On NATO

冷战结束时，我在芝加哥大学读电子游戏正规平台生, 我有幸选修了约翰·米尔斯海默关于大国冲突的传奇课程. With the Berlin Wall coming down, the Warsaw Pact dismantled, the Red Army in retreat, 欧洲盟军最高指挥官约翰·高尔文向CNN承认，他不再知道自己应该捍卫哪条战线, 我们学生对正在出现的世界新秩序有许多迫切的问题. 其中最紧迫的问题涉及北大西洋公约组织(北约)的未来。. Did it have a future? 毕竟，它是1949年为了防范苏联的威胁而建立的，而苏联的威胁已经不复存在. Would the member states therefore dissolve their partnership? Mearsheimer thought not. “We’ll probably stick with it for a while,” he mused, “for reasons of...nostalgia.” The lecture hall roared.

Three decades on, we are still stuck with the alliance, and as recent events demonstrate, it is no laughing matter. NATO has become obsolete. Indeed, Washington’s whole Europe-first orientation is anachronistic, a wasteful, 多年前就应该抛弃的昂贵的冷战遗留问题，分散了我们对我们在国外面临的真正危险的注意力.

值得赞扬的是，米尔斯海默比任何人都更强烈地谴责这种发展. A self-described “unrepentant realist,，他对克林顿政府时期界定西方治国之道的咄咄逼人的国际主义没有耐心, Bush, and Obama presidencies. NATO as an anti-Soviet bloc made sense to him; NATO as an ever-expanding club of vaguely like-minded nations was foolish—and dangerous. According to the tenets of realism, when one great power trespasses upon another’s sphere of influence, the result is nearly always conflict, 米尔斯海默坚持认为，北约向东进军就是这种情况. 美国及其欧洲盟友的官员坚称，他们对俄罗斯没有任何企图，但这并不重要. Russian President Vladimir Putin was not convinced. 他把他们的侵犯视为一种生存威胁，并做出了激烈的回应, first by annexing Crimea in 2014, then by invading Ukraine in 2022. 而大多数西方权威人士谴责普京公然违反国际法, Mearsheimer proclaimed that NATO was to blame, 其领导人应该认识到，他们将俄罗斯周边国家纳入其联盟的明显意图将引发战争, and that Putin was only doing what an American president would do if, say, Iran built a military association and invited Mexico and Canada to join. In a gauntlet-flinging guest essay for the Economist in March and a follow-up interview in the New Yorker, 米尔斯海默谴责北约的天真，并呼吁采取务实的解决方案，让乌克兰保持中立，让普京继续掌权, with Crimea and the Donbas in his grasp.

I am not a realist, repentant or otherwise, and I have problems with Mearsheimer’s glibness and moral relativism. 尽管如此，我同意他的观点，即北约不再服务于一个连贯的目标. The principal geopolitical challenge to U.S. primacy in the 21st century comes from China. That is where America’s focus should be. 就地面部队而言，俄罗斯可能仍有资格成为一个大国, but its economy is one-dimensional and shot through with corruption, its population shrinking and aging, its weapons and equipment outmoded, and its troops demoralized. 无论如何，它都不可能像前苏联那样在欧洲横行霸道. Britain and France have nuclear weapons. They do not need the United States to defend them. Why, then, 华盛顿是否继续在欧洲驻军，并承担这种跨大西洋军事伙伴关系的大部分成本? 

Institutional factors play a role, 当然，北约雇佣了许多与北约的保存有利害关系的官僚, and no business dissolves itself voluntarily—but the main reason, in my opinion, 是美国人还没有摆脱新保守主义专栏作家查尔斯·克劳塞默(Charles Krauthammer)所称的“单极时刻”中盛行的错觉,冷战结束后的那个令人兴奋的时期，似乎没有人威胁到美国的安全. Flush with victory, 华盛顿的政策制定者认为，他们可以利用这段前所未有的经济繁荣时期, military, diplomatic, and geopolitical supremacy to remake the world in the American image, 他们认为北约是在欧亚大陆上实现这一目标的完美工具. 因此，他们改变了北约最初的授权，并开始尝试在匈牙利等新成员国培养自由民主, Estonia, Bulgaria, and Slovakia. (当然，在反恐战争中，这种模式扩展到了大中东地区. Bush administration sought to democratize Afghanistan and Iraq.人们普遍认为，增加自由民主国家的数量会降低战争的可能性, since democracies do not fight one another. 因此，北约的扩张将创造一个从易北河到俄罗斯大门的广阔和平区, and perhaps beyond.

Events have not played out in that fashion. Far from nourishing democracy, 北约四个历史最悠久、实力最强的成员国——英国，出现了极右翼民族主义政治运动的兴起, Germany, France, 而维克多Orbán作为匈牙利总理的第二个任期见证了新闻自由的侵蚀, a decrease in judicial independence, and Hungary’s descent by eleven places on the Democracy Index. 雷杰普·塔伊普Erdoğan的土耳其和雅罗斯瓦夫·卡钦斯基的波兰也出现了类似的民主倒退. As for being a force for peace, 乌克兰的大屠杀有力地证明了北约在这方面的失败. 米尔斯海默对冲突根源的诊断可能是错误的——普京可能不顾西方的行动，试图将邻国整合成一个更大的俄罗斯——但北约没有采取任何措施阻止他的侵略. And, of course, there is the perennial free-riding problem, 美国的盟友指望华盛顿保护他们，即使他们的经济足够强劲，足以支付自己的国防费用. 北约东移增加了美国有义务保护的国家数量，而目前由新冠肺炎引发的经济衰退使美国无法承担这样的承诺.

Clearly, NATO has outlived its usefulness to the United States. 拜登政府应该尽快脱离韩美同盟. This can be done diplomatically, with some face-saving rhetoric and assurances that the departure of U.S. troops will not adversely affect Euro-American investment or trade. 我们还可以提醒西班牙和土耳其这样的国家，他们仍然可以自由地用美国提供的武器武装自己, of course, that they foot the bill. 然后，华盛顿应该重新调整其大战略，以适应改变了的全球力量平衡.