基式外交：变迁中的全球秩序 @《基式外交研究》2025年第5期

作者：亨利・A・基辛格

来源：大外交青年智库基式外交研究中心《基式外交研究》2025年第5期

文源：Kissinger, Henry A. "A Global Order in Flux." The Washington Post, July 9, 2004.

声明：基式外交研究中心转载、编译与翻译的内容均为非商业性引用（学术研究），不作商用，如有问题请即刻联系

一、中文翻译

当后世史家回顾这段历史时，或许会惊讶地发现：今日占据头条的伊拉克战争及其引发的争议，相较于我们时代正在发生的其他国际剧变，终将显得微不足道。世界事务的重心正加速向太平洋转移，国际舞台上的几乎所有主要力量都在重新定位自身角色。

这场变革触及的是国际关系的底层逻辑，而非战术层面的博弈。以美欧关系为例，双方的分歧既深刻又具有结构性。尽管双方都付出了真诚努力，但近期跨大西洋外交对话的结果仍令人沮丧，根源在于大西洋两岸正在经历不同的历史演进路径。欧洲正在发生的最重大事件，是民族国家体系的渐进式消解——自17世纪威斯特伐利亚体系确立以来，这一体系始终是国际政治的基石和政治忠诚的核心。欧洲领导人将更多精力投入到欧洲一体化进程中，这些议题涉及的不是传统外交博弈，而是晦涩复杂的宪法机制设计。由于欧洲历史上的地缘对抗已被转化为内部治理共识，欧洲外交家们试图将这种新型治理经验投射到国际舞台。他们坚持认为，只有获得联合国安理会授权的军事行动才具备合法性。倘若美国在冷战时期对柏林危机采取类似立场，欧洲的政治家们恐怕早已不寒而栗。在战争与和平问题上，欧洲正陷入制度困境：既缺乏足以支撑战略外交的统一机制，又因一体化进程导致各国丧失了传统的国家外交意志。

与此形成鲜明对比的是，美国依然保持着传统民族国家的行为模式，强调主权行动自由。欧洲大陆在接纳美国流行文化的同时，却在政治认同层面悄然与美国拉开距离。由于尚未形成统一的欧洲国家利益观，这种非国家行为体的国际关系思维正逐渐渗透到欧洲公众意识中。坚定的大西洋主义者们开始担忧：欧洲一体化的非国家属性能否与美国的国家主权理念，以及传统意义上的联盟概念再度兼容？

颇具讽刺意味的是，正当美欧关系出现结构性疏离时，国际政治的重心却在向冲突性较低的亚洲转移。俄罗斯、中国、日本和印度等国仍秉持着与美国（以及二战前欧洲国家）相似的民族国家观念。对这些国家而言，地缘政治并非洪水猛兽，而是制定内外政策的基本框架。国家利益概念依然能有效凝聚公众与领导层共识，权力平衡原则仍然主导着他们的战略决策。

由于对国家利益的认知高度相似，俄、中、印、日等国与美国的关系远较部分欧洲盟友融洽。尽管它们反对美国政策中的霸权倾向，但这种反对是以传统外交方式逐案处理的，并且普遍倾向于通过战略对话而非对抗来解决分歧。对这些国家来说，伊拉克战争的意义不在于检验美国的道德领导力，而在于观察美国实现战略目标的决心与能力。至少在避免美国在伊拉克失败这一点上，这些国家存在共同利益：印度担忧国内1.5亿穆斯林群体的反应；俄罗斯害怕南部边疆出现动荡；日本希望在转型期维持日美同盟的稳定；中国则认为中美合作是实现十年战略机遇期的关键。

所有相关国家都在经历深刻的身份重构。俄罗斯正面临着自彼得大帝时代以来从未有过的地缘政治困局：边境地区的非殖民化进程充满阵痛，放弃帝国思维转而构建平等伙伴关系与俄罗斯的历史经验背道而驰。俄罗斯人不得不反复追问：如果不再是帝国，我们将何去何从？这个国家正面临着一系列创伤性选择：如何重新定义与“近邻国家”（尤其是西部和南部的前苏联加盟共和国）的关系；如何应对崛起中的中国带来的地缘压力；如何解决西伯利亚地区的人口空心化问题；以及如何处理中亚能源资源的归属——围绕这一战略资源，19世纪曾在俄、中、印、美之间上演的“大博弈”正在重新上演。美国可以通过持续对话发挥建设性作用，既关注俄罗斯的合理关切，又不盲目接受其所有解决方案。

中国的崛起为全球秩序转型注入了关键变量。随着中国对革命意识形态的重新诠释，民族主义情绪可能成为新的凝聚力量，这使得台湾问题被赋予了深刻的象征意义。中国似乎已做出长期合作的战略选择，我们必须抓住机遇将中美关系提升至超越战术博弈的层面，帮助新一代领导人理解两国长远利益的兼容性。

朝鲜核问题是需要战略视野的典型案例。表面上看，这只是“流氓国家”引发的军控问题，但深层解决方案必须触及东北亚政治演变的核心：中美需要就朝鲜的未来走向、半岛统一进程以及东北亚核约束机制达成共识。这不是北京六方会谈助理国务卿级官员能够解决的技术性问题，而是需要超越无核化本身，着眼于东北亚政治军事格局的长远规划。

或许最具戏剧性的转型发生在日本。二战后的半个世纪里，日本在美国的安全庇护下，以特有的自律专注于经济复苏和政治重塑。千年历史上首次，日本将外交政策完全置于他国卵翼之下。随着国际环境的快速变化，日本正以特有的坚韧与狡黠，系统性地拓展自身行动空间。除了反恐战争中的辅助角色，日本正在为以独立政治实体身份重返国际舞台做准备——这对美国而言既是挑战也是机遇。朝鲜核威胁加速了这一进程。鉴于历史上日本将朝鲜半岛视为国家安全的核心关切，若无有效的反制措施，日本绝不会接受朝鲜拥有核武器。如果六方会谈最终默许朝鲜保留部分核能力，日本将被迫考虑自身核选项，至少会做好快速实施的技术准备。

中国的持续崛起将进一步加剧这种趋势。未来十年，日本可能面临三种战略选择：（a）继续以日美同盟为基轴；（b）尝试建立类似欧盟的亚洲政治实体，可能与中国开展某种形式的合作；（c）保持战略模糊，通过不结盟政策最大化国家利益。目前，日本选择静观其变，同时以特有的含蓄与坚定，在未来十年内构建国内共识——这正是日本微妙外交艺术的典型体现。

印度崛起为全球大国将是未来十年的重要历史事件。尤其值得关注的是，印度的战略关切区域（穆斯林世界与中亚）与美国的核心利益高度重合，两国在这些地区存在重要的合作空间。

自大英帝国时代以来，印度始终抵制在新加坡至亚丁的弧形地带出现外部主导力量。其庞大的穆斯林人口（目前1.5亿，一代人后将超过3亿）使印度比任何国家都更关切伊拉克战争（以及更广泛的反恐战争）的结局——这场战争绝不能成为激进伊斯兰主义的催化剂，因为其后果将跨越印度国界。

当前的国际体系正经历着几个世纪以来最剧烈的变动。美国的历史使命是塑造这种变革进程。正如二战后十年成功构建国际秩序一样，美国外交需要为新的全球治理体系奠定基础。然而，当前的挑战更为复杂：整合范围从大西洋扩展到全球，危机表象往往掩盖深层结构变化。在跨大西洋关系问题上，即使最密集的磋商最终也会遭遇哲学困境：在当前历史条件下，大西洋联盟的特殊性究竟何在？作为一个超国家组织，欧盟可能只会在安理会一致同意的情况下使用武力——这实际上剥夺了北约的特殊地位。大西洋政策的核心挑战在于，同盟国家能否重新找到共同的历史使命感。否则，大西洋国家将陷入类似一战前的国际体系：各国追逐狭隘利益，联盟格局不断变幻。

亚洲国家的发展轨迹则呈现出不同特征。它们与美国的磋商机制有效且运作良好，短期利益驱动着合作进程。然而，存在三个中期挑战：这些国家将根据伊拉克战争的结果判断美国的战略可靠性。矛盾的是，对美国霸权的担忧可能促使它们探索制约美国的选项——尽管动机与欧洲不同：这不是道德或法律层面的考量，而是权力平衡的现实选择。美国政策必须对这些心态保持敏感。美国实力是客观存在，但外交艺术在于将实力转化为共识。这不仅需要与各国保持良好关系以拓展政策空间，更需要一个具有凝聚力的全球愿景，尤其是在涉及全人类共同利益的领域：核不扩散、疫情防控、可持续发展。

一个健康的国际体系需要满足两个条件：成员国将体系维护置于具体分歧之上；体系本身具备捕捉创新机遇的能力。在中东动荡的漩涡中，美国外交必须超越眼前的挫折，着眼于构建一个更具包容性的世界秩序。

二、英语原文

When the history of these times is written, it may well be that the headlines of the day – Iraq and the controversies it has aroused – will pale in comparison to other international upheavals of our period. The center of gravity of world affairs is moving to the Pacific, and almost all major actors on the international stage are defining new roles for themselves.

The transformation is about basic concepts rather than tactical issues. For example, differences between America and Europe are serious and substantive. But the reason the results of recent U.S.- European diplomatic encounters have proved so disappointing – despite serious efforts on both sides – is that the historic evolutions underway on the two sides of the Atlantic are different. The most important event in Europe is the progressive erosion of the European nation-state, which has been the foundation of international politics and the focus of political loyalties since the 17th century. European leaders spend more time on issues of European unification than any other. And these issues involve not traditional diplomacy but esoteric constitutional arrangements. Because the historic rivalries of Europe have been civilized into a domestic consensus, European diplomats seek to apply their new domestic experience in the international arena. They insist that resorting to military force is legitimate only if sanctioned by the U.N. Security Council. The proposition that the alliance involves no special obligations would have sent shivers down the spines of European statesmen had America applied it to the Berlin crisis during the Cold War. On issues of war and peace, Europe finds itself suspended between institutions not yet sufficiently cohesive for a strategic foreign policy and nations sufficiently advanced on the road toward European unification to have lost their historic convictions about a national foreign policy.

By contrast, America remains a traditional nation-state, insistent on sovereign freedom of action. Europe, even as it embraces American pop culture, almost subconsciously edges towards identifying itself politically with what is not American. With a European national interest yet to be defined, these non-state attitudes towards international relations are becoming deeply embedded in European public opinion. Confirmed Atlanticists are increasingly troubled by whether the non-state aspect of European unification can ever be again fully reconciled with the experience of a country driven by state concepts or with the notion of alliance as traditionally conceived.

Paradoxically, the structural estrangement of America from Europe is taking place as the center of gravity of international politics is shifting to Asia, where relations have been far less confrontational. Countries such as Russia, China, Japan and India still view the nation-state as the United States does, and as European states did before World War II. To them, geopolitics is not anathema; it is the basis of their internal analysis and their external actions. The concept of national interest still rallies public and leadership opinion. The balance of power affects their calculations.

Because their perceptions of national interest are so comparable to ours, Russia, China, India and Japan have had far less fractious relations with America than some European allies. Though they reject what they consider hegemonical aspects of U.S. policy, they do so on a case-by-case basis via traditional diplomacy, and they generally prefer a strategic dialogue to a test of will. To these countries, Iraq is not a litmus test of American moral fitness to lead but of American endurance in pursuit of strategic insights. It affects their judgment about America's reliability as a partner and its capacity to achieve its goals. For each of these countries has an interest, at a minimum, in averting U.S. defeat in Iraq: India because of its large Muslim population; Russia because of its fear of turmoil on its southern flank; Japan because of its continued stake in a strong America and the American alliance during its period of transition; China because it believes a partnership with America is the best road to a decade of stability.

All the countries involved are redefining their identities. Russia, returned to frontiers it has not known since Peter the Great, finds decolonization involving countries at its borders particularly painful. To give up imperial rule and rely on cooperative relationships runs counter to Russian historical experience. Russians are bound to ask themselves the nagging question: If we are not an empire, what are we? Russia is facing traumatic choices: redefining its relations to what it calls the near- abroad – the former republics, especially to the west and south; the proximity of a dynamic China; the emptiness of its Siberian space; the future of the energy resources of Central Asia, around which what, in the 19th century, was called the "great game" between Russia, China, India and America is restarting. America can play a constructive role through permanent dialogue that is sensitive to Russia's concerns without acquiescing in all of Russia's answers to them.

China's emergence as a great power – and potential superpower – is already a principal element in shifting the international center of gravity to Asia. As China reinterprets the ideological premise of its revolution, the temptation of nationalism may become a substitute endowing the issue of Taiwan with a profoundly symbolic aspect. China seems to have made a decision for an extended period of cooperation. The opportunity must be used to lift the relationship above the tactical and to encourage in a new generation of leaders a sense of compatibility between U.S. and Chinese long-range purposes.

The issue of nuclear weapons in North Korea is a good example of the need for a long-range approach. On one level, it has been treated as an arms-control problem caused by a rogue state and has therefore been confined to North Korean-American issues. But a fundamental solution must go deeper. It requires a Chinese-American understanding regarding the political evolution of Northeast Asia, including the future of North Korea, the pace of Korean unification and nuclear restraint in Northeast Asia. This is not a task to be brought to a conclusion at the assistant secretary level of the six-party talks in Beijing; it requires a concept that goes beyond the technical issues of denuclearization, addressing the broad direction of the political and military evolution of Northeast Asia.

Perhaps the most complex transition is taking place in Japan. For a half-century after World War II, Japan, sheltered under a bilateral security treaty with the United States, concentrated with characteristic self-discipline on its economic recovery and return to political respectability. For the first time in its millennia-old history, Japan subordinated its foreign policy to another country. As its international environment is in rapid transition, Japan tenaciously, subtly, indirectly, is systematically widening the margin of action available to it. Beyond the war on terrorism, Japan is adapting its role as an American auxiliary and is preparing to enter the international arena as a principal – a challenge and also an opportunity for America. The North Korean challenge has accelerated this process. Since Japan has historically considered Korea an essential aspect of Japanese security, it will not accept nuclear weapons in North Korea without offsetting measures. To the extent that the six-power talks in Beijing legitimize the retention of some nuclear military capacity in North Korea, Japan will consider a nuclear option for itself and will, at a minimum, place itself in a position to implement it rapidly.

These trends will be accelerated by China's growth. As time goes on, Japan will examine at least three options: (a) to continue a foreign policy based on U.S. alliance; (b) to seek to develop an Asian political entity analogous to the European Union, perhaps in some sort of partnership with China; (c) to refuse to make a choice and adopt a kind of nonalignment to maximize its national interest. For the moment, Japan is content to await developments while building a consensus over the next decade with the indirection and stern insistence on the national interest that are the hallmarks of the subtle Japanese diplomacy.

The rise of India to great-power status is one of the principal events of the next decade. This is all the more true because the geographic area of most interest for India – the Muslim world and Central Asia – coincides with a major concern of the United States, and the interests of the two countries run parallel there in important respects.

Since the days of the British Empire, India has resisted the emergence of a dominant outside power in the arc between Singapore and Aden. With its Muslim population of 150 million, which in a generation will exceed 300 million, India has a greater stake than almost any other country in the outcome of the war in Iraq – and in the wider sense of the war on terrorism – not providing an impetus to radical Islam, because the consequences could not be arrested at its borders.

The global scene is more fluid than it has been for centuries. America's task is to contribute to shaping this ferment. U.S. diplomacy is asked to bring about the elements of a new world order much as it successfully did in the decade immediately after World War II. Yet current conditions are more complex because the area to be integrated is global rather than Atlantic and because the symptoms of crisis often mask the underlying reality. With respect to Europe, even the most intense consultation will ultimately come up against the philosophical question of what makes the Atlantic relationship special under current circumstances. As an institution, the European Union is likely to recoil from the use of force except under conditions – unanimity in the Security Council – that deprive the alliance of its special status. The challenge of Atlantic policy is whether the nations of the alliance can regain a sense of common destiny. In its absence, the Atlantic nations will drift into a world order of constantly shifting constellations in pursuit of narrow national or regional concerns not unlike that preceding World War I.

The Asian countries discussed here march to a different drummer. Their consultation procedures with America are adequate and functioning. The short-term incentives are for collaboration. There are, however, three medium-term challenges. The nations involved will judge our relevance to their concerns by the outcome of Iraq. Somewhat contradictorily, concern over U.S. hegemonical power may tempt these countries to explore options for constraints on American power, though for motives opposite those of Europe – as an exercise not of moral or judicial principles but of the balance of power. U.S. policy needs to be sensitive to these attitudes. American power is a fact of life, but the art of diplomacy is to translate power into consensus. This requires more than good relations with all countries to provide the greatest number of options. It implies, above all, a unifying vision especially on challenges that affect all countries: proliferation; control of epidemics; development.

An international system is vital if its members consider maintaining it more important than the inevitable difficulties that arise in its operation and when it is alive to opportunities for creativity. Amidst the passions of the Middle East, American foreign policy must look beyond immediate frustrations to the vision of a world waiting to be built.