Then and now 美国今昔

WHEN the present is perplexing and the future looks bleak, people often seek wisdom in the lessons of the past. That is certainly true of America today as it struggles to cope with economic stagnation, enervating foreign wars and waning self-confidence. Unfortunately, the lessons that the past teaches are seldom precise and are often deceptive. Indeed, they can be downright dangerous. 更多信息请访问：http://www.24en.com/

一俟现实困厄而又前路茫茫，人们每每于昔日教训中找寻智慧。这的确是今日美国实景，为应对经济停滞、外战乏力、自信渐失，美国苦苦挣扎。不幸的是，昔日教训罕难为今昭示方向，且常常误导。实际上，那些个教训，也许危险之至矣。

That is the theme of “The Icarus Syndrome”, one of two impressive new histories of modern America. Peter Beinart, the author, is one of the chastened liberals who supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq and wonders how America could have been so wrong. His answer, to simplify a subtle argument, is that it routinely lets itself be carried away by its successes. Victories, however narrow, beget overreaching ambition. America comes to believe that it has wings. Then, Icarus-like, it soars too close to the sun and the wings melt.

这就是《伊卡洛斯综合症》一书的主题。该书是两部美国现代史新著之一部，令人印象深刻。作者是彼得•贝纳特，他是历经磨炼的自由派人士，他曾支持2003年的入侵伊拉克，而今探究美国何以会如此犯错。他的回答使这个敏感性议题变得简单——美国常自迷成功。成功，无论是多么有限的成功，都引发美国野心膨胀。美国进而相信，它有了一双翅膀。然后，它就像伊卡洛斯（见注1）一样，飞得离太阳太近，随之双翅融化。

Mr Beinart traces America’s invasion of Iraq to the hubris that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. Hubris did not set in immediately. At the end of the cold war America was beset by economic anxieties and wary of military power. But it was then enticed into various small and medium-sized military interventions that turned out well: first in Panama, next in Kuwait (“By God,” said George Bush senior, “we’ve kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all”) and finally in the Balkans.

贝纳特先生从1989年苏联解体美国产生的狂妄开始，探索美国入侵伊拉克事件。狂妄并非即刻出现。在冷战尾期，美国受困于经济不畅和军力戒备。但后来，美国被诱入种种小、中型效果不错的军事干预中：首先是巴拿马，其次是科威特（老布什道：“蒙上帝恩典，我们已经把“越南综合症”彻底踢向一边”），最后是巴尔干。

By 2001 a giddy decade of military, economic and ideological dominance had beguiled America enough to persuade the junior President Bush to greet the September 11th attacks as an “opportunity” (he actually used that word) to do something big: not just strike back at Afghanistan but “liberate” Iraq and thereby remake the whole Middle East. The ease with which America toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan promised a cakewalk in Iraq, which the American military machine duly delivered. Glorious—until the easy conquest gave way to a long and painful insurgency.

2001年，动荡十年间美国形成的军事、经济和意识形态优势使美国兴奋，也足以使新布什相信——把“911”袭击事件作为干点儿大事的“机会”（他确实是使用的这个词）：不仅要反击阿富汗，而且要“解放”伊拉克，从而改造整个中东。美国在阿富汗推翻塔利班政权的轻而易举预示着美国在伊拉克的胜利也会得来全不费功夫。美国的军事机器后来在伊拉克也确实按时的取得了这样的胜利。光荣啊--直到轻易成就的征服被漫长而痛苦的叛乱替代

So far, so conventional?Perhaps, but Mr Beinart’s argument is not only about Iraq. He makes the case that the “hubris of dominance” that dumped American soldiers into Mesopotamia is one of three flavours of hubris to have led American policy astray over the century. Before that came the “hubris of toughness”: the belief, after the over-learned lesson of Munich and appeasement, that America had not only to contain the Soviet Union but also to fight communism all over the globe. And that was preceded by the “hubris of reason”: Woodrow Wilson’s delusion that victory in the first world war would enable America to create a global system of rule-bound peace and reason.

以上这些观点是不是都很老生常谈？也许吧！不过贝纳特论及的不只是伊拉克事件。他把这个事件表述为三味狂妄之一的“优越性狂妄”，这味狂妄把美国大兵们倾入西南亚地区，还把本世纪美国政策引入歧途。“优越性狂妄”之前是“韧性狂妄”：信仰，即美国不仅用以遏制苏联，而且也用以打击全球共产主义的那个信仰，该信仰是在吸取“慕尼黑限谋”和绥靖政策深刻教训后形成。而“韧性狂妄”之前是“理性狂妄”： 即美国总统伍德罗•威尔逊的狂想——第一次世界大战中的胜利将使美国有能力建立一个以规则为约束的和平而理性的全球体系。

Nor is “The Icarus Syndrome” merely a recitation of misbegotten interventions. It is an intellectual history, too, paying as much attention to thinkers such as John Dewey, Walter Lippmann, Reinhold Niebuhr and George Kennan, whose arguments shaped the decisions of presidents, as to the doings of the presidents themselves. Moreover, the thinkers are placed in their historical and institutional contexts and portrayed as warm-blooded personalities with foibles, jealousies and ambitions, not just as purveyors of ideas.

《伊卡洛斯综合症》并非只是一部叙述不当军事干预的著作。它也是一部思想家史，对如杜威、沃尔特•李普曼、尼布尔和乔治•凯南等思想家同样倾注笔墨。思想家们的意见使总统们形成决定，并随即成为总统们的行动。而且，该书把思想家们置于其所处的历史和体制环境中，并把他们描绘成带有些许缺点和癖好、有妒忌和羡慕、有抱负和追求的热血之人，而不仅仅是思想的创造者。

All said, Mr Beinart has produced an original and ambitious study, even if the conclusion he derives from history’s slippery lessons is somewhat commonplace: that America must continue to engage with the world but accept the limits of its power and concentrate on rebuilding the economy on which its strength has always rested. American optimism will remain one of the great wonders of the world, says Mr Beinart, but “no collection of mortals can impose its will on an unruly globe.”

人人皆曰，贝纳特发表了一部具有开创性和高瞻远瞩的著作。即便他从历史的深刻教训中得出的结论显得有些陈词滥调：虽然美国应当继续介入世界事务，但应在其国力可承受的限度内，而且应集中精力重振一直处于停滞的经济建设。贝纳特先生说：虽然美国乐观主义会依旧是世界上伟大的奇迹之一，“但并非一群凡夫俗子就可以把意志强加给难控的地球”。

“American Dreams” by H.W. Brands, a prolific author and teacher at the University of Texas, is a different sort of history: a clear, broad summary of events at home and abroad from the end of the second world war to the election of Barack Obama. For anyone seeking a primer or refresher on America—from the Vietnam war to the civil-rights movement to the space race to the sexual shenanigans of Bill Clinton—this is a crisp, balanced and easily digestible narrative. Mr Brands has no particular argument to press or theory to uphold. He leaves the reader to draw his own conclusions.

由多产作家、得克萨斯大学教师海威•布兰德撰写的《美国梦》，可以说是一部别致的史著：一部美国国内外大事概要，时间跨度从二战结束到奥巴马当选，明晰、畅达。对于欲找一本关于从越南战争到民权运动、从太空竞赛到比尔•克林顿性丑闻的美国史入门书或复习材料的任何人来说，本书是一篇鲜脆利落、布局均衡，浅显易懂的记叙文。布兰德先生没有什么具体的观点要坚持，也没有要支持哪个理论。他让读者自推结论。

One inescapable conclusion is that America’s behaviour in the world has always loomed large in its understanding of itself. As “the last one standing” in 1945, America towered over its rivals. Now, however, Mr Brands notices a strange inversion. At the end of the second world war America’s dreams were collectively ambitious but individually modest. Lately the collective ambitions of America have shrunk, but the individual aspirations of its citizens—their dreams of prosperity, freedom and happiness—are undiminished. The question for the future, one that no historian can answer, is whether the relative decline of America means that the dreams of individual Americans will need to be downsized too.

必然结论是：美国在世界上的行为力始终显得大于其自身的领悟力。作为1945 年的“最后胜利者”，美国强过其对手。可如今，布兰德先生注意到一种奇怪的倒置。二战结束时，美国梦是集体雄心勃发，个人谦逊有加。近来，美国梦是集体雄心日暮，而个人愿望不减——他们还做着繁荣、自由和幸福之梦。未来的问题是，美国实力的相对下降是否意味着作为个体的美国人之梦也需要降一降，这是史学家不能回答的问题。