全都所剩无几。 Of course, with aid the government has a responsibility to the donors, and, unlike in the Mobutu case, which was driven by Cold War geopolitics, one might hope that the donors have the interests of the people in mind. But as we shall see, there are good reasons why this does not work in practice; the motivation of the donors helps much less than one might think. 当然,接受援助的政府对援助者负有责任,而且与冷战地缘政治所导致的蒙博托案例不同,你可能觉得,援助者心中会考虑人民的利益。但我们将看到,有很多可信的理由使得实情并非如此。援助者的动机助益不大,比你想象的要小得多。 Aid, like commodity price booms, can have other unhappy effects on local institutions. Without unrestricted inflows, governments not only need taxes, but also need to be able to collect them. The huge oil revenues in the Middle East are partly responsible for poor democratic institutions in the oil-producing countries. In Africa, presidential systems are common, and an externally funded president can govern through patronage or military repression. Parliaments have limited power; they are rarely consulted by the president; and neither parliaments nor judiciaries have power to rein in the presidency. There are no checks and balances. In extreme cases, large external flows, from aid or commodity sales, can increase the risk of civil war, because rulers have the means to avoid sharing power, and because the value of the inflows gives both sides a prize that is worth fighting over. 跟大宗商品价格飙升一样,援助可能对当地制度造成不幸的影响。如果没有源源不断的资金流入,政府不仅仅需要税收,而且需要有能力征税。中东地区产油国缺少民主,部分原因就在于它们拥有巨额石油收入。总统制在非洲很流行,一个得到外部资金支持的总统能够通过政治分赃或军事镇压维持统治。议会权力有限;总统很少征求其意见;不管是议会还是司法机关都无力约束总统。没有分权制衡。在极端情况下,大额的外部资金流入,不管是来自援助还是来自商品销售,都可能增加内战之危,因为统治者有办法拒绝分享权力,也因为流入资金庞大到值得双方不惜为之一战。 Why does accountability to the donors not replace accountability to the local population? Why can’t the donors withhold aid if the president refuses to consult parliament, declines to reform a corrupt police force, or uses aid flows to bolster his own political position? 那么,为什么受援国统治者对本国人民负责的必要性(因外国援助而放松之后)无法由他们对援助者负责的必要性所取代呢?如果总统拒绝与议会磋商,拒不改革腐败的警察机关,或者使用援助资金来巩固自身政治地位,为什么援助者不能暂停援助呢? One problem is that the donor governments and their constituents—the ultimate donors—can’t make the right calls because they do not experience the effects of aid on the ground. Even when the crunch comes, and the donors see what is happening, it is rarely in the interests of the donor countries to withhold aid, even in the face of egregious violations of agreements, however much they may have wished to do so in advance. 困难之一是:援助国政府及其选民——也就是最终的援助者——并不能做出正确的决策,因为他们并没有亲自体验援助的影响。即便危机降临,援助者看清了正在发生的事,哪怕恶性违反协议的行为当面发生,暂停援助也很少会符合援助国的利益——无论事前他们是多么渴望这么做。 It is the local people, not the donors, who have direct experience of the projects on which aid is spent and who are in a position to form a judgment. Such judgments will not always be well informed, and there will always be domestic debate on cause and effect and on the value of specific government activities; but the political process can mediate these normal divergences of views. For foreign donors or their constituents—who do not live in the recipient countries—there is no such feedback. They have no direct information on outcomes; they must rely on the reports of the agencies disbursing the aid, and so tend to focus on the volume of aid, not its effectiveness. 只有当地人民,而不是援助者,才能直接体验援助款所支持的那些项目,也才有资格做出判断。这类判断并不总是信息周全的,对于特定政府活动的原因结果及其价值,国内也总是存在争议,但政治进程能够调和这类常规的观点分歧。然而对于外援国或他们的选民而言,由于他们并不生活在受援国,就不存在这种反馈。对于结果,他们没有直接的信息来源,他们必须依赖负责分配援助的各种机构所提供的报告,所以会倾向于更加关注援助的体量,而不是其效力。 The aid agencies, in turn, are accountable to their ultimate donors, and there is no mechanism that holds them responsible if things go wrong for the recipients. I once asked an official of one of the most prominent non-governmental aid agencies in which part of the world she spent most of her time. “The West Coast”—which turned out not to be Africa, but the United States, where several of the agency’s largest donors lived. As we have already seen, World Bank officials have long moved on to other things by the time the effects of their handiwork become visible. There is no responsibility of donors to the recipients of their aid. 而援助机构则是对最终援助者负责,如果受援者那里出了问题,并没有什么机制来追究援助机构的责任。我曾问过某著名非政府援助机构的一个官员,她在世界上什么地方呆的时间最长久。答案是“西海岸”——不是非洲西海岸,而是美国西海岸,该机构几位最大的援助者就住在那里。正如我们所见,早在他们的劳动效果显现之前很久,世界银行的官员们就已经忙别的事去了。援助者对于受援者并没有负什么责任。 Sometimes the agencies know that aid is going wrong and are alarmed by what they see, but can do nothing about it. The director of one national aid agency gave me a bloodcurdling account of how aid funds had gone to gangs of murderers—people who had already carried out one massacre and were training and arming themselves to return to finish the job. I asked him why he continued to supply aid. Because, he replied, the citizens of this country believe that it is their duty to give and will accept no argument that aid is hurting people. The best that he could do was to try to limit the harm. 有时候,援助机构知道援助已出了问题,并且已经对所见所闻感到忧虑,却什么也做不了。某国家援助机构的主任曾向我提供过一份令人毛骨悚然的记录:援助资金到了谋杀团伙的手里,这些人已经实施过一次大屠杀,现在正在加强训练和武装,准备杀回去把事情做个彻底。我问他为什么还要继续提供援助。他回答说,因为本国公民相信提供援助是他们的义务,并且拒不接受任何指出援助正在害人的观点。他能做的,只是尽力减少伤害。 Even when donors know what conditions ought to be imposed, they will often be reluctant to penalize recipient governments who flout them. Donors may threaten punishment to induce good behavior, but when the good behavior is not forthcoming they may be reluctant to take action if the penalties harm themselves or their constituents. 即便援助者知道应该施加何种限制条件,但当受援政府无视这些条件的时候,通常援助者也会对是否惩罚左右迟疑。援助者可能会以惩罚相威胁的方式来诱导良好的行为,但如果好行为迟迟不出现,且如果真正施加惩罚会伤及自身或本国选民,他们可能又会迟疑。 This would hardly apply to the arming of murderers, but it can be a problem in lesser cases. In effect, aid conditionality is “time-inconsistent,” a favorite term of economists: what you want to do in advance is no longer in your interests after the fact. The governments who are receiving aid understand this very well; they can call the donor’s bluff and ignore the conditions with impunity. 在武装谋杀犯问题上,这种情况当然不太可能发生,但在其他没那么严重的事情上,则可能成问题。实际上,援助的限制条款具有“时间不一致性”(这是经济学家爱用的一个词汇):在木已成舟的情况下,你原先想做的事已经不再符合你的利益。接受援助的各国政府深知这一点,他们面对援助者的虚张声势,会直接要他们摊牌,从而能无视限制条件而不受任何惩罚。 Why the reluctance to enforce conditionality? 为什么在执行限制条件上产生迟疑? The economist Ravi Kanbur was the World Bank representative in Ghana in 1992. He was called upon to enforce conditionality by withholding a tranche of a previously agreed loan in response to the government having violated the agreement by awarding an 80 percent pay increase to public-sector workers. The tranche was large, almost an eighth of Ghana’s annual import bill. Opposition to the cut-off came from many sources, not just the government of Ghana. Many innocent bystanders would be hurt, both Ghanaians and foreign contractors, who would likely not be paid. 经济学家Ravi Kanbur曾于1992年担任世界银行驻加纳代表。由于加纳政府违反协定,给公共部门工作人员增加了80%的工资,Kanbur接到呼吁,要求他执行限制条款,暂停拨付贷款协议中的一笔款项。这笔款项数额巨大,大约是加纳年度进口额的八分之一。反对中断贷款的呼声此起彼伏,加纳政府只是其中之一。许多无辜旁人,包括加纳和外国的承包商,都有可能受到伤害,因为他们可能将收不到工程款。 More fundamentally, the normal, good relations between the donors and the government would be disrupted, threatening not only the government but also the operations of the aid industry itself; “the donors control so much in the way of funds that to stop these, at any rate to stop them sharply, would cause major chaos in the economy.” In effect, it is the aid industry’s job to disburse funds, and its operatives are paid to do so and to maintain good relations with its client countries. A face-saving compromise was eventually reached, and the loan went ahead. 更为根本的是,援助国与加纳政府的正常友好关系可能受到破坏,不仅会危及加纳政府,而且也会危及援助行业本身的运转。“援助者对资金运作有很大控制,以至于如果停止贷款,至少停贷过于突然,将会给经济造成重大混乱。”实际上,援助行业的任务就是分配资金,从业人员拿着薪水就是要做好这一本职工作,并与客户国维持良好关系。最终,双方保存体面,达成妥协,贷款得以继续发放。 Kenya provides another example of the dance among donors, the president, and parliament. The donors periodically become exasperated by the corruption of the president and his cronies, and they turn off the flow of aid. Parliament meets and starts discussing how to raise the revenue required for the government to meet its obligations. The donors heave a huge sigh of relief—they too are under threat if the aid ceases to flow—and turn the taps back on; parliament is shuttered until the next time. Government ministers also sigh with relief and order up the latest-model Mercedes from Germany; the locals refer to these wealthy beneficiaries as the “WaBenzi.” 关于援助者、总统和议会之间的这种委蛇周旋游戏,肯尼亚也是个例子。援助者总是会周期性地被总统及其党羽的腐败激怒,然后暂停援助。此时议会就会召开,开始商量如何增加政府收入,以满足政府履行义务的必需用度。援助者会大松一口气,然后又把水龙头打开——因为如果援助真正停止,他们也会面临威胁。于是,议会就可以关门歇业了,直到下次再发生类似事情。政府的部长们也会大松一口气,又开始从德国订购最新型号的奔驰汽车。当地人管这些富裕的受益者叫做“奔驰族”。 The award for sheer creativity might go to Maaouya Ould Sid’Ahmed Taya, president of Mauritania from 1984 to 2005. He adopted a pro-Western stance and in 1991 abandoned his previous support for the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq. Even so, in the early 1990s, his domestic repression became too much for donors, and aid was withdrawn. Real political reforms were begun—at least until the president had the brilliant idea of becoming one of the few Arab countries to recognize Israel. The aid taps were reopened and the reforms rescinded. 绝对原创奖可能还是要颁给1984至2005年任毛里塔尼亚总统的马维亚·乌尔德·西德·艾哈迈德·塔亚。塔亚1991年采取了亲西方的立场,放弃支持伊拉克的萨达姆·侯赛因政权。即便如此,90年代初他在国内的镇压行动对援助者来说仍属过分,援助因此而撤销。此时,真正的政治改革拉开大幕,改革至少维持到了总统突发奇想,成为承认以色列的极少数阿拉伯国家之一。援助龙头重新打开,改革又被废止了。 Domestic policies in the donor countries can also make it difficult to turn off aid. Government aid agencies are under pressure from their domestic constituencies to “do something” about global poverty —a pressure that is stoked by a well-intentioned but necessarily poorly informed domestic population—and this makes it hard for government agencies to cut back on aid even when their representatives on the ground know that it is doing harm. Politicians in both donor and recipient countries understand this process. 援助国的国内政策也可能使停止援助面临阻碍。国内选民会向政府援助机构施加压力,要求他们为全球贫困“做点事”。这些国内民众虽然满怀好意,但在信息掌握上却总是非常缺乏。他们把这压力之火烧得通红,使得政府机构难以切断援助,即便它们在当地的代表知道援助正在害人。 Recipient governments can use their own poor people as “hostages to extract aid from the donors.” In one of the worst such cases, government officials in Sierra Leone held a party to celebrate the fact that UNDP had, once again, classed their country as the worst in the world and thus guaranteed another year’s worth of aid. 受援国政府能把自己的贫困人口当做“从援助国身上索取资金的人质”来使用。塞拉利昂的政府官员是此类案例最糟糕的表现之一,在联合国开发计划署再次将该国列为世界最差国家,因此保证了该国下一年度的援金之后,他们居然开了一个派对来庆祝。 On the other side, donor politicians can give aid to buy political credibility at home when they are deeply unpopular for unrelated reasons; they too will oppose the cessation of aid, even when it is clearly being misused. When this happens—as it did with British aid during the Kenyan elections in 2001, when aid was used to subvert the elections and preserve the power of a corrupt elite—Africans suffer to burnish the tarnished reputations of Western politicians. 另一方面,如果援助国的政客因为其他一些无关原因而非常不受欢迎,他们也可能通过提供援助来收买国内政治信用。因此即便援金明显遭到滥用,他们也会反对停止提供。比如英国在肯尼亚2001年大选期间提供的援助就是如此,当时援金就被用于颠覆选举,帮助腐败精英维持大权。此类事情发生时,相当于非洲人民为了擦洗西方政客的声名污点而受苦受难。 Lyndon Johnson helped hype a largely nonexistent famine in India in order to distract attention from the Vietnam War, not to mention to gather support from American farmers by buying their crops. The givers and receivers of aid, the governments in both countries, are allied against their own peoples. All that has changed from colonial times is the nature of what is being extracted. 为了把民众视线从越南战争上面引开,林登·约翰逊不仅帮助印度虚假宣传了一场基本上并不存在的大饥荒,还通过收购美国农民的农产品来收买支持。援助的提供者和接受者,即两国政府,联合起来欺瞒自己的人民。与殖民时代相比,唯一的变化只是它们索取的东西性质不同了。 There are also practical reasons that restrict the ability of donors to enforce conditionality. Aid is fungible; a recipient can promise to spend aid on health care and do so with projects that would have been undertaken in any case, freeing up funds for nonapproved purposes. It is often difficult for donors to monitor such diversions. The aid industry is competitive, and if one country refuses to fund another will often step in, with a different set of priorities and conditions. The donor who tries to enforce conditions is then shut out and may lose political influence or commercial opportunities, with no compensating gain. 也有一些实践上的原因会限制援助国执行限制条款的能力。援助具有可替代性;比如受援国可以先承诺将援助用于医疗保健,然后用即使没有援助本来就会实施的项目来履行承诺,从而腾挪资金用于未经授权的项目。援助者很难对这类腾挪实施监督。援助行业充满竞争,某国拒绝提供援助,另一国就会带着一套新的政策偏好和限制条款来插手。于是,试图执行限制条款的援助国会被拒之门外,可能会丧失其政治影响力或商业机会,而且得不到补偿。 Aid agencies have recently tried to move away from conditionality, and their language has moved toward an emphasis on partnership. The recipient proposes a plan according to its own needs, and the donor decides what to finance. Of course, none of this disposes of the reality that the donors are responsible to their constituents in the rich world, and that the recipients, knowing this, will design plans that mimic just what they think the donors would have proposed on their own—a process that has been aptly described as “ventriloquism.” It is not clear what sort of partnership is sustainable when one side has all the money. 近来,援助机构已在试图放弃限制条款,转而强调伙伴关系。受援国会根据自身需要提出一份计划,然后由援助国来决定向哪些提供资助。当然,这些都无法绕开援助者需对身处富裕世界的本国选民负责这一现实,受援者深知这一点,因此他们在提出计划时会刻意鹦鹉学舌,提出在他们的心目中援助国自身可能设想出的方案。这一过程已经被人恰当地称为“腹语术”。在一方拥有全部资金的情况下,我们想不出何种伙伴关系才是可持续的。 Politics and politicians, doing what they regularly do, undermine aid effectiveness, but it works the other way too: aid flows undermine the effectiveness of politics. Donors decide matters that should be decided by recipients; even democratic politics in donor countries has no business deciding whether HIV/AIDS should be prioritized over antenatal care in Africa. Conditionality violates national sovereignty. 政治和政治家的惯常行事准则会破坏援助的有效性,但事情也可能在相反方向上发生:援助资金会破坏政治的有效性。本应由受援者决定的事,变得由援助者来决定了。即便是援助国的民主政治也没有理由来决定非洲国家是否应将艾滋病优先于产前保健考虑。限制条款侵犯国家主权。 Imagine a well-funded Swedish aid agency coming to Washington, D.C., and promising to pay off the national debt and fund Medicare for fifty years. The conditions are that the United States abolish capital punishment and fully legalize gay marriage. Perhaps some governments are so dysfunctional that such violations have little cost to their populations. But taking a country into foreign receivership is hardly a good start on building the kind of contract between government and governed that might support economic growth over the long haul. It is not possible to develop someone else’s country from the outside. 试想,如果瑞典一家资金充裕的援助机构跑到华盛顿来,承诺帮我们清偿所有国家债务,并会援助国家医疗保险五十年,条件是美国废除死刑,并将同性结婚全面合法化。也许有些国家政府确实无能透顶,因而此类侵犯行为并不会对该国人民造成什么损害。但是,一国接受外国的托管,对于建立政府与人民之间的契约关系而言并不是什么好开头,而这种契约关系从长远来看可能有助于经济增长。不可能从外部来发展别国。 We have already seen that it is difficult to give convincing evidence of the effects of aid on economic growth, and the same applies when we look at the effects of aid on democracy or on other institutions. Yet once again, we have the fact that small countries that get a lot of aid also tend to be less democratic; sub-Saharan Africa is the least democratic area of the world, and the one that receives the most aid. Countries that receive aid from their ex-colonists are not the most democratic. Perhaps most interesting is a counterpoint to Figures 1 and 2: there has been an upsurge not only in growth but also in democracy in Africa since the cut in aid that followed the end of the Cold War. As always, there are other possible explanations for these facts, but they are what we would expect if democracy were undermined by foreign aid. 之前我们已经提到,关于援助对经济增长的效用,我们拿不出什么有说服力的证据。同样,援助对民主或其他制度的效用也是如此。不过,我们这里又有一个事实:接受大量援助的小国也趋向于更不民主;撒哈拉以南的非洲是全世界最不民主的地区,同时也是接受援助最多的地区。接受原殖民母国援助的国家并非最民主的。最有意思的可能是图1和图2【译注:原文无图,略】的对比:随着冷战结束后援助的减少,非洲不但出现了经济上升,而且出现了更多的民主政体。当然,对于这类事实,总是有其他可能的解释。但是如果民主会受到外援的破坏,这一事实就与我们的预期一致了。 The antidemocratic aspects of foreign aid have been exacerbated by the long-held donors’ belief that aid—and economic development itself—is a technical issue, not a political one. In the hydraulic theory (recall, we are just fixing the plumbing), there can be no legitimate dispute over what needs to be done. This belief has led donors and advisers to ignore or be impatient with local politics. 外援的反民主面向还被援助者长期持有的一种信念加剧了:他们相信援助和经济发展本身都只是技术问题,而非政治问题。在水力学理论(记住,我们不过是在修理水管)看来,关于我们需要做什么,没有什么值得争论的。这一信念导致援助者和建议者都对当地政治置之不理或毫无耐心。 Worse still, the donors have often deeply misunderstood what people needed or wanted. Population control is the worst case; to the donors it was obvious that if there were fewer people each person would be better off, while to the recipients, the opposite was just as obviously (and correctly) true. Western-led population control, often with the assistance of nondemocratic or well-rewarded recipient governments, is the most egregious example of antidemocratic and oppressive aid. Effective democracy is the antidote to the tyranny of foreign good intentions. 更糟的是,关于人民需要什么或渴望什么,援助者通常误解甚深。人口控制就是最糟糕的例子:在援助者看来,很显然人口更少则人均状况就会更好,但是在受援者看来,相反的看法【编注:即人口多没坏处】同样显而易见且真确无误。西方人推动的人口控制,通常伴随着非民主或受益丰厚的受援国政府的协助,是援助之反民主和压迫性的最恶劣例证。有效的民主是外国善心暴政的解毒剂。 The anthropologist James Ferguson, in The Anti-Politics Machine, one of the greatest books about aid and economic development, describes a large Canadian-funded development project in Lesotho in the 1980s that was based on a profound misunderstanding of the way the economy functioned; what in reality was a reservoir of labor for the South African mines was reimagined as a textbook subsistence-farming economy. 人类学家詹姆斯·弗格森在《反政治机器》这本有关援助和经济发展的杰作中,为我们描绘了1980年代在莱索托实施的一项由加拿大资助的发展项目,该项目从根本上就对经济运转方式存在深刻误解。该国经济模式实际本来应是南非矿业的劳动力储军,却被臆想为一种教科书式的自给农业经济。 The agricultural investment projects designed for the imagined economy were about as likely to be successful as a project to grow flowers on the moon. The project administrators—busily fixing the plumbing—remained unaware of how the project was being manipulated by the ruling party for its own political purposes and against its political opponents. In the end, there was no development or poverty reduction, only an extension of the state’s monopoly of political control, an anti-politics machine that made an extractive elite even less responsive to its people. 为这种想象的经济所设计出来的农业投资项目,其成功的可能性就跟在月球上栽花差不多。该项目被执政党操纵,以实现他们自身的政治意图,压制政治对手,而忙于修水管的项目管理人员自始至终对此毫不知情。最后,项目得到的并不是发展或贫困减少,而只是加强了国家对政治控制的垄断性质,催生了一种反政治的机器,这种机器使得榨取型精英对其人民甚至更加漠视。 The technical, anti-political view of development assistance has survived the inconvenient fact that the apparently clear technical solutions kept changing—from industrialization, planning and the construction of infrastructure to macroeconomic structural adjustment, to health and education, and most recently back to infrastructure. That the ideas kept changing did nothing to imbue the developers with humility or uncertainty, nor did the sensitivity of the fashions to first-world politics appear to undercut the technical certainty of the aid industry. The antipoverty rhetoric of the World Bank when Lyndon Johnson was U.S. president was replaced by the “getting prices right” rhetoric when Ronald Reagan was president. “Our” politics seems to be a legitimate part of development thinking, while “their” politics is not. 发展援助问题上的这种技术性、反政治的观点始终存在,尽管我们面临一个尴尬事实:看似显然的技术解决方案经常在变,从工业化、计划和基础设施建设变成宏观经济结构调整,又变成健康和教育,最近又回到基础设施。想法一直在变,但这并没能促使开发人员保持谦逊或心生犹疑,发生在第一世界政治领域中的潮流敏感似乎也没能减少援助行业的技术自信。林登·约翰逊担任美国总统期间由世界银行提出的反贫困辞藻在罗纳德·里根当政时期被“矫正价格”的辞藻所取代。“我们的”政事似乎在发展思考当中理所应当占据一席之地,而“他们的”政事则并不如此。 Aid and aid-funded projects have undoubtedly done much good; the roads, dams, and clinics exist and would not have existed otherwise. But the negative forces are always present; even in good environments, aid compromises institutions, it contaminates local politics, and it undermines democracy. If poverty and underdevelopment are primarily consequences of poor institutions, then by weakening those institutions or stunting their development, large aid flows do exactly the opposite of what they are intended to do. It is hardly surprising then that, in spite of the direct effects of aid that are often positive, the record of aid shows no evidence of any overall beneficial effect. 毫无疑问,援助和由援金所资助的项目助益良多;世上多出了许多公路、大坝和医院,没有援助是不可能的。但援助的负面影响始终存在;即便实施环境友好,援助也会损害制度、污染当地政治,且会破坏民主。如果说贫困和欠发达首先是因为制度糟糕,那么通过削弱此类制度或阻碍其正常发展,大规模援助资金的实际效果确实事与愿违。因此,尽管援助的直接效果通常都是正面的,但援助史上并没有证据表明它们总体上带来了有益效果,对此我们不必感到惊讶。 The arguments about foreign aid and poverty reduction are quite different from the arguments about domestic aid to the poor. Those who oppose welfare benefits often argue that aid to the poor creates incentives for poor behavior that help to perpetuate poverty. These are not the arguments here. The concern with foreign aid is not about what it does to poor people around the world—indeed it touches them too rarely—but about what it does to governments in poor countries. The argument that foreign aid can make poverty worse is an argument that foreign aid makes governments less responsive to the needs of the poor, and thus does them harm. 关于外国援助与减少贫困之间关系的论争,与关于针对穷人的国内援助的论争颇为不同。反对福利津贴的人通常论证说,援助穷人会激励穷人做出使得贫困得以长期维持的行为。我们这里的论证则与此不同。在外国援助问题上,我们所关注的并不是它们对世上的穷人起到了什么作用——实际上援助极少触及穷人——而是它们对贫穷国家的政府起到了什么作用。外国援助会使得贫困恶化这一论点说的是,外国援助会使得受援国政府更加漠视穷人的需求,从而对他们造成损害。 The harm of aid—even in the presence of some good—poses difficult ethical problems. The philosopher Leif Wenar, criticizing Peter Singer’s vision, with which I began this chapter, notes that “poverty is no pond”; Singer’s analogy is not helpful. Those who advocate more aid need to explain how it can be given in a way that deals with the political constraints. They should also think hard about the parallels with the colonialism that came before the era of aid. 援助的危害——即使也会有某些好处——提出了一些伦理难题。本章开头,我曾引用过哲学家彼得·辛格的设想【译注:本文是作者著作The Great Escape第7章的一小节。第7章开头数页,作者曾提到辛格的著名比喻:由于我们所需要付出都很小,拒绝援助非洲儿童的伦理错误就跟拒绝挽救池塘落水儿童一样。而我们离非洲较远、离落水儿童较近这一事实并不会造成什么伦理上的区别】。莱夫·韦纳对此提出批评,他说“贫困并非池塘”,辛格的比喻并没有什么用。鼓吹加大援助的人需要解释,援助如何以一种能够考虑政治约束的方式分发。他们也应该努力思考,援助与援助时代之前的殖民主义之间的对比。 We now think of colonialism as bad, harming others to benefit ourselves, and aid as good, hurting us (albeit very mildly) to help others. But that view is too simple, too ignorant of history, and too self-congratulatory. The rhetoric of colonialism too was all about helping people, albeit about bringing civilization and enlightenment to people whose humanity was far from fully recognized. This may have been little more than a cover for theft and exploitation. 我们现在觉得殖民主义是坏的,只是损人利己,而援助则是好的,是损己(尽管很轻微)利人。但这种观点过于简化,对历史过于无知,同时也过分自夸。殖民主义的论调一样说的全是帮助他人,虽然只是要把文明和启蒙带给其人性尊严远远还未被承认的人们。这种说法有可能仅仅只是偷盗或剥削的文过饰非。 The preamble to the charter of the UN, with its ringing and inspiring rhetoric, was written by Jan Smuts, premier of South Africa, who saw the UN as the best hope of preserving the British Empire and the dominance of white “civilization.” Yet at its worst, decolonization installed leaders who differed little from those who preceded them, except for where they were born and the color of their skins. 联合国宪章的序言部分用语响亮且令人振奋,其作者南非前总理杨·史末资可是将联合国视为维持大英帝国和白人“文明”统治地位的最大希望所在。然而,在最糟糕的情形中,殖民地独立后上台的领导人跟他们的前辈并没有什么不同,区别只在于出生地点和皮肤颜色。 Even today, when our humanitarian rhetoric acts as a cover for our politicians to buy themselves virtue, and when aid is our way of meeting our moral obligations to deal with global poverty, we need to be sure that we are not doing harm. If we are, we are doing it for “us,” not for “them.” 即便是在今天,当人道主义辞藻被我们的政客用来为自己购买德性名声时,当援助被我们当成是履行自己对于全球贫困所负道德义务的手段时,我们也需要明确,我们并没有在害人。如果我们确实在害人,那援助就只是为了“满足自己”,而不是为了“帮助他人”。 (编辑:辉格@whigzhou) *注:本译文未经原作者授权,本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利,如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容,请私信联系,我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组,致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

烂在锅里

【2017-01-23】

@winternight39:大伯,现在台海的局势顺着阿姨的预测在走,您还持有之前不会有战争的观点吗?

@whigzhou: 我的判断没变,不过我奉劝你们,千万别信我,一定要听阿姨的~

@whigzhou: 虽然我认为奥巴马的退缩主义和川普的孤立主义会将世界某些部分推入战争(或者将正在进行的小战变成大战),但我首先想到的是环库尔德地区,环黑海地区,还有东非,至于福尔摩沙海峡,五年十年内爆发战争可能性远不及朝鲜半岛。 ​​​​

@waayne: 面对(more...)

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【2017-01-23】 @winternight39:大伯,现在台海的局势顺着阿姨的预测在走,您还持有之前不会有战争的观点吗? @whigzhou: 我的判断没变,不过我奉劝你们,千万别信我,一定要听阿姨的~ @whigzhou: 虽然我认为奥巴马的退缩主义和川普的孤立主义会将世界某些部分推入战争(或者将正在进行的小战变成大战),但我首先想到的是环库尔德地区,环黑海地区,还有东非,至于福尔摩沙海峡,五年十年内爆发战争可能性远不及朝鲜半岛。 ​​​​ @waayne: 面对川普三胖肯定要消停一段了,无赖一般面对能看到底线的人才会不停得瑟。川普这种锱铢必较的姿态,是想吓退他真正的目标,遇到真二愣子就没用了。 @whigzhou: 你对威慑的看法完全错误,好的威慑者不是动不动就发威胁,到处放狠话的人,而是难得威胁,但言出必行的人 @whigzhou: 以川普的轻佻做派,倒很适合替一个流氓小国玩边缘策略,建议金正恩请他去做发言人 @whigzhou: 像川普这样四处放狠话,又没有具体方案,也没有清晰底线,也不顾盟友是否配合,狠话很快会变成笑话 @whigzhou: 况且美国总统不是自己想打仗就能打的,国会不认可,你的狠话都不需要别人来试探挑衅就直接烂在自家锅里  
揭幕战

美利坚治世终结之后的这个动荡年代的揭幕战,大概会从土耳其开打吧,其他几个地方从人口结构看不太像,问题是跟谁,伊拉克库尔德自治区?

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7506
美利坚治世终结之后的这个动荡年代的揭幕战,大概会从土耳其开打吧,其他几个地方从人口结构看不太像,问题是跟谁,伊拉克库尔德自治区?
2016

说说川普吧。平时懒得说这些事情,过年集中说几句。

先说好的。

【亮点】

从已报道的人事安排看,川普的国内政策看起来不错,至少会比希拉里好很多,特别是教育部、劳工部、环保局、卫生部的人选,是其中几大亮点。

从这些人选,加上共和党在国会的多数,有几项前景比较肯定:

1)联邦最低工资不会提高,大好事;

2)势头正盛的特许学校不会受阻挠;

3)暖球党在联邦政府内将全面失势,气候与环境相关的管制会有松动,甚至许多预算和职位会被取消;

4)页岩革命的势头将不会在联邦层面受阻挠,此事的国际后果比国内后果意义更大;

【医保】

川普说要废Obamacare,但具体怎么弄不太明确,不过他挑了个重量级共和党国会大佬掌管卫生部,此人有医生背景,且此前在医保案上投入很多,提了个替代方案,貌似这事情会是川普的一个政策重点。

废Obamacare自然是好事,不过替代方案会怎么样很难说,推不推得动也大为可疑。

医保是个大坑,消耗政治资源极多,收获却很渺茫,弄不好的话,川普的势头和共和党团结很可能都被它拖垮。

【移民】

边境控制会加强,难民配额会减少甚至取消,这是好事。

不过,对于造成问题的拉丁移民,移民动力比司法控制的影响重要得多,而实际上,拉丁移民的动力近些年正在削弱,所以这件事情上川普其实没有多大发挥余地。

同时,他可能去削减技术移民,那是坏事,而且不像非法移民难控制,削减合法移民配额会有立竿见影的效果。

两类移民有着完全不同的选择机制,限制后一类属于自残。

【大法官】

稍乐观,川普提名的大法官肯定比奥巴马和希拉里的好,但也不必期望太高,我稍稍乐观是因为我觉得他可能对这事情不太感兴趣,所以会听从共和党主流意见。

【金融管制】

相比环境方面的管制,金融管制的后果严重的多,比如Sarbanes-OxleyDodd-Frank,但从川普的民粹倾向和他对待企业的态度看,不太能指望他在放松金融管制方面有多大作为。

【政治正确】

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说说川普吧。平时懒得说这些事情,过年集中说几句。 先说好的。 【亮点】 从已报道的人事安排看,川普的国内政策看起来不错,至少会比希拉里好很多,特别是教育部、劳工部、环保局、卫生部的人选,是其中几大亮点。 从这些人选,加上共和党在国会的多数,有几项前景比较肯定: 1)联邦最低工资不会提高,大好事; 2)势头正盛的特许学校不会受阻挠; 3)暖球党在联邦政府内将全面失势,气候与环境相关的管制会有松动,甚至许多预算和职位会被取消; 4)页岩革命的势头将不会在联邦层面受阻挠,此事的国际后果比国内后果意义更大; 【医保】 川普说要废[[Obamacare]],但具体怎么弄不太明确,不过他挑了个重量级共和党国会大佬掌管卫生部,此人有医生背景,且此前在医保案上投入很多,提了个替代方案,貌似这事情会是川普的一个政策重点。 废Obamacare自然是好事,不过替代方案会怎么样很难说,推不推得动也大为可疑。 医保是个大坑,消耗政治资源极多,收获却很渺茫,弄不好的话,川普的势头和共和党团结很可能都被它拖垮。 【移民】 边境控制会加强,难民配额会减少甚至取消,这是好事。 不过,对于造成问题的拉丁移民,移民动力比司法控制的影响重要得多,而实际上,拉丁移民的动力近些年正在削弱,所以这件事情上川普其实没有多大发挥余地。 同时,他可能去削减技术移民,那是坏事,而且不像非法移民难控制,削减合法移民配额会有立竿见影的效果。 两类移民有着完全不同的选择机制,限制后一类属于自残。 【大法官】 稍乐观,川普提名的大法官肯定比奥巴马和希拉里的好,但也不必期望太高,我稍稍乐观是因为我觉得他可能对这事情不太感兴趣,所以会听从共和党主流意见。 【金融管制】 相比环境方面的管制,金融管制的后果严重的多,比如Sarbanes-OxleyDodd-Frank,但从川普的民粹倾向和他对待企业的态度看,不太能指望他在放松金融管制方面有多大作为。 【政治正确】 川普带来的最好前景可能是政治正确紧箍咒的打破,许多人们敢怒不敢言的烂事将得到遏制,一些蒙尘已久的常识正义得以恢复,西方传统价值观有机会再次扬眉吐气。   再说坏的。 【宪政传统】 川普不是个尊重宪法和宪政传统的人,远远不是,在这一点上,除罗斯福外,我想不出比他表现更差的美国总统,其他政客藐视宪法还会偷偷摸摸遮遮掩掩,他连遮掩都不会,这是他最令我反感的地方。 我曾反复说过,宪法≠《宪法》,复制宪法文本、议事程序、政府结构很容易,但达致宪政均衡却很难,既有的均衡依靠参与各方对传统的尊重以及对违背传统之后果的预期。均衡一旦打破很难恢复,川普很可能是个破坏者。 以候选人身份公然威胁媒体,勒令制造企业回迁,暗示不接受选举结果……,有些恶劣做法(第三项尤其恶劣)虽不会有短期后果,但会改变人们的预期——原来这么没下限的事情也是可以被接受的啊? 【经济政策】 川普人选中最烂的一个就是[[Peter Navarro]],此人要么是蠢蛋,要么是哗众取宠的投机分子,对Navarro的青睐最清楚的展示了川普对经济问题的理解力。 【基础设施建设】 蠢。暴露了骨子里的国家干预主义。 【跨国公司】 现在还不清楚川普会如何拿跨国公司下手,如果贸易保护法案通不过或者不起作用,会不会从其他方面下阴招?比如海外利润,避税问题,EB5配额,其他管制陷阱?如果川普果真把制造业回归当成重点,跨国公司估计没好日子过。 【贸易保护】 从专门为Navarro设立新机构(National Trade Council)这个动作看,川普的保护主义看来不会是空话了。 废[[NAFTA]]的后果之一将是正在退潮的墨西哥移民猛增,这我之前说过。 假如贸易保护是专门用来打击中国的,那倒还说得过去,但必须明白这是为打击中国而付出的代价,不是收益,判断他是否明白这一点,可以看他是否为此而从其他方面寻求弥补,比如向盟友和潜在盟友提供更好的贸易条件,从川普对待TPP的态度看,不太可能。 乐观点是,国会大概不会同意将关税提至两位数,大概也不会废NAFTA和WTO,而川普能做的主要是停止推动更多自由贸易协定,在行政分支的权限内展开贸易战,设置一个个双边壁垒,推动贸易相关的管制,果若如此,其伤害将小于Smoot-Hawley法案。 【西方联盟】 川普可能做出的最坏事情将在外交方面,具体说就是:挫伤盟友,毁掉联盟。 美国总统在内政上推动能力有限,尤其是那些利益牵扯广泛的事情(比如税收、医保和最低工资),但在国际事务上行动能力要强得多,而这恰恰是川普最危险的地方。 打击中国,强挺以色列,踢开联合国,这些都很好,问题是,毁掉西方联盟这一件事,足以抵消其他全部好处百倍不止。 停掉TPP的前景已经挫伤了不少亚太盟友,未来假如在南海问题上甩手,西方联盟的这条腿就折了。 从川普对待普京的态度看,他很可能抛弃东欧和GUAM的盟友(后者实际上已经破裂了)。 最重要也最令人痛惜的被挫伤者或许将是英国,本来,英国退欧是强化盎格鲁联盟并以此为基础重建世界秩序的一次良机,但川普极可能毁掉这个机会,在这一点上他比希拉里更指望不上。 【总结】 从截止目前的表现看,川普将带来许多好东西,但不幸的是,他在最重要问题上极可能犯的错误,将让这些好处全部黯然失色。 当然,也可能我看错了,他或许不会犯下我所预料的错误,他过去的姿态或许只是一种姿态,果若如此,将是美国之幸,文明之幸。 所以我在此设定一个开关:假如未来的进展证明他的贸易保护政策仅仅用来打击文明的敌人,假如他积极拥抱退欧后的英国,不抛弃盟友,不牺牲其利益,不将他们推向敌人怀抱,我会立即黑转粉,并满心喜悦的承认自己看错了。  
[译文]捅刀起义的历史背景

The Paranoid, Supremacist Roots of the Stabbing Intifada
捅刀起义的种族优越论根源,一种妄想症

作者:Jeffrey Goldbery @ 2015-10-16
译者:沈沉(@你在何地-sxy)
一校:Eartha(@王小贰_Eartha)
来源:The Atlantic,www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/10/the-roots-of-the-palestinian-uprising-against-israel/410944/

Knife attacks on Jews in Jerusalem and elsewhere are not based on Palestinian frustration over settlements, but on something deeper.
耶路撒冷及其他地区发生的针对犹太人的持刀攻击,并非出于巴勒斯坦人因以色列定居活动而产生的挫败感,而是存在某些更深层次的原因。

In September of 1928, a group of Jewish residents of Jerusalem placed a bench in front of the Western Wall of the Temple Mount, for the comfort of elderly worshipers. They also brought with them a wooden partition, to separate the sexes during prayer. Jerusalem’s Muslim leaders treated the introduction of furniture into the alleyway in front of the Wall as a provocation, part of a Jewish conspiracy to slowly take control of the entire Temple Mount.

1928年9月,耶路撒冷的一群犹太居民为了老年礼拜者的舒适着想,在圣殿山的哭墙前安放了一条长凳,还带去了一张木质隔板用来区隔异性祈祷者。耶路撒冷的穆斯林领袖认为,这种在过道安放家具的行为是挑衅,是犹太人缓图全面掌控圣殿山的阴谋的一部分。

Many of the leaders of Palestine’s Muslims believed—or claimed to believe—that Jews had manufactured a set of historical and theological connections to the Western Wall and to the Mount, the site of the al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock, in order to advance the Zionist project.

巴勒斯坦的许多穆斯林领袖曾相信——或曾宣称其相信——犹太人捏造了一整套其与哭墙及圣殿山这一阿克萨清真寺和圆顶清真寺所在地之间的历史和神学联系,目的是为了推进犹太复国主义计划。

This belief defied Muslim history—the Dome of the Rock was built by Jerusalem’s Arab conquerors on the site of the Second Jewish Temple in order to venerate its memory (the site had previously been defiled by Jerusalem’s Christian rulers as a kind of rebuke to Judaism, the despised mother religion of Christianity). Jews themselves consider the Mount itself to be the holiest site in their faith. The Western Wall, a large retaining wall from the Second Temple period, is sacred only by proxy.

这一观念完全不顾穆斯林历史——圆顶清真寺是征服耶路撒冷的阿拉伯人为追思先人而在犹太人第二圣殿的旧址上建造的(原址被耶路撒冷的基督教统治者破坏,以谴责犹太教这一遭到鄙视的基督教母宗教)。犹太人自己则视圣殿山为其信仰的至圣之地。哭墙作为第二圣殿时期留存下来的巨大护墙,只是因其象征性才变得神圣。

The (more...)

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The Paranoid, Supremacist Roots of the Stabbing Intifada 捅刀起义的种族优越论根源,一种妄想症 作者:Jeffrey Goldbery @ 2015-10-16 译者:沈沉(@你在何地-sxy) 一校:Eartha(@王小贰_Eartha) 来源:The Atlantic,www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/10/the-roots-of-the-palestinian-uprising-against-israel/410944/ Knife attacks on Jews in Jerusalem and elsewhere are not based on Palestinian frustration over settlements, but on something deeper. 耶路撒冷及其他地区发生的针对犹太人的持刀攻击,并非出于巴勒斯坦人因以色列定居活动而产生的挫败感,而是存在某些更深层次的原因。 In September of 1928, a group of Jewish residents of Jerusalem placed a bench in front of the Western Wall of the Temple Mount, for the comfort of elderly worshipers. They also brought with them a wooden partition, to separate the sexes during prayer. Jerusalem’s Muslim leaders treated the introduction of furniture into the alleyway in front of the Wall as a provocation, part of a Jewish conspiracy to slowly take control of the entire Temple Mount. 1928年9月,耶路撒冷的一群犹太居民为了老年礼拜者的舒适着想,在圣殿山的哭墙前安放了一条长凳,还带去了一张木质隔板用来区隔异性祈祷者。耶路撒冷的穆斯林领袖认为,这种在过道安放家具的行为是挑衅,是犹太人缓图全面掌控圣殿山的阴谋的一部分。 Many of the leaders of Palestine’s Muslims believed—or claimed to believe—that Jews had manufactured a set of historical and theological connections to the Western Wall and to the Mount, the site of the al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock, in order to advance the Zionist project. 巴勒斯坦的许多穆斯林领袖曾相信——或曾宣称其相信——犹太人捏造了一整套其与哭墙及圣殿山这一阿克萨清真寺和圆顶清真寺所在地之间的历史和神学联系,目的是为了推进犹太复国主义计划。 This belief defied Muslim history—the Dome of the Rock was built by Jerusalem’s Arab conquerors on the site of the Second Jewish Temple in order to venerate its memory (the site had previously been defiled by Jerusalem’s Christian rulers as a kind of rebuke to Judaism, the despised mother religion of Christianity). Jews themselves consider the Mount itself to be the holiest site in their faith. The Western Wall, a large retaining wall from the Second Temple period, is sacred only by proxy. 这一观念完全不顾穆斯林历史——圆顶清真寺是征服耶路撒冷的阿拉伯人为追思先人而在犹太人第二圣殿的旧址上建造的(原址被耶路撒冷的基督教统治者破坏,以谴责犹太教这一遭到鄙视的基督教母宗教)。犹太人自己则视圣殿山为其信仰的至圣之地。哭墙作为第二圣殿时期留存下来的巨大护墙,只是因其象征性才变得神圣。 The spiritual leader of Palestine’s Muslims, the mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini, incited Arabs in Palestine against their Jewish neighbors by arguing that Islam itself was under threat. (Husseini would later become one of Hitler’s most important Muslim allies.) Jews in British-occupied Palestine responded to Muslim invective by demanding more access to the Wall, sometimes holding demonstrations at the holy site. 巴勒斯坦穆斯林的精神领袖、耶路撒冷的“穆夫提”【译注:教法说明官】Amin al-Husseini认为是伊斯兰本身受到了威胁,以此来煽动巴勒斯坦的阿拉伯人反对他们的犹太邻居(Husseini后来成为希特勒最重要的穆斯林盟友之一)。英国治下的巴勒斯坦犹太人对穆斯林的谩骂进行了回应,要求提高哭墙对他们的开放程度,有时还会在这一圣地举行示威。 By the next year, violence directed against Jews by their neighbors had become more common: Arab rioters took the lives of 133 Jews that summer; British forces killed 116 Arabs in their attempt to subdue the riots. In Hebron, a devastating pogrom was launched against the city’s ancient Jewish community after Muslim officials distributed fabricated photographs of a damaged Dome of the Rock, and spread the rumor that Jews had attacked the shrine. 次年,由其近邻发动的、针对犹太人的暴力变得愈发常见:当年夏天阿拉伯暴徒就夺走了133条犹太人性命,而英国军队则在镇压暴乱的行动中杀死了116名阿拉伯人。在希布伦市,穆斯林官员四处传播圆顶清真寺遭到破坏的虚假照片,并散布谣言说犹太人攻击了这一神殿,随后该市最为古老的犹太人社区遭到了令人震惊的大屠杀。 The current “stabbing Intifada” now taking place in Israel—a quasi-uprising in which young Palestinians have been trying, and occasionally succeeding, to kill Jews with knives—is prompted in good part by the same set of manipulated emotions that sparked the anti-Jewish riots of the 1920s: a deeply felt desire on the part of Palestinians to “protect” the Temple Mount from Jews. 以色列当下正出现一种“刺杀起义”,巴勒斯坦年轻人试图用刀砍杀犹太人,并且偶尔能够成功。这一具有半暴动性质的行动,很大程度上被同一套人为操纵的情绪所推动,正是这种情绪在1920年代点燃了反犹暴乱——即巴勒斯坦人内心深处的想要“保护”圣殿山不被犹太人染指的强烈情感。 When Israel captured the Old City of Jerusalem in June of 1967 in response to a Jordanian attack, the first impulse of some Israelis was to assert Jewish rights atop the Mount. Between 1948, the year Israel achieved independence, and 1967, Jordan, then the occupying power in Jerusalem, banned Jews not only from the 35-acre Mount—which is known to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif, the noble sanctuary—but also from the Western Wall below. 1967年6月,以色列占领了耶路撒冷古城区域以报复约旦的攻击,部分以色列人的第一反应就是主张犹太人在圣殿山上的权利。在1948年(此年以色列实现独立)至1967年间,耶路撒冷的占领国约旦不但禁止犹太人进入圣殿山周围35英亩范围内——这块区域在穆斯林中以Haram al-Sharif,即“高贵的避难所”著称,而且也禁止他们靠近山下的哭墙。 When paratroopers took the Old City, they raised the Israeli flag atop the Dome of the Rock, but the Israeli defense minister, Moshe Dayan, ordered it taken down, and soon after promised leaders of the Muslim Waqf, the trust that controlled the mosque and the shrine, that Israel would not interfere in its activities. Since then, successive Israeli governments have maintained the status quo established by Dayan. 伞兵控制旧城以后,在圆顶清真寺顶上升起以色列国旗,但以色列国防部长Moshe Dayan命令降旗,随后很快就向穆斯林“瓦克夫”(受托控制清真寺和圣堂的组织)的领袖承诺,以色列不会干涉他们的活动。自此以后,历届以色列政府均对Dayan所立态势萧规曹随。 There is another status quo associated with the Temple Mount, however, that has been showing signs of weakening. This is a religious status quo. The mainstream rabbinical view for many years has been that Jews should not walk atop the Mount for fear of treading on the Holy of Holies, the inner sanctum of the Temple that, according to tradition, housed the Ark of the Covenant. The Holy of Holies is the room in which the Jewish high priest spoke the Tetragrammaton, the ineffable name of God, on Yom Kippur. 但是,与圣殿山相关的另一态势则显现出弱化的迹象。这是种宗教态势。多年来,主流的拉比教义观认为犹太人不应该在圣殿山顶行走,以免踩踏了“至圣所”。这是圣殿中一直用于存放有约柜的内部圣所,是犹太大祭司在赎罪日讲述神圣而需避讳的上帝之名“Tetragrammaton”的地方。 The exact location of the Holy of Holies is not known, and Muslim authorities have prevented archeologists from conducting any excavations on the Mount, in part out of fear that such explorations will uncover further evidence of a pre-Islamic Jewish presence. This mainstream rabbinical view concerning the Mount—that it should be the direction of Jewish prayer, rather than a place of Jewish prayer—has made the lives of Jerusalem’s temporal authorities easier, by keeping Muslim and Jewish worshippers separated. “至圣所”的确切所在并不为人所知,而穆斯林当局一直阻止考古学家对圣殿山实施发掘,一部分也是担心此类勘探有可能会发现更多的证据,证明犹太人先于伊斯兰教存在于此。这种主流的拉比教义观认为圣殿山应是犹太信徒祷告时的朝向而非他们应该出现的地方。这让耶路撒冷的世俗政府由此轻松一些,因为穆斯林礼拜者和犹太礼拜者被泾渭分明的隔开了。 In recent years, however, small groups of radical religious innovators who oppose the mainstream rabbinical view have sought to make the Mount, once again, a site of Jewish prayer. (Here is a New York Times Magazine story I wrote about these radical groups.) These activists have gained sympathizers among some far-right political figures in Israel, though the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not altered the separation-of-religions status quo. 然而,近年来,一些反对主流拉比教义观的激进宗教改革者小团体已在寻求将圣殿山重新确定为犹太祷告之地。(我为《纽约时报》所写的一篇文章所论的正是这些激进团体。)这些积极分子已获得以色列某些极右政治人物的同情,尽管总理本杰明·内塔尼亚胡领导下的政府仍未改变两种宗教分离的现状。 One of the tragedies of the settlement movement is that it obscures what might be the actual root cause of the Middle East conflict. 定居行动的悲剧之一是它可能模糊了中东冲突的真正起因。 Convincing Palestinians that the Israeli government is not trying to alter the status quo on the Mount has been difficult because many of today’s Palestinian leaders, in the manner of the Palestinian leadership of the 1920s, actively market rumors that the Israeli government is seeking to establish atop the Mount a permanent Jewish presence. 要让巴勒斯坦人相信以色列政府无意改变圣殿山的现状,这一直很困难。因为巴勒斯坦当今的许多领袖采用了1920年代巴勒斯坦领导层的做法,积极地散布谣言,声称以色列政府想要在圣殿山顶建立永久性的犹太人驻地。 The comments of the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas—by general consensus the most moderate leader in the brief history of the Palestinian national movement—have been particularly harsh. Though Abbas has authorized Palestinian security services to work with their Israeli counterparts to combat extremist violence, his rhetoric has inflamed tensions. 巴勒斯坦民族权力机构(自治政府)总统马哈茂德·阿巴斯的评论尤其尖锐。在巴勒斯坦民族主义运动的简短历史中,他已是公认的最温和的领袖。尽管阿巴斯已下令巴勒斯坦安全部门配合以色列的相关部门打击极端主义暴行,他的说辞却是在火上浇油。 “Every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem is pure, every martyr will reach paradise, and every injured person will be rewarded by God,” he said last month, as rumors about the Temple Mount swirled. He went on to say that Jews “have no right to desecrate the mosque with their dirty feet.” 上个月,关于圣殿山的谣言甚嚣尘上之时,他说:“洒在耶路撒冷的每一滴血都是纯洁的,每一个殉难者都将上天堂,每个受伤的人都将得到上帝的奖赏。”他接着说,犹太人“无权用他们的脏脚玷污清真寺。” Taleb Abu Arrar, an Israeli Arab member of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, argued publicly that Jews “desecrate” the Temple Mount by their presence. (Fourteen years ago, Yasser Arafat, then the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, told me that “Jewish authorities are forging history by saying the Temple stood on the Haram al-Sharif. Their temple was somewhere else.”) 以色列议会中的一位阿拉伯议员,Taleb Abu Arrar,公开发表言论说,犹太人的出现就是对圣殿山的“玷污”。(14年前,巴勒斯坦解放组织时任领导人亚瑟·阿拉法特曾告诉我,“犹太当局说圣殿位于‘高贵的避难所’,这是伪造历史。他们的庙在别的地方。”) These sorts of comments, combined with the violence of the past two weeks—including the sacking and burning of a Jewish shrine outside Nablus—suggest a tragic continuity between the 1920s and today. For those who believe not only in the necessity, but in the practical possibility, of an equitable two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—and in particular, for those who believe that the post-1967 settlement project is the root cause of the conflict—recent events have been sobering. 诸如此类的言论,再结合过去两周发生的暴力活动——包括洗劫和焚烧纳布卢斯市外的一处犹太圣地——表明在1920年代与今日之间存在一种可悲的持续性。对于那些相信巴以冲突不仅必须、而且实践上也能够通过双方平等建国方案来解决的人来说,尤其是认为1967年后的定居点计划才是冲突根源的人,近期的事态发人深省。 One of the tragedies of the settlement movement is that it obscures what might be the actual root cause of the Middle East conflict: the unwillingness of many Muslim Palestinians to accept the notion that Jews are a people who are indigenous to the land Palestinians believe to be exclusively their own, and that the third-holiest site in Islam is also the holiest site of another religion, one whose adherents reject the notion of Muslim supersessionism. 定居行动的悲剧之一是它可能模糊了中东冲突根本原因:许多巴勒斯坦穆斯林不愿意接受一个观念:犹太人是巴勒斯坦人自信为其所独有的土地上的原住民族,且伊斯兰教的第三大圣地同样也是另外一个宗教的至圣之地,而该宗教的信徒拒斥伊斯兰教的取代论。【译注:又称替换神学,是探讨基督教与犹太教和犹太人民关系的一种基督教神学观点,认为基督教徒已取代以色列人成为上帝的子民、新约已取代旧约。(译自wiki词条)】 The status quo on the Temple Mount is prudent and must remain in place. It saves lives, lives fundamentalist Jewish radicals would risk in order to advance their millennial dreams. But it is the byproduct of the intolerance of Jerusalem’s Muslim leadership. 圣殿山的现状是明智的,且必须继续保持。它确实挽救了人命,那些原教旨主义犹太教激进分子为了推进其千禧年之梦而愿意牺牲的人命。但它也是耶路撒冷的穆斯林领导层不宽容政策的副产品。 When violence against Jews occurs inside Israel, or on the West Bank, a consensus tends to be reached quickly by outside analysts and political leaders, one that holds that such violence represents the inevitable consequence of Israel’s occupation and settlement of Palestinian territory. John Kerry, the U.S. secretary of state, said in an appearance earlier this week at Harvard that, “What’s happening is that unless we get going, a two-state solution could conceivably be stolen from everybody. And there’s been a massive increase in settlements over the course of the last years.” He went on to say, “Now you have this violence because there’s a frustration that is growing, and a frustration among Israelis who don’t see any movement.” 当针对犹太人的暴力发生在以色列内部或约旦河西岸时,外部的分析人士和政治领袖倾向于迅速达成一种共识,认为这些暴力行为是以色列占领并定居于巴勒斯坦领土的必然后果。美国国务卿约翰·克里在本周早些时候出席哈佛的一个公开活动时说:“现状是,除非我们开始采取行动,否则可以预见两国方案将再无可能。而在过去的几年中,定居点已经有了极大的增加。”他接着说:“这些暴力之所以出现是因为挫败感在弥漫,而看不到任何进展的以色列人也很失望。” (On Friday morning, speaking with NPR’s Steve Inskeep, Kerry revised and extended his comments, criticizing Abbas—in a passive way — for the violence: “There's no excuse for the violence. ... And the Palestinians need to understand, and President Abbas has been committed to nonviolence. He needs to be condemning this, loudly and clearly. And he needs to not engage in some of the incitement that his voice has sometimes been heard to encourage.”) (周五早上,参加美国国家公共电台Steve Inskeep的节目时,克里对他的前述评论进行了修正和扩展,就发生的暴力活动(以一种消极方式)批评阿巴斯:“暴力没有任何借口……巴勒斯坦人需要明白,阿巴斯总统也承诺了非暴力,他需要就此高调且清楚地谴责这些暴力行为,并且应当避开使用有时被人当作鼓励的煽动言辞”。) Many Palestinians believe that “this is not a conflict between two national movements, but a conflict between one national movement and a colonial and imperialistic entity.” 许多巴勒斯坦人认为,“这并非两个民族运动之间的冲突,而是一个民族运动和另一个殖民和帝国主义实体之间的冲突。” It is sometimes difficult for policymakers such as Kerry, who has devoted so much time and energy to the search for a solution to the Israeli-Arab impasse, to acknowledge the power of a particular Palestinian narrative, one that obviates the possibility of a solution that allows Jews national and religious equality. 如克里这样的政策制定者,由于他们已经为解决以巴冲突僵局付出了太多时间和精力,有时候难以认识到一种特定的巴勒斯坦叙事的力量,这种叙事排除了允许犹太人获得民族和宗教平等的方案可能性。 Writing in Haaretz, the left-center political scientist Shlomo Avineri describes an important disconnect that often goes unnoticed, even in times like these: Many Palestinians believe that “this is not a conflict between two national movements but a conflict between one national movement (the Palestinian) and a colonial and imperialistic entity (Israel).” 在《国土报》上,中左翼的政治学家Shlomo Avineri描述了一个通常不被注意(即便是当下也是如此)的重要断裂。许多巴勒斯坦人相信,“这并非是两个民族运动之间的冲突,而是一个民族运动(巴勒斯坦)和一个殖民和帝国主义实体(以色列)之间的冲突。” He goes on to write, “According to this view, Israel will end like all colonial phenomena—it will perish and disappear. Moreover, according to the Palestinian view, the Jews are not a nation but a religious community, and as such not entitled to national self-determination which is, after all, a universal imperative.” 他接着写道,“根据这种观点,以色列会跟其他所有殖民现象一样,终将走向灭亡。而且,根据巴勒斯坦人的观点,犹太人不是一个民族,而是一个宗教共同体,因此没有民族自决的权利,毕竟这是一条普遍诫规。” Avineri, like most sensible analysts, understands the many and variegated reasons for the continued failure of the peace process: 跟绝大多数明智的分析家一样,Avineri认识到了和平进程不断失败的原因众多而繁杂:
[M]utual distrust between the two populations, internal pressures from the rejectionists on both sides, Yasser Arafat’s repeated deceptions, the murder of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the electoral victories of Likud in Israeli elections, Palestinian terrorism, continuing Israeli settlement activities in the territories, the bloody rift between Fatah and Hamas, American presidents who did too little (George W. Bush) or too much and in a wrong way (Barack Obama), the political weakness of Mahmoud Abbas, governments headed by Netanyahu that did everything possible to undermine effective negotiations. All this is true, and everyone picks and chooses what fits their views and interests—but beyond all these lies a fundamental difference in the terms in which each side views the conflict, a difference many tend or choose to overlook. “两个群体之间的互不信任,双方抵制派所造成的内部压力,亚瑟·阿拉法特反复无常的欺诈,对伊扎克·拉宾总理的谋杀,利库德集团在以色利选举中的胜利,巴勒斯坦恐怖主义,以色列在该地区持续不断的定居活动,法塔赫和哈马斯之间的血腥纷争,美国总统的无所作为(乔治·W·布什)抑或在错误的方向上做得太多(巴拉克·奥巴马),马哈茂德·阿巴斯的政治软弱,内塔尼亚胡为首的政府干尽了一切有可能破坏有效和谈的事。这些都是对的,每个人都能从中挑选出与合于自身观点和利益的原因——但在此之外,还存在一个易被人忽略的因素,即双方看待这一冲突的角度存在根本性的差别。”
The violence of the past two weeks, encouraged by purveyors of rumors who now have both Israeli and Palestinian blood on their hands, is rooted not in Israeli settlement policy, but in a worldview that dismisses the national and religious rights of Jews. There will not be peace between Israelis and Palestinians so long as parties on both sides of the conflict continue to deny the national and religious rights of the other. 过去两周发生的暴力活动受到了谣言散布者的鼓动,他们的手上现已沾满了以色列人还有巴勒斯坦人的鲜血。这种暴力并非根源于以色列的定居政策,而是源于一种拒绝承认犹太人享有民族和宗教权利的世界观。只要冲突双方继续否定彼此的民族和宗教权利,以色列人和巴勒斯坦人之间就不会出现和平。 (编辑:辉格@whigzhou) *注:本译文未经原作者授权,本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利,如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容,请私信联系,我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组,致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

哐嘡一记

【2016-06-26】

@高寒老师和考官:Brexit三大诉求:控制欧盟移民,不给EU预算,废除EU法规。您觉得谈判结果对英国有利吗?我感到悲观。1现在EFTA四个国家都接受人口自由流动,瑞士14年公投反对暂未实施;2挪威瑞士都缴纳EU预算,比英国少缴17%和58%;3均部分接受欧盟法规。

@whigzhou: 那要看下届英国政府打算往哪个方向走

@whigzhou: 以及他们得到反应是否积极。A)假如下届政府打算朝封闭方向走,总归是死路,B)若想朝自由与开放的方向走,那么,B1)谈EFTA,那么,B1.1)未遭排斥,结果不会比留欧差,B1.2)遭排斥,转B2,B2)(more...)

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【2016-06-26】 @高寒老师和考官:Brexit三大诉求:控制欧盟移民,不给EU预算,废除EU法规。您觉得谈判结果对英国有利吗?我感到悲观。1现在EFTA四个国家都接受人口自由流动,瑞士14年公投反对暂未实施;2挪威瑞士都缴纳EU预算,比英国少缴17%和58%;3均部分接受欧盟法规。 @whigzhou: 那要看下届英国政府打算往哪个方向走 @whigzhou: 以及他们得到反应是否积极。A)假如下届政府打算朝封闭方向走,总归是死路,B)若想朝自由与开放的方向走,那么,B1)谈EFTA,那么,B1.1)未遭排斥,结果不会比留欧差,B1.2)遭排斥,转B2,B2)到欧洲外面找出路,加入北美自由贸易区,与澳新恢复自由贸易,印度缅甸新加坡,等等, @whigzhou: 总之,离开欧盟单一壁垒,很多大门开放了,只要真愿意往自由方向走,机会多的是 @whigzhou: 下任美国总统的态度也很重要,这一点不是很乐观 @whigzhou: 无论哪条路,谈判和立法过程都要好多年,这期间说不定波兰匈牙利奥地利已经被欧盟开除了,到时候英国拉一个新欧洲同盟也不是没可能 @高寒老师和考官:唉,这下只剩信念了。我觉得商人和投资者最怕uncertainty,英国估计得皮软几年,国家不会崩盘吧 @whigzhou: 大的转向哪有不吃几年苦的?当年新西兰被哐嘡一记关在英国市场外面,几近崩溃,现在怎么样?苏格兰是会离,不脱欧也会离,也不算什么坏事 @whigzhou: 基本的判断是欧盟这条船正在沉,没有这个共识,当然想不到一起,余下都是废话了。 @剪刀手霍德华:周老师对这次公投表现出来的老年人决定年轻人命运的情形怎么看? @whigzhou: 老人相对懂事一点,幸亏有他们拉着,不然科宾就是下任首相桑德斯就是下届总统了 【2016-06-30】 @whigzhou: 从最新情况看,我能想到的最可能前景是:欧元资产贬值/劣化→希腊彻底崩盘→其他南欧国家告急→德国出于迫切需要的欧洲团结决定出大血救助→德国选民不高兴,换上疏欧政府→英国带着庆幸和一丝窃喜加速逃跑→欧元资产外逃,伦敦是主要避难地→欧元区实施资本流动管制→欧元区大萧条→南欧退出…… @whigzhou: 现有制度结构下,希腊问题(乃至整个南欧问题)不可能解决,1870年代英国为了解决埃及债务问题,把埃及变成了保护国,而德国显然没办法把希腊变成自己的保护国,就算人家连选18个无赖上来你也没辙。  
[译文]生锈的联合国

I Love the U.N., but It Is Failing
我爱联合国,但它辜负了我们的期待

作者:ANTHONY BANBURY @ 2016-3-18
译者:Eartha(@王小贰_Eartha)
校对:慕白(@李凤阳他说)
来源:The New York Times,http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/opinion/sunday/i-love-the-un-but-it-is-failing.html

I HAVE worked for the United Nations for most of the last three decades. I was a human rights officer in Haiti in the 1990s and served in the former Yugoslavia during the Srebrenica genocide. I helped lead the response to the Indian Ocean tsunami and the Haitian earthquake, planned the mission to eliminate Syrian chemical weapons, and most recently led the 标签: |

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I Love the U.N., but It Is Failing 我爱联合国,但它辜负了我们的期待 作者:ANTHONY BANBURY @ 2016-3-18 译者:Eartha(@王小贰_Eartha) 校对:慕白(@李凤阳他说) 来源:The New York Times,http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/opinion/sunday/i-love-the-un-but-it-is-failing.html I HAVE worked for the United Nations for most of the last three decades. I was a human rights officer in Haiti in the 1990s and served in the former Yugoslavia during the Srebrenica genocide. I helped lead the response to the Indian Ocean tsunami and the Haitian earthquake, planned the mission to eliminate Syrian chemical weapons, and most recently led the Ebola mission in West Africa. I care deeply for the principles the United Nations is designed to uphold. 我在联合国工作了近三十年。1990年代,我在海地担任人权干事,并于斯雷布雷尼察大屠杀期间在前南斯拉夫工作。我曾帮助应对印度洋海啸和海地地震,策划了消除叙利亚化学武器的项目,最近还曾在西非指挥抗击埃博拉病毒。我深切地关心联合国着意维护的准则与理念。 And that’s why I have decided to leave. 这也是我决定离开的原因。 The world faces a range of terrifying crises, from the threat of climate change to terrorist breeding grounds in places like Syria, Iraq and Somalia. The United Nations is uniquely placed to meet these challenges, and it is doing invaluable work, like protecting civilians and delivering humanitarian aid in South Sudan and elsewhere. But in terms of its overall mission, thanks to colossal mismanagement, the United Nations is failing. 全球正面临一系列骇人的危机,从气候变化的威胁到叙利亚、伊拉克和索马里不断涌现的恐怖分子。在应对这些挑战方面,联合国有着特殊的地位,而它所做的工作也极其宝贵,例如在南苏丹及其他地区保护平民与提供人道主义救助。但是当我们谈及它的全面使命时,由于大范围的管理不善,联合国实则正日渐辜负我们的期待。 Six years ago, I became an assistant secretary general, posted to the headquarters in New York. I was no stranger to red tape, but I was unprepared for the blur of Orwellian admonitions and Carrollian logic that govern the place. If you locked a team of evil geniuses in a laboratory, they could not design a bureaucracy so maddeningly complex, requiring so much effort but in the end incapable of delivering the intended result. The system is a black hole into which disappear countless tax dollars and human aspirations, never to be seen again. 六年前,我成为联合国助理秘书长,前往纽约总部工作。我对繁文缛节并不陌生,但此处盛行的奥威尔式告诫与卡罗尔式逻辑的暧昧含糊,仍是令我措手不及。就算你把一群邪恶天才关在实验室里,他们也设计不出这种官僚体系,繁琐到让人发狂,耗费了大量精力到头来却一事无成。这样的体制就是一个黑洞,大把的税金和人们的抱负全都被吸到里面,有去无回。 The first major problem is a sclerotic personnel system. The United Nations needs to be able to attract and quickly deploy the world’s best talent. And yet, it takes on average 213 days to recruit someone. In January, to the horror of many, the Department of Management imposed a new recruitment system that is likely to increase the delay to over a year. 第一个严重的问题是僵硬的人事制度。联合国需要有能力去吸引全球最优秀的人才,并迅速把他们安排到合适的岗位。但现状是,招募一个新人平均要花掉213天。今年一月份,管理部门施行了新的招募制度,时间花费可能超过一年,让人深感恐怖。 During the Ebola epidemic, I was desperate to get qualified people on the ground, and yet I was told that a staff member working in South Sudan could not travel to our headquarters in Accra, Ghana, until she received a new medical clearance. We were fighting a disease that killed many thousands and risked spinning out of control and yet we spent weeks waiting for a healthy colleague to get her forms processed. 埃博拉病毒流行期间,我急需在当地找到合适的帮手,结果却被告知,一位在南苏丹工作的成员在拿到新的体检合格单之前,无法前来阿克拉的总部。我们正在与杀死数千人的流行病抗争,局面时刻有失控恶化的危险,然而却需要耗费数周时间去等一位健康同事走完表格流程。 Too often, the only way to speed things up is to break the rules. That’s what I did in Accra when I hired an anthropologist as an independent contractor. She turned out to be worth her weight in gold. Unsafe burial practices were responsible for about half of new Ebola cases in some areas. We had to understand these traditions before we could persuade people to change them. As far as I know, no United Nations mission had ever had an anthropologist on staff before; shortly after I left the mission, she was let go. 唯一能加快进度的办法就是打破规则,这种情形屡见不鲜。我在阿克拉招募一名人类学家作独立合约员工时就是这么做的。结果证明她真是帮了大忙。在一些地区,近一半的新增病例源于不安全的埋葬措施,我们必须在理解这些习俗传统之后才有办法劝说人们去做出改变。就我所知,在此之前联合国的任务团队里从未有过人类学家;而我离开这个项目后不久,她就被解雇了。 The heads of billion-dollar peace operations, with enormous responsibilities for ending wars, are not able to hire their immediate staff, or to reassign non-performers away from critical roles. It is a sign of how perversely twisted the bureaucracy is that personnel decisions are considered more dangerous than the responsibility to lead a mission on which the fate of a country depends. 维和行动的花费常达数十亿美金,其首长们肩负着结束战争的重大使命,却无法招募到他们的直属部下,或者调离重要职位上的不作为者。这个信号显示了联合国的官僚系统被扭曲至何种无理的程度:比起肩负关乎一国命运的重任,进行人事变动安排对他们来说反而更危险。 One result of this dysfunction is minimal accountability. There is today a chief of staff in a large peacekeeping mission who is manifestly incompetent. Many have tried to get rid of him, but short of a serious crime, it is virtually impossible to fire someone in the United Nations. In the past six years, I am not aware of a single international field staff member’s being fired, or even sanctioned, for poor performance. 这种机制失灵的结果之一就是问责制度形同虚设。当下,一个大型维和任务的总参谋长明显无法胜任,许多人都想把他赶走。但在联合国的体系内,除非他面临严重的犯罪指控,否则要解雇他几乎是不可能的。就我所知,过去的六年间不曾有一名国际部门的职员因为表现糟糕而被解雇,甚至连处罚都没有。 The second serious problem is that too many decisions are driven by political expediency instead of by the values of the United Nations or the facts on the ground. 第二个严重的问题是,太多的决策出于政治上的权宜考虑,而非基于联合国的价值体系或实际需求。 Peacekeeping forces often lumber along for years without clear goals or exit plans, crowding out governments, diverting attention from deeper socioeconomic problems and costing billions of dollars. My first peacekeeping mission was in Cambodia in 1992. We left after less than two years. Now it’s a rare exception when a mission lasts fewer than 10. 维和部队常常在没有清晰的任务目标或退出方案的情况下,就这么四处游荡长达数年,排挤了当地政府,转移了对更深层的社会经济问题的注意力,耗费掉数十亿美元。我参与的第一个维和任务是1992年在柬埔寨。不到两年时间我们就离开了。而现在,罕有任务会短于10年。 Look at Haiti: There has been no armed conflict for more than a decade, and yet a United Nations force of more than 4,500 remains. Meanwhile, we are failing at what should be our most important task: assisting in the creation of stable, democratic institutions. Elections have been postponed amid allegations of fraud, and the interim prime minister has said that “the country is facing serious social and economic difficulties.” The military deployment makes no contribution at all to solving these problems. 看看海地吧:那里已经10余年未曾发生过武装冲突,但是仍有超过4,500名联合国士兵驻守在当地。同时,我们却一直没有履行好最重要的任务:帮助当地人民建立稳定、民主的体制。选举因被指控存在欺诈而延期,临时总理也谈及“这个国家正面临严重的社会与经济困难。”然而军事部署对于解决这些问题毫无助益。 Our most grievous blunder is in Mali. In early 2013, the United Nations decided to send 10,000 soldiers and police officers to Mali in response to a terrorist takeover of parts of the north. Inexplicably, we sent a force that was unprepared for counterterrorism and explicitly told not to engage in it. More than 80 percent of the force’s resources are spent on logistics and self-protection. Already 56 people in the United Nations contingent have been killed, and more are certain to die. The United Nations in Mali is day by day marching deeper into its first quagmire. 我们犯下的最严重错误是在马里。2013年初,恐怖分子夺取了马里北部的部分地区,于是联合国决定派遣10,000士兵与警察前往马里加以应对。令人费解的是,我们派去的军队并无反恐的准备,并且被明确命令不要与恐怖分子交火。超过80%的部队资源用在了后勤和自卫上。到目前,已有56名联合国士兵牺牲,之后必然会出现更多人员伤亡。联合国将就此日渐深陷于马里的泥潭之中。 BUT the thing that has upset me most is what the United Nations has done in the Central African Republic. When we took over peacekeeping responsibilities from the African Union there in 2014, we had the choice of which troops to accept. Without appropriate debate, and for cynical political reasons, a decision was made to include soldiers from the Democratic Republic of Congo and from the Republic of Congo, despite reports of serious human rights violations by these soldiers. Since then, troops from these countries have engaged in a persistent pattern of rape and abuse of the people — often young girls — the United Nations was sent there to protect. 但是,最让我感到不安的是联合国在中非共和国的所作所为。2014年,当我们从非洲联盟手中接过维和任务时,我们可以选择接收哪些部队。没有经过合理的辩论程序,出于现实的政治原因考量,刚果民主共和国与刚果共和国的部队也一起被联合国接收,尽管当时已有报告显示这些士兵存在严重违反人权的行为。自此,这些军队强奸和虐待当地人民的情况持续不断出现,受害者通常都是年轻女孩,而这些人原本是联合国应当保护的对象。 Last year, peacekeepers from the Republic of Congo arrested a group of civilians, with no legal basis whatsoever, and beat them so badly that one died in custody and the other shortly after in a hospital. In response there was hardly a murmur, and certainly no outrage, from the responsible officials in New York. 去年,刚果共和国的维和部队在毫无法律依据的情况下逮捕了一群平民,对他们实施猛烈的殴打,导致一人死于监禁场所,另一人也随后死于医院。但纽约的负责人对此却毫无回应,更别提去表达愤怒了。 As the abuse cases piled up, impassioned pleas were made to send the troops home. These were ignored, and more cases of child rape came to light. Last month, we finally kicked out the Democratic Republic of Congo soldiers, but the ones from the Republic of Congo remain. 随着凌虐事件越积越多,当地人民陈情要求遣返这些部队。这些声音被无视了,同时越来越多强奸幼童的案子被曝光。上个月,我们终于赶走了刚果民主共和国的部队,但是刚果共和国的士兵现在仍驻留在当地。 In 1988, my first job with the United Nations was as a human rights officer in Cambodian refugee camps along the Thai-Cambodian border, investigating rapes and murders of the poor and helpless. Never could I have imagined that I would one day have to deal with members of my own organization committing the same crimes or, worse, senior officials tolerating them for reasons of cynical expediency. 1988年,我在联合国的第一份工作是作为人权干事前往泰柬边界的柬埔寨难民营,调查贫苦无助的平民所遭受的强奸和谋杀案件。我从未想到,自己日后竟要处理实施同样犯罪的联合国人员,更有甚者,还要处理那些出于现实的政治考量而容忍放纵他们的长官们。 I am hardly the first to warn that the United Nations bureaucracy is getting in the way of its peacekeeping efforts. But too often, these criticisms come from people who think the United Nations is doomed to fail. I come at it from a different angle: I believe that for the world’s sake we must make the United Nations succeed. 联合国的官僚体制正在成为它维和努力的障碍,我并不是第一个发出这样警告的人。但这些批评通常来自对联合国抱持悲观态度的人,而我则选择从不同的角度来看待这个问题:我相信,为了全世界,我们必须让联合国成功。 In the run-up to the election of a new secretary general this year, it is essential that governments, and especially the permanent members of the Security Council, think carefully about what they want out of the United Nations. The organization is a Remington typewriter in a smartphone world. If it is going to advance the causes of peace, human rights, development and the climate, it needs a leader genuinely committed to reform. 面对今年即将到来的新任联合国秘书长选举,世界各国,尤其是各安理会常任理事国,需要好好想想他们想从联合国得到些什么。这个机构就像一台智能手机时代的雷明顿打字机,如若仍有心继续推进关于和平、人权、发展与气候等议题,它就需要一位真心实意寻求变革的领导人。 The bureaucracy needs to work for the missions; not the other way around. The starting point should be the overhaul of our personnel system. We need an outside panel to examine the system and recommend changes. Second, all administrative expenses should be capped at a fixed percentage of operations costs. Third, decisions on budget allocations should be removed from the Department of Management and placed in the hands of an independent controller reporting to the secretary general. Finally, we need rigorous performance audits of all parts of headquarters operations. 联合国的官僚体系需要服务于各项任务,而不是反其道行之。第一步应先全面革新人事体制。我们需要一个外部小组来检视这个体制并提供变革建议。第二,所有行政支出都应该控制在任务总费用的某个固定比例内。第三,分配预算的权力应当从管理部门转移至一个直接向秘书长汇报的独立主管人。最后,我们需要对总部行动的各个部分进行严格的绩效审计。 Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is a man of great integrity, and the United Nations is filled with smart, brave and selfless people. Unfortunately, far too many others lack the moral aptitude and professional abilities to serve. We need a United Nations led by people for whom “doing the right thing” is normal and expected. 潘基文秘书长为人诚实正直,联合国也充满了聪明、勇敢与无私的人。可惜的是,太多的人缺少必要的道德品质与专业能力。我们期望联合国被这样一个人领导:对他/她来说,“做正确的事”是平常且可以期待的。 (编辑:辉格@whigzhou) *注:本译文未经原作者授权,本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利,如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容,请私信联系,我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组,致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

[译文]美利坚治世行将就木?

The Global Vote of No Confidence in Pax Americana
全球对美利坚治世投下不信任票

作者:WRM @ 2016-4-5
译者:焦美淳(@火车入巷)
校对:Drunkplane(@Drunkplane-zny)
来源:The American Interest,http://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/04/05/the-global-vote-of-no-confidence-in-pax-americana/

Defense spending is rising around the world, and it’s not because people feel safer. Bloomberg:

世界各地的国防开支都在上升,而这不是因为人们感到越来越安全。彭博社讯:

Global military spending has begun rising in real terms for the first time since the U.S. began its withdr(more...)

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The Global Vote of No Confidence in Pax Americana 全球对美利坚治世投下不信任票 作者:WRM @ 2016-4-5 译者:焦美淳(@火车入巷) 校对:Drunkplane(@Drunkplane-zny) 来源:The American Interest,http://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/04/05/the-global-vote-of-no-confidence-in-pax-americana/ Defense spending is rising around the world, and it’s not because people feel safer. Bloomberg: 世界各地的国防开支都在上升,而这不是因为人们感到越来越安全。彭博社讯:
Global military spending has begun rising in real terms for the first time since the U.S. began its withdrawal of troops from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. 根据斯德哥尔摩国际和平研究所(SIPRI)的数据,自美军从伊拉克和阿富汗撤军后,全球军事开支第一次有了实际增长。 Defense budgets rose 1 percent to $1.68 trillion in 2015, making up about 2.3 percent of the world’s gross domestic product, Sipri said in a report Tuesday. While the U.S. spent the most at $596 billion, that was down 2.4 percent compared with 2014, while China’s outlay increased 7.4 percent to $215 billion. SIPRI在周二的报告中指出,2015年全球国防预算增加了1%,达到1.68万亿美元,占世界国内生产总值的2.3%。其中美国以5960亿美元的支出高居首位,这一数据比2014年降低2.4%。而中国的国防经费则提高了7.4%,达2150亿美金。 Concern about a possible advance by Russia into North Atlantic Treaty Organization territory following the Crimea invasion and hostilities in east Ukraine led to a surge in spending in Eastern Europe, as Chinese ambitions in the South China Sea spurred arms purchases among Southeast Asian states. 随着克里米亚的遭受入侵以及发生在东乌克兰的敌对行动,对俄罗斯可能挺进北约领土的担忧已导致东欧的军事支出出现了井喷式的增长。同时中国在南海的野心也刺激了东亚国家的武器采购。
What’s forgotten among all the grousing by President Obama and Donald Trump about ‘free riding’ allies is this basic fact of international life: the Pax Americana was intended to suppress global geopolitical and military competition by providing a framework for international security. That benefitted the world by making countries safer at a lower cost and by assuring people that their national defense and access to world trade and markets did not require them to build huge military establishments. 在奥巴马总统和唐纳德·川普抱怨那些“搭顺风车”的盟国时,他们忘记了国际生活的这一基本事实:美利坚治世【译注:第二次世界大战后美国强权主导之下非共产世界的和平秩序】提供一个国际安全框架,旨在抑制全球地理政治和军事的竞争。美利坚治世让全世界受益,它以更低的开支使各国更加安全,并向人们保证他们不需要去建造大量的军事设施来换取国防安全和世界贸易市场的通行证。 People who don’t know much about history or understand American foreign policy will look at the result—that the U.S. spent more on the military than other countries—and think that we were somehow getting snookered. But they forget—or perhaps they never learned—some vital facts: 不怎么懂历史或者不理解美国外交政策的人只会看结果——美国在军事上的花费比其他国家都多——从而认为我们以前不知怎地就被骗了。但是他们忘记了——或者说也许他们从不知道——一些重要的事实: 1. The U.S., a country whose economic and security interests extend globally more than those of any other country thanks both to our geography and the nature of our economy, benefits more than any other country from the existence of a global economic and security system 1. 因为我们的地理位置和经济性质,美国的经济和安全利益辐射全球,甚于其他任何一个国家,因此从全球经济和安全体系中的所获利益也甚于其他任何一个国家。 2. It is actually cheaper for us to maintain this framework when other countries don’t feel the need to spend lots of money on their militaries—when the U.S. spends less than 4% of GDP on defense but has a bigger defense budget than the rest of the world combined, that is the sign of a successful strategy: our military superiority is immense and unchallengeable, yet the cost to us, is by historical great power standards, low. That is the sign of strategic success, not of ‘free riding allies’, Mr. Obama and Mr. Trump. 2. 事实上,当其他国家觉得在军事上并不需要有大量开销的时候,维持这个框架对我们来说成本更低——当美国的国防开支少于GDP的4%,国防预算却比其他所有国家总和还多,这标志着一个成功的战略:我们的军事优势是巨大且不容挑战的;而其成本——按照历史上的强国标准——仍是很低的。奥巴马先生和川普先生,这就是战略成功的标志,而不是让同盟国“搭顺风车”。 3. The other reason that the U.S. has followed this strategy is the bitter experience of the past that teaches an important lesson: multipolar arms races lead to great power war. The U.S. has believed since the 1940s that another global conflict on the scale of World War I and World War II would mean the collapse of global civilization, or even the extermination of the human race. We have therefore made it a centerpiece of our policy to deter other powers from building huge military establishments and, when they do it—as the USSR did in its day—to ensure that such powers are deterred from war and that other powers feel safe enough in the shadow of U.S. strength that their military responses, though real, are limited. 3. 令美国遵循这个战略的另一个原因是,过去的苦涩经验给我们上了重要一课:多极的军备竞赛导致强国间战争。自1940年代起,美国就相信,另一场规模如一战和二战的全球冲突意味着全球文明的崩塌,甚至是全人类的灭亡。因此我们政策的中心就是阻止其他政权建立起庞大的军事设施,并且,当有国家这么做时——就像前苏联当初的所作所为——我们会确保阻止这些政权走向战争,并且使其他政权在美国军事力量的羽翼下感到安心,即便他们的军事反应能力被切实地限制了。 For 70 years this strategic approach has prevented the outbreak of devastating wars like those of the first half of the twentieth century. That we did so at an affordable, though not an insignificant, cost, is a triumph of strategic thinking and of American foreign policy. 过去70年,这项战略方针阻止了很多发生在20世纪上半叶那样的毁灭性战争。尽管我们做到了,其代价不能说不大,但仍是我们能够承受的,这是美国战略思考和外交政策的胜利。 Weak leadership and a failure of strategic intelligence now threatens the success of the most successful world strategy of modern times, a strategy whose success has been the root cause of American prosperity and global stability for two generations. There is no enemy powerful enough to destroy the Pax Americana today, except for the greatest of all great powers in human affairs: the power of stupidity. 软弱的领导力和战略情报的失败,如今威胁着现代最成功的世界战略。这个战略的成功,在整整两代人的时间里,是美国繁荣和全球稳定的根本原因。当下没有任何敌人有足够的能力去摧毁美利坚治世,除了所有影响人类事物的伟力中最强大的:愚蠢之力。 We will know that American foreign policy has started to work again when military budgets around the world go down, while ours remains at an affordable level. Those are the metrics we are looking for; right now, we seem to be getting the opposite. 当全世界军事预算下降,而美国的军事预算尚在可负担水平时,我们会知道美国的外交政策又开始起作用了。这些就是我们要达到的指标;而现在,我们似乎正与之背道而驰。 (编辑:辉格@whigzhou) *注:本译文未经原作者授权,本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利,如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容,请私信联系,我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组,致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

长期承诺

【2016-06-02】

@海德沙龙 《从阿富汗的耻辱撤退》 奥巴马从就任伊始便再三誓言要从阿富汗撤军,然而很少有人注意到这样一个事实:正是从撤军前景开始明朗之际,阿富汗的恐怖活动和美军伤亡也开始急剧增加,而在此前,美军对阿富汗的控制其实相当有效且伤亡极低,这一模式在美国的海外干预中屡屡重现

@海德沙龙: 2001-07年,美军在阿富汗总共阵亡279人,而奥巴马第一个任期(2009-2012)四年的阵亡数分别为266,440,365,246,参见: http://t.cn/R5bxYkO

@whigz(more...)

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【2016-06-02】 @海德沙龙 《从阿富汗的耻辱撤退》 奥巴马从就任伊始便再三誓言要从阿富汗撤军,然而很少有人注意到这样一个事实:正是从撤军前景开始明朗之际,阿富汗的恐怖活动和美军伤亡也开始急剧增加,而在此前,美军对阿富汗的控制其实相当有效且伤亡极低,这一模式在美国的海外干预中屡屡重现 @海德沙龙: 2001-07年,美军在阿富汗总共阵亡279人,而奥巴马第一个任期(2009-2012)四年的阵亡数分别为266,440,365,246,参见: http://t.cn/R5bxYkO @whigzhou: 1)只有长期承诺才能给失败国家带来实质性改变,2)相比尽快脱身+周期性干预,长期占领的代价反而更低 @whigzhou: 长期承诺不仅代价低,而且付出代价确实买到了东西,而短期干预到最后都是一场空,白死几千人白花几千亿 @whigzhou: 提早宣布的撤军承诺实际上把无限期博弈变成了有限次且次数很少的博弈,这种情况下,你的潜在敌人不会选择放弃,而你的潜在朋友也不会坚定的站在你这边,大家都在为你走之后的局面而做打算,结果可想而知 @whigzhou: 孤立主义在理论上毫无问题(至少我毫无意见),问题出在对现实的判断上,多了解点历史你就会知道:孤立主义一点不便宜,比帝国主义贵多了。川普说美国承担了整个自由世界的安全成本,让欧洲日本搭了便车,这没错,问题是不让他们搭便车的方案对美国更贵而不是更便宜,这有点反直觉,但符合历史经验。 @whigzhou: 在一家独霸的条件下,美国只须付出3-4%的GDP用作军费,这个比例和1815-1914年大英治世中英国的军费开支相仿,而在缺乏霸主、各大强权分头自保各自承担代价的条件下,军费开支通常是5-10%,这还是没有大战的情况下,大战频仍时,这一比例上升到10-20%。 @whigzhou: 这还没算上,若要维持目前的贸易量,你得为所有商船护航,要么只能放弃大部分现有贸易,无论何种选择,国内消费品价格可能都要翻番 @whigzhou: 相比之下,帝国主义便宜到何种程度呢?大英只用20多万军队+几十万殖民地军队就维持了1/4个地球的安全,在印度只用了900名文官管理4亿国民。  
[译文]从阿富汗的耻辱撤退

Obama’s shameful Afghanistan retreat: This will embolden the Taliban, Al Qaeda and ISIS
奥巴马撤离阿富汗之举很可耻:这会鼓励塔利班、基地组织和伊斯兰国

作者:Frederick Kagan @ 2015-10-18
译者:沈沉(@你在何地-sxy)
校对:Whig zhou(@whigzhou)
来源:NEW YORK DAILY NEWS,http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/frederick-kagan-obama-shameful-afghanistan-retreat-article-1.2400776

The headlines should read: “Obama to slash U.S. troops in Afghanistan by over 40% weeks before he hands over responsibility to a new President.” Instead they say: “Obama extends U.S. military presence in Afghanistan.” Talk about controlling the narrative.

新闻头条应该这么写:“在向新总统移交责任数周前,奥巴马将削减驻阿美军40%以上”。但实际上它们是这么写的:“奥巴马延长美军驻阿时间。”看看什么叫做控制叙事方式。

We’re missing the plot here. The 标签: | | |

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Obama’s shameful Afghanistan retreat: This will embolden the Taliban, Al Qaeda and ISIS 奥巴马撤离阿富汗之举很可耻:这会鼓励塔利班、基地组织和伊斯兰国 作者:Frederick Kagan @ 2015-10-18 译者:沈沉(@你在何地-sxy) 校对:Whig zhou(@whigzhou) 来源:NEW YORK DAILY NEWS,http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/frederick-kagan-obama-shameful-afghanistan-retreat-article-1.2400776 The headlines should read: “Obama to slash U.S. troops in Afghanistan by over 40% weeks before he hands over responsibility to a new President.” Instead they say: “Obama extends U.S. military presence in Afghanistan.” Talk about controlling the narrative. 新闻头条应该这么写:“在向新总统移交责任数周前,奥巴马将削减驻阿美军40%以上”。但实际上它们是这么写的:“奥巴马延长美军驻阿时间。”看看什么叫做控制叙事方式。 We’re missing the plot here. The President announced on Thursday the most irresponsible decision he could have made about Afghanistan — second only to the promise he had made earlier to pull almost all U.S. troops. The right decision would have been to keep forces at current levels, or, better, send reinforcements. 我们错过了重点情节。总统本周四宣布了他在阿富汗问题上可能做出的最不负责任的决定——仅次于他此前做出的撤离全部美军的承诺。正确的决定应当是,保持当前的驻军水平,最好是能增加援军。 For we are losing in Afghanistan, again. Security is deteriorating. The Taliban seized and briefly held the capital of an important province north of Kabul. They are threatening another one a short drive southwest of Kabul. U.S. forces destroyed two Al Qaeda training camps in Kandahar, one very large. The Islamic State controls part of Nangarhar Province, east of Kabul. Afghan security forces cannot hold what they have, let alone regain what they have lost. 因为,又一次,我们正在失去阿富汗。安全形势正在恶化。塔利班攻占并短暂占据了喀布尔以北一个重要省份的首府。他们现在还对喀布尔以南车程很近的另外一座首府构成威胁。美军摧毁了基地组织位于坎大哈的两座训练营,其中一座非常之大。伊斯兰国控制了喀布尔以东楠格哈尔省的部分地区。阿富汗安全部队根本守不住他们的地盘,更别说收复失地。 The Taliban had been driven out of almost all the important areas in southern Afghanistan and disrupted elsewhere by the additional forces Obama sent in 2010. The premature reduction of American and allied troops and the operational restrictions imposed on the remaining troops have let the Taliban rebuild. 由于奥巴马在2010年派出增援部队,塔利班曾被赶出阿富汗南部的几乎所有重要区域,在其它地区也遭到破坏。但过早的削减美军及联军部队,并对留守部队施加行动限制,已经让塔利班得以重建。 A couple of years ago the Taliban would not have dared mass forces for an offensive against a major city, because American airpower supporting U.S. and Afghan troops would have decimated them. No more. Now the enemy masses and maneuvers as they did from 2006 to 2009, when they nearly toppled the Afghan government. 数年之前,塔利班根本不敢集结力量攻打任何主要城市,因为支援美军和阿富汗部队的美国空军会将其加以摧毁。现在不再如此了。如今,敌人像他们在2006年至2009年期间那样集结和运动,当时他们差点推翻了阿富汗政府。 A limited number of American forces with the right authorities could prevent them from doing that. But Obama has chosen to allow the Taliban the freedom of action to threaten the survival of the Afghan state once again. 有限数量的美军,如果具有正确的权限,也可以阻止敌人这么做。但奥巴马所做的选择,给了塔利班再次威胁阿富汗政权生存的行动自由。 American forces with Afghan partners drove Al Qaeda almost entirely out of Afghanistan in 2002. U.S., Afghan and allied troops kept them out for a decade — the one enduring success against Al Qaeda President Obama had maintained. 2002年,美军联同阿富汗盟友几乎已将基地组织完全赶出阿富汗。美国、阿富汗和联军部队连续十年将它们拒之门外——这是奥巴马总统对基地组织取得的唯一持久成功。 Now they’re back. The President has thus put in danger even the most limited of the goals he had identified in Afghanistan. 如今他们又回来了。因此,甚至是总统在阿富汗定下的最有限目标,都已被他自己置于摇摇欲坠之地。 The emergence of fighters loyal to the Islamic State in Afghanistan is even more disturbing. The vast majority of them are local insurgents who had been fighting under other banners, so it’s not as if new forces have invaded Afghanistan. But the ISIS brand is much more virulent, violent and extreme even than al Qaeda. It makes the Taliban look moderate. 更令人忧心的是,效忠伊斯兰国的战士也出现于阿富汗。他们中的绝大多数都是当地的叛乱者,此前一直在其他旗帜下战斗,因此并不是说有新的力量入侵阿富汗了。但伊斯兰国的标签更为恶性、更为暴力、更为极端,甚至连基地组织都相形见绌。塔利班看起来都是温和派了。 That such a group has drawn Afghans under its banner is proof of the failure of U.S. efforts against ISIS broadly. Success attracts followers. ISIS will likely radicalize those followers even further, while preparing to unleash greater violence against Afghan forces and U.S. troops. That will be further proof to potential recruits of its success and power, encouraging radicals elsewhere to join ISIS. It is a disaster in every respect. 这一组织已将阿富汗人吸引到其旗帜之下,这是美军全面打击伊斯兰国之努力遭遇失败的明证。成功才能吸引追随者。伊斯兰国很有可能将会使这些追随者进一步激进化,同时准备对阿富汗武装力量和美军部队发动更大规模的暴力活动。而这将进一步向其潜在追随者提供成功与力量的证据,鼓励其他地方的激进分子参加伊斯兰国。方方面面来看,这都是灾难性的。 The Afghan security forces, meanwhile, are suffering badly. Losses and desertion rates are too high. They lack the equipment to prosecute a modern war against a serious enemy. We built those forces on the assumption that the U.S. and its allies would continue to provide meaningful and reliable air support, help with logistics, planning and intelligence and more. As we have withdrawn that support, they have faltered. 与此同时,阿富汗安全部队正在遭受巨大损失。伤亡率和逃兵率居高不下。他们缺乏装备,没法与可怕的敌人开展一场现代战争。我们建立这些部队时曾假定,美国及其盟友会持续提供有意义的、可靠的空中支援,并在后勤、部署和情报及其他方面给予帮助。随着我们撤销这类支援,他们就变得力不从心。 All this was both predictable and avoidable. The President was warned that he had announced too aggressive a drawdown plan in 2009. He disdained recommendations to keep 20,000 or 30,000 troops in place after the drawdown. He is once again disregarding advice to maintain the current — inadequate — force level in favor of scheduling yet another unjustifiable withdrawal. 所有这些都既可以预测,也可以避免。2009年,已经有人警告总统,他宣布的撤军计划过于激进。他无视了在撤军之后保持20000或30000驻军的建议。现在,他又一次无视了保持当前——尚不足够——驻军数量的建议,而支持新一轮毫无依据的撤军计划。 All Presidents make mistakes. Most come to recognize and learn from them. Others double down. In this case, doubling down on retreat is doubling down on failure. 所有的总统都会犯错。他们中大多数都会承认错误并吸取教训。其他人则加倍下注。在当前例子中,在撤军上面加倍下注就是在加倍失败。 (编辑:辉格@whigzhou) *注:本译文未经原作者授权,本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利,如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容,请私信联系,我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组,致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——