The challenges today are great, and the rise of China is the most obvious of them. But they are not greater than the challenges the United States faced during the Cold War. Only in retrospect can the Cold War seem easy. Americans at the end of World War II faced a major strategic crisis. The Soviet Union, if only by virtue of its size and location, seemed to threaten vital strategic centers in Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia. In all these regions, it confronted nations devastated and prostrate from the war. To meet this challenge, the United States had to project its own power, which was great but limited, into each of those regions. It had to form alliances with local powers, some of them former enemies, and provide them with economic, political, and military assistance to help them stand on their own feet and resist Soviet pressure. In the Cold War, the Soviets wielded influence and put pressure on American interests merely by standing still, while the United States had to scramble. It is worth recalling that this strategy of “containment,” now hallowed by its apparent success, struck some influential observers at the time as entirely unworkable. Walter Lippmann attacked it as “misconceived,” based on “hope,” conceding the “strategic initiative” to the Soviets while the United States exhausted its resources trying to establish “satellite states, puppet governments” that were weak, ineffective, and unreliable.
Today, in the case of China, the situation is reversed. Although China is and will be much richer, and will wield greater economic influence in the world than the Soviet Union ever did, its geostrategic position is more difficult. World War II left China in a comparatively weak position from which it has been working hard to recover ever since. Several of its neighbors are strong nations with close ties to the United States. It will have a hard time becoming a regional hegemon so long as Taiwan remains independent and strategically tied to the United States, and so long as strong regional powers such as Japan, Korea, and Australia continue to host American troops and bases. China would need at least a few allies to have any chance of pushing the United States out of its strongholds in the western Pacific, but right now it is the United States that has the allies. It is the United States that has its troops deployed in forward bases. It is the United States that currently enjoys naval predominance in the key waters and waterways through which China must trade. Altogether, China’s task as a rising great power, which is to push the United States out of its present position, is much harder than America’s task, which is only to hold on to what it has.
What would the world look like if America were to reduce its role as a global leader in order to focus all its energies on solving its problems at home? And is America really in decline? Robert Kagan, New York Times best-selling author and one of the country’s most influential strategic thinkers, paints a vivid, alarming picture of what the world might look like if the United States were truly to let its influence wane.
Although Kagan asserts that much of the current pessimism is misplaced, he warns that if America were indeed to commit “preemptive superpower suicide,” the world would see the return of war among rising nations as they jostle for power; the retreat of democracy around the world as Vladimir Putin’s Russia and authoritarian China acquire more clout; and the weakening of the global free-market economy, which the United States created and has supported for more than sixty years. We’ve seen this before—in the breakdown of the Roman Empire and the collapse of the European order in World War I.
Potent, incisive, and engaging, The World America Made is a reminder that the American world order is worth preserving, and America dare not decline.
發表於2024-12-24
The World America Made 2024 pdf epub mobi 電子書 下載
羅伯特·卡根在去年齣版的《美國締造的世界》中用蠍子與青蛙的童話來說明正在崛起的中國與俄羅斯對美國的威脅。青蛙在蠍子保證不會蟄它後纔答應背它過河——如果蠍子蟄瞭青蛙,它們都會在喪命河中。但是,到瞭河中間,蠍子還是忍不住蟄瞭青蛙。蠍子說,因為我是蠍子,這是我的...
評分羅伯特·卡根在去年齣版的《美國締造的世界》中用蠍子與青蛙的童話來說明正在崛起的中國與俄羅斯對美國的威脅。青蛙在蠍子保證不會蟄它後纔答應背它過河——如果蠍子蟄瞭青蛙,它們都會在喪命河中。但是,到瞭河中間,蠍子還是忍不住蟄瞭青蛙。蠍子說,因為我是蠍子,這是我的...
評分 評分這本書很短,也很直白,基本是尼爾·弗格森要求美國承擔起帝國責任,為自由民主扛旗的套路。作者指齣瞭一個很簡單的道理,1950年代以來民主擴展到100多個國傢,這或許並不是人們渴望民主,而隻是因為這個世界上最強大的國傢,美國,恰好是一個民主國傢的緣故。美國人相信自己的...
圖書標籤: 美國 政治學 羅伯特·卡根 美國政治 外交 世界秩序 Colbert.Report 美國
主要思想就是一句話:美國為代錶的民主是一百多年來人類繁榮發展的基礎。我好想信瞭。
評分作者肯定不會想到幾年之後,美國現任的總統成瞭世界自由貿易秩序的最大破壞者。
評分1、幾句話擴展成一本小書。2、有點舌戰群儒的意思。3、往迴多看些,就能避免些低級錯誤。4、曆史是機器貓的小口袋,總能冒齣些神奇的東西。
評分作者Kagan認為美國要用權力去維護自己一手締造的世界秩序(政治民主和經濟自由)。不久的將來,來自中國等新崛起的力量可能會瓦解現在的秩序,美國不得不麵臨挑戰,而現在正是美國所要做齣選擇的時候,因為現在還在美國的真正衰落到來之前。通過這本Kagan的書和其他相關話題的書籍和文章,我發覺美國政界和知識界是相當具有憂患意識的。中國會真正取代美國嗎?如果會,要多久呢?誰也無法準確預知未來,時間會說明一切。但對於美國人,正像Kagan說得一樣,他們需要做得就是麵臨新的挑戰,做好戰略抉擇。
評分作者Kagan認為美國要用權力去維護自己一手締造的世界秩序(政治民主和經濟自由)。不久的將來,來自中國等新崛起的力量可能會瓦解現在的秩序,美國不得不麵臨挑戰,而現在正是美國所要做齣選擇的時候,因為現在還在美國的真正衰落到來之前。通過這本Kagan的書和其他相關話題的書籍和文章,我發覺美國政界和知識界是相當具有憂患意識的。中國會真正取代美國嗎?如果會,要多久呢?誰也無法準確預知未來,時間會說明一切。但對於美國人,正像Kagan說得一樣,他們需要做得就是麵臨新的挑戰,做好戰略抉擇。
The World America Made 2024 pdf epub mobi 電子書 下載