NEW YORK – The eccentric
Bengali intellectual Nirad C. Chaudhuri once explained the end of the British
Raj in India as
a case of “funk,” or loss of nerve. The British had stopped believing in their
own empire. They simply lost the will, in Rudyard Kipling’s famous words, to
fight “the savage wars of peace.”In fact, Kipling’s poem, “The White Man’s Burden,” which exhorted the white race to spread its values to the “new-caught sullen peoples, half devil and half child,” was not about the British Empire at all, but about the United States. Subtitled “The United States and the Philippine Islands,” it was published in 1899, just as the US was waging a “savage war of peace” of its own.
Chaudhuri had a point. It is difficult to sustain an empire without the will to use force when necessary. Much political rhetoric, and a spate of new books, would have us believe that the US is now in a dangerous state of funk.
For example, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney likes to castigate President Barack Obama for “apologizing for America’s international power,” for daring to suggest that the US is not “the greatest country on earth,” and for being “pessimistic.” By contrast, Romney promises to “restore” America’s greatness and international power, which he proposes to do by boosting American military force.
Romney’s Kipling is the neo-conservative intellectual Robert Kagan, whose new book, The World America Made, argues against “the myth of American decline.” Yes, he admits, China is growing in strength, but US dominance is still overwhelming; American military might can still “make right” against any challenger. The only real danger to US power is “declinism”: the loss of self-belief, the temptation to “escape from the moral and material burdens that have weighed on [Americans] since World War II.” In a word, funk.
Like Chaudhuri, Kagan is an engaging writer. His arguments sound reasonable.
And his assessment of US
firepower is no doubt correct. True, he has little time for domestic problems
like antiquated infrastructure, failing public schools, an appalling health
care system, and grotesque disparities in income and wealth. But he is surely
right to observe that no other power is threatening to usurp America’s
role as the world’s military policeman. Less certain, however, is the premise that the world order would collapse without “American leadership.” France’s King Louis XV allegedly declared on his deathbed: “Après moi, le déluge” (After me, the flood). This is the conceit of all great powers.
Even as the British were dismantling their empire after World War II, the French and Dutch still believed that parting with their Asian possessions would result in chaos. And it is still common to hear autocratic leaders who inherited parts of the Western empires claim that democracy is all well and good, but the people are not yet ready for it. Those who monopolize power cannot imagine a world released from their grip as anything but a catastrophe.
In Europe after World War II, Pax Americana, guaranteed by US military power, was designed “to keep the Russians out and Germany down.” In Asia, it was meant to contain communism, while allowing allies, from Japan to Indonesia, to build up economic strength. Spreading democracy was not the main concern; stopping communism – in Asia, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the Americas – was. In this respect, it succeeded, though at great human cost.
But, now that the specter of global communist domination has joined other fears – real and imagined – in the dustbin of history, it is surely time for countries to start handling their own affairs. Japan, in alliance with other Asian democracies, should be able to counterbalance China’s growing power. Similarly, Europeans are rich enough to manage their own security.
But neither Japan nor the European Union seems ready to pull its own weight, owing in part to decades of dependency on US security. As long as Uncle Sam continues to police the world, his children won’t grow up.
In any case, as we have seen in Iraq and Afghanistan, “savage wars of peace” are not always the most effective way to conduct foreign policy. Old-fashioned military dominance is no longer adequate to promote American interests. The Chinese are steadily gaining influence in Africa, not with bombers, but with money. Meanwhile, propping up secular dictators in the Middle East with US arms has helped to create Islamist extremism, which cannot be defeated by simply sending more drones.
The notion promoted by Romney and his boosters that only US military power can preserve world order is deeply reactionary. It is a form of Cold War nostalgia – a dream of returning to a time when much of the globe was recovering from a ruinous world war and living in fear of communism.
Obama’s recognition of America’s limitations is not a sign of cowardly pessimism, but of realistic wisdom. His relative discretion in the Middle East has allowed people there to act for themselves. We do not yet know what the outcome there will be, but “the greatest country on earth” cannot impose a solution. Nor should it.
Ian Buruma is Professor of Democracy and Human Rights at Bard
College,
and the author most recently of Taming the Gods: Religion and Democracy on
Three Continents.
Ian Buruma: 美國式恐慌
紐約——以行為古怪聞名的孟加拉學者尼拉德·C·昌杜裡
(Nirad C. Chaudhuri) 曾將英國在印度統治的終結解釋為某種“恐慌”，或者說喪失了勇氣。英國人對自己的帝國已不抱任何信念。正如英國作家吉卜林
(Rudyard Kipling) 的名言所說：他們簡直就失去了那種為和平而作“野蠻之戰”的意志。
事實上，在吉卜的《白人的負擔》一詩裡, 他號召白種人將自己的價值觀傳播到那些“新近捕獲慍然怒色，半魔半童的人們”根本與英帝國無關，而是在說美國。這首副標題為“美國與菲律賓群島”的詩作發表於1899年，恰逢美國正在發動一場自己的“野蠻和平之戰。”
昌杜裡的話是有一定道理的。如果在必要時刻沒有使用武力的決心，自然也無法維持一個帝國。許多政治辭藻以及湧現大量的新書都令我們相信美國如今正處於危險中。
例如美國共和黨總統候選人米特·羅姆尼 (Mitt Romney) 就痛批總統奧巴馬“為美國的全球霸權道歉”，甚至認為美國並非“地球上最強大的國家”並過於悲觀。羅姆尼同時還承諾要“重建”美國崇高的形象以及其全球霸權，並計劃通過擴張軍力來實現這一點。
而羅姆尼背後的“吉卜林”則是准保守派學者羅伯特·卡干 (Robert Kagan)，後者在其新書《美國所締造的世界》中極力反駁“美國衰退的謠言”。沒錯，他承認中國的力量正在不斷壯大，但認為美國依然佔有壓倒性優勢﹔美國的軍事力量依然能“糾正”任何挑戰者。而對美國實力的唯一真實威脅則是“衰退主義”：失去了自信，試圖“逃避那種自二戰以來就由（美國人）來承擔的道德和物質重任”。一言以蔽之：恐慌。
跟昌杜裡一樣，卡干是個相當有水平的作家。他的說法聽上去句句在理，對美國軍事實力的評估無疑是正確。沒錯，他對老化落後的基礎設施，教學質量低劣的公立學校，極端糟糕的醫療衛生系統，還有駭人聽聞的收入和財富差距等國內問題不太理睬。但他也正確地觀察到沒有任何勢力會想取代美國世界警察的角色。
但在卡干言論中無法令人確信的一點則是認為世界秩序將在失去“美國領導”之后崩潰。據說法國皇帝路易十五曾留下一句遺言：“Après
moi, le déluge（我死後，大洪水必至）”但這只不過是所有強權者的臆想罷了。
即便在英國人在二戰後逐漸拆解自己的帝國之時，法國人和荷蘭人還依然相信放棄自己的亞洲殖民地會引發混亂。我們也經常能聽到那些繼承了西方帝國某些特質的獨裁者們宣稱民主什麼都好，只不過自己的人民還未做好實施的准備。在那些壟斷權力者的思維中，一旦擺脫了他們的控制，天下必將大亂。
在二戰後的歐洲，由美國軍事力量作為保障的和平就是專門設計來“隔離俄國，壓制德國”的。在亞洲，這意味著遏制共產主義並允許日本和印尼這樣的盟國發展經濟。傳播民主並未主要目的﹔遏制共產主義——不管是在亞洲、歐洲、非洲，中東和美洲——才是要務。在付出了巨大的人員傷亡代價之後，他們終於在這方面取得了成功。
但如今對全球共產主義的憂慮又與那些存在於歷史的垃圾桶中的，真真假假的恐懼結合在了一起，而這當然也是時候讓那些國家去處理自己的問題。日本應該與其他亞洲民主國家結盟，共同抗衡不斷壯大的中國。同樣，富有的歐洲人也該承擔起自己的防務責任了。
但在對美國數十年的依賴之後，無論是日本人還是歐洲人似乎都尚未准備好動用自身實力。可見只要山姆大叔還在地球上巡邏，他的孩子就無法自立。
在任何情況下，正如我們在伊拉克和阿富汗所看到的一樣，“殘忍的和平之戰”並不是實踐外交政策的最有效方式。舊式的軍事霸權不再適用於推動美國利益。中國人正在非洲穩步增加其影響力，但用的不是轟炸機，而是鈔票。與此同時，借助美國武力推翻中東地區世俗獨裁者的做法反而助長了伊斯蘭極端主義，而這也不是多派幾架戰斗機就能解決的。
羅姆尼及其智囊所提倡的那種隻有美國軍事力量才能維護世界秩序的說法是極端反動的。這是某種形式的冷戰回光返照——夢想回到一個世界大部分國家都剛擺脫一場殘酷世界大戰並生活在對共產主義的恐懼中的時代。
而奧巴馬對美國局限性的認識並不是悲觀主義的懦弱表現，而是一種實用的智慧。他那種相對謹慎的做法令中東人民可以自己行動起來。雖然我們還不知道此舉會帶來什麼樣的結果，但“地球上最偉大的國家”無法，也不應該把一個解決方案強加於人。
Ian Buruma，美國巴德學院民主與人權學教授，著有《馴服眾神：三塊大陸上的宗教與民主》一書。
