基式外交：退出战略的教训 @《基式外交研究》2025年第13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13期

文源：Kissinger, Henry A. "Lessons for an Exit Strategy." The Washington Post, August 12, 2005.

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

关于美军撤离伊拉克的时间表，近期出现了相互矛盾的报道。驻伊美军司令乔治·凯西将军宣布，在预定于12月举行的选举产生宪法政府后，美国将启动“相当规模”的撤军行动。另有消息源透露此次撤军规模或达三万人，约占驻伊美军总兵力的22%。而巴格达方面的高级官员暗示，撤军起始时间可能推迟至明年夏季。无论采取何种时间表，推进进程都取决于安全局势的改善及伊拉克部队训练成效。

此时系统审视撤军战略正当其时。首要问题是：如何界定“进展”与“改善”这两个关键概念？在没有明确战线的非对称战争中，暂时的平静究竟意味着战略成功，还是对手的战术调整？敌方袭击频率的下降，究竟源于其实力耗损，还是蓄意保存战力以诱使美军撤离的谋略？当前态势是否类似1968年越南春节攻势后的局面？当时该事件被普遍视为美军挫败，但历史证明这实为河内方面遭遇的重大失利。

作为曾亲历肯尼迪与约翰逊政府时期越战决策困局，后又在尼克松政府参与撤军决策的见证者，凯西的声明令我忆及锥心往事。在战事持续阶段决定大规模撤军，实属牵动全局的战略抉择。此举将同时影响叛乱势力与政府军的战略盘算，使得对“进展”的界定不仅成为军事判断，更演变为心理博弈。每撤出一名士兵，都意味着剩余部队战力的更大比例折损。留守部队的攻势能力随之递减。一旦启动撤军程序，决策过程恐将受制于惯性而非战略研判，且逆转余地将日益收窄。

尽管存在这样的困难，越南战争期间用当地军队取代美军的决定——被称为“越南化”——从安全的角度来看，总体上是成功的。1969年至1972年末，逾50万美军完成撤离。1971年初，美军停止地面作战。美军周均伤亡从1968至1969年初的400人降至1972年的20人。

这些成果的取得，源于河内春节攻势失败后游击威胁的实质性消除。当时的西贡及其他中心城市安全系数，远胜今日伊拉克主要城市。西贡政府控制约80%国土，战线相对明晰。南越军队逐步具备抵御北越正规军攻势的能力。

1972年，在北越发动全面攻势之际，南越军队在美军空中支援下粉碎其攻势脊梁，标志着越南化战略的成功。北越当局随即接受其拒绝四载的谈判条件。（但此举仍未终结历史争议：若采取不同撤军节奏——或更缓、或更急、或待协议达成后撤军——是否可能加速这一进程？）三年后局势逆转，非因内部动荡，而是北越公然违反《巴黎协定》所有条款，发动传统军事力量入侵。

美国因战争创伤后遗症及水门事件引发的国内动荡，对越援助削减三分之二，国会更立法禁止对受困盟友提供包括空中支援在内的军事援助。作为协议担保方的各国，竟无一方愿施以援手。

这段历史揭示两条适用于伊拉克的原则：缺乏国内支持的军事胜利难以持久；必须构建容纳新伊拉克的国际秩序框架。

当然，历史从不会简单重演。越南是冷战博弈的战场，伊拉克则是抗击激进伊斯兰斗争的关键节点。冷战时期的战略关切聚焦于苏联周边亲美主权国家的政治存续，而伊拉克战争的核心矛盾已超越地缘政治，演变为意识形态、文化信仰与宗教理念的深层碰撞。鉴于伊斯兰极端主义的全球渗透力，伊拉克战局的影响将远比越南深远。若巴格达或伊拉克任何区域出现塔利班式政权或原教旨激进国家，冲击波将席卷整个伊斯兰世界。伊斯兰国家的激进势力及非伊斯兰国家的穆斯林少数群体，将更肆无忌惮地冲击现政权。所有处于激进伊斯兰势力辐射范围内的社会，其安全与内部稳定皆将面临威胁。

正因如此，诸多伊拉克战争反对者亦认同：灾难性结局将引发严重的全球性后果——这与关于越战的争论有着本质区别。但另一方面，伊拉克的军事挑战更具复杂性。伊拉克本土部队接受的训练，完全不同于越战末期的传统地面作战模式。这里没有传统战线，战场无处不在。我们面对的隐秘敌人怀揣四大战略目标：其一，驱逐外国势力；其二，惩戒与占领方合作的伊方人员；其三，制造乱局以扶植符合其意识形态的政权，树立伊斯兰国家范式；其四，将伊拉克打造为下一轮对抗的练兵场，矛头或指向埃及、沙特、约旦等温和阿拉伯国家。

北越军队曾拥有重型装备、毗邻庇护所及逾50万经训兵力。伊拉克叛乱分子仅数万之众，轻武装为主。其最具杀伤力的武器是简易爆炸装置，最有效的投送方式是自杀式袭击，最频繁的袭击目标则是手无寸铁的平民。

面对这种蓄意的、系统性屠杀，伊拉克民众展现出非凡的镇定。最终决定战局走向的，不仅是军事态势，更是民众的认知判断。民众将切身感知安全程度，并据此决定愿承受的牺牲代价。

本质上，伊拉克战争是交战双方战略判断正确性的终极较量。叛乱势力押注：通过打击政府支持者及美方合作者，可迫使更多平民保持中立，从而瓦解政府根基，坐收渔利。伊政府与美方的战略则基于另一种消耗逻辑：叛乱分子专注于平民屠杀，或因其兵力有限而不得不保存实力、回避硬目标，因此叛乱势力可能被逐渐削弱。

根据“游击战不败即胜”的战争公理，僵持局面不可接受。美国战略（包括撤军方案）成败的关键，不在于能否维持现有安全态势，而在于能否增强改善态势的能力。击败叛乱势力，方为唯一具有实质意义的退出战略。

情报质量将成为决定性因素。以下问题亟待厘清：如何评估叛乱分子的战斗力及其战略？在宣布某省份实现稳定前，需在多长时间内将针对平民的袭击降至何种程度？伊拉克安全部队的真实战力几何？可应对何种级别的威胁？伊安全部队遭渗透程度如何？面对叛乱分子要挟（如将领子嗣遭绑），伊军将作何反应？邻国渗透扮演何种角色？如何遏制此类渗透？

越战经验表明，本土部队效能深受政治架构影响。南越曾编列11个师，四大军区各驻2个师，另设3个预备师。实际运作中，仅预备部队具备全国机动能力。驻防本省且兵源来自当地的师级单位往往表现优异，曾在1972年挫败北越攻势。但若调往陌生军区，其战斗力则显著下降，这也成为1975年军事灾难的诱因之一。

伊拉克的等效症结在于逊尼派、什叶派与库尔德人的教派族群对立。越战时期部队效能依托地域纽带，但各省间并无根本冲突。在伊拉克，各教派族群将彼此关系视为不可调和的生死对抗。每个群体都拥有实质性的地域化民兵组织。例如库尔德地区，内部安全基本由库尔德武装维持，国民军存在被严格限制甚至完全排除。什叶派区域情况亦大同小异。

如此背景下，“国民军”概念是否仍具实质意义？当前伊武装力量以什叶派为主，而叛乱活动多集中于传统逊尼派区域。这预示逊尼派与什叶派传统冲突的回归，唯实力对比已然逆转。这些部队或愿合作镇压逊尼派叛乱。但即便完成充分训练，他们是否愿意以国家名义镇压什叶派民兵？其效忠对象是阿亚图拉（特别是阿里·西斯塔尼大阿亚图拉），还是巴格达中央政府？

若这两大权威实质合一，国民军在非什叶派区域除作为镇压工具外，能否真正施政？民主政体在此情境下是否仍可存续？

因此，衡量进展的终极标准在于：伊拉克武装力量在何种程度上体现国家族群多样性（至少部分体现），并被国民普遍接纳为国家象征。将逊尼派领袖纳入政治进程，是平叛战略的重要环节。若此目标落空，安全力量建设或将成为内战序曲。

伊拉克能否通过宪政途径塑造真正的民族国家？

此问题的答案将决定伊拉克成为中东改革路标，抑或不断扩散的冲突渊薮。鉴此，制定撤军时间表应配合邀请国际社会构建伊拉克未来框架的政治倡议。某些盟友或欲作壁上观，但现实安全关切不容其置身事外。我们亟需国际协作，非为军事考量，实为应对政治挑战——这最终将检验西方世界构建适应其战略需求的全球体系的政治智慧。

二、英文

There have been conflicting reports about the timing of American troop withdrawals from Iraq. Gen. George Casey, commander of U.S. forces there, has announced that the United States intends to begin a "fairly substantial" withdrawal of U.S. forces after the projected December elections establish a constitutional government. Other sources have indicated that this will involve 30,000 troops, or some 22 percent of U.S. forces in Iraq. Some high- level statements from Baghdad have indicated that the beginning of withdrawals may be delayed until next summer. On either schedule, progress is dependent upon improvements in the security situation and in the training of Iraqi forces.

A review of withdrawal strategy therefore seems in order. For one thing, how are the terms "progress" and "improvement" to be defined? In a war without front lines, does a lull indicate success or a strategic decision by the adversary? Is a decline in enemy attacks due to attrition or to a deliberate enemy strategy of conserving forces to encourage American withdrawal? Or are we in a phase similar to the aftermath of the Tet Offensive in Vietnam in 1968, which at the time was widely perceived as an American setback but is now understood as a major defeat for Hanoi?

For someone like me, who observed firsthand the anguish of the original involvement in Vietnam during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and who later participated in the decisions to withdraw during the Nixon administration, Casey's announcement revived poignant memories. For a decision to withdraw substantial U.S. forces while the war continues is a potentially fateful event. It affects the calculations of insurgents and government forces alike, so that the definition of progress becomes nearly as much a psychological as a military judgment. Every soldier withdrawn represents a larger percentage of the remaining total. The capacity for offensive action of the remaining forces shrinks. Once the process is started, it runs the risk of operating by momentum rather than by strategic analysis, and that process is increasingly difficult to reverse.

Despite such handicaps, the decision to replace U.S. forces with local armies during the Vietnam War – labeled "Vietnamization" – was, from the security viewpoint, successful on the whole. Between 1969 and the end of 1972, more than 500,000 U.S. troops were withdrawn. American involvement in ground combat ended in early 1971. U.S. casualties were reduced from an average of 400 a week in 1968 and early 1969 to an average of 20 a week in 1972.

These measures were possible because, after the failure of Hanoi's Tet Offensive, the guerrilla threat was substantially eliminated. Saigon and all other urban centers were far safer than major cities in Iraq are today. Saigon controlled perhaps 80 percent of the country with relatively well- established front lines. Vietnamese army units were increasingly able to repel offensives from the regular forces of Hanoi.

When the Vietnamese army, with substantial U.S. air support, broke the back of the North Vietnamese all-out offensive in 1972, Vietnamization could be judged a success. Shortly afterward the North Vietnamese accepted terms that they had rejected for four years. (That they did, however, does not settle the debate over whether a different withdrawal rate – slower, faster or none at all until after a settlement – could have speeded that day.) Three years later, these results were reversed, not because of internal violence but because of an external attack by Hanoi's conventional military force, in violation of every provision of the Paris agreement.

America's emotional exhaustion with the war and the domestic travail of Watergate had reduced economic and military aid to Vietnam by two- thirds, and Congress prohibited military support, even via airpower, to the besieged ally. None of the countries that had served as guarantors of the agreement was prepared to lift a diplomatic finger.

All this demonstrated two principles applicable to Iraq: Military success is difficult to sustain unless buttressed by domestic support. And an international framework within which the new Iraq can find its place needs to be fostered.

History, of course, never repeats itself precisely. Vietnam was a battle of the Cold War; Iraq is an episode in the struggle against radical Islam. The stake in the Cold War was perceived to be the political survival of independent nation-states allied with the United States around the Soviet periphery. The war in Iraq is less about geopolitics than about the clash of ideologies, cultures and religious beliefs. Because of the long reach of the Islamist challenge, the outcome in Iraq will have an even deeper significance than that in Vietnam. If a Taliban-type government or a fundamentalist radical state were to emerge in Baghdad or any part of Iraq, shock waves would ripple through the Islamic world. Radical forces in Islamic countries or Islamic minorities in non-Islamic states would be emboldened in their attacks on existing governments. The safety and internal stability of all societies within reach of militant Islam would be imperiled.

This is why many opponents of the decision to start the war agree with the proposition that a catastrophic outcome would have grave global consequences – a fundamental difference from the Vietnam debate. On the other hand, the military challenge in Iraq is more elusive. Local Iraqi forces are being trained for a form of combat entirely different from the traditional land battles of the last phase of the Vietnam War. There are no front lines; the battlefield is everywhere. We face a shadowy enemy pursuing four principal objectives: (1) to expel foreigners from Iraq; (2) to penalize Iraqis cooperating with the occupation; (3) to create a chaos out of which a government of their Islamist persuasion will emerge as a model for other Islamic states; and (4) to turn Iraq into a training base for the next round of fighting, probably in moderate Arab states such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

North Vietnamese forces possessed heavy weapons, had sanctuaries in adjoining countries and numbered at least a half-million trained troops. Iraqi insurgents number in the tens of thousands and are lightly armed. Their most effective weapon is a homemade explosive, their most effective delivery system the suicide bomber and their most frequent targets unarmed civilians.

The Iraqi population has shown extraordinary equanimity in the face of this deliberate and systematic slaughter. In the end, its perception will determine the outcome as much as the military situation does. It will know how secure it is; it will determine the sacrifices it is prepared to make.

In essence, the Iraq war is a contest over which side's assessment turns out to be correct. The insurgents are betting that by exacting a toll among supporters of the government and collaborators with America, they can frighten an increasing number of civilians into, at a minimum, staying on the sidelines, thereby undermining the government and helping the insurgents by default. The Iraqi government and the United States are counting on a different kind of attrition: that possibly the insurgents' concentration on civilian carnage is due to the relatively small number of insurgents, which obliges them to conserve manpower and to shrink from attacking hard targets; hence, the insurgency can gradually be worn down.

Because of the axiom that guerrillas win if they do not lose, stalemate is unacceptable. American strategy, including a withdrawal process, will stand or fall not on whether it maintains the existing security situation but on whether the capacity to improve it is enhanced. Victory over the insurgency is the only meaningful exit strategy.

The quality of intelligence will be crucial. Specifically, these issues require attention: How do we assess the fighting capacity of the insurgents and their strategy? To what level must attacks on civilians be reduced, and over what period, before a province can be described as pacified? What is the real combat effectiveness of Iraqi security forces, and against what kind of dangers? To what extent are the Iraqi forces penetrated by insurgents? How will Iraqi forces react to insurgent blackmail – for example, if a general's son is kidnapped? What is the role of infiltration from neighboring countries? How can it be defeated?

Experience in Vietnam suggests that the effectiveness of local forces is profoundly affected by the political framework. South Vietnam had about 11 divisions, two in each of the four corps areas and three others constituting a reserve. In practice, only the reserve forces could be used throughout the country. The divisions defending the provinces in which they were stationed and from which they were recruited were often quite effective. They helped defeat the North Vietnamese offensive in 1972. When moved into a different and unfamiliar corps area, however, they proved far less steady. This was one of the reasons for the disasters of 1975.

The Iraqi equivalent may well be the ethnic and religious antagonisms between Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. In Vietnam, the effectiveness of forces depended on geographic ties, but the provinces did not perceive themselves in conflict with each other. In Iraq, each of the various ethnic and religious groupings sees itself in an irreconcilable, perhaps mortal, confrontation with the others. Each group has what amounts to its own geographically concentrated militia. In the Kurdish area, for example, internal security is maintained by Kurdish forces, and the presence of the national army is kept to a minimum, if not totally prevented. The same holds true to a substantial extent in the Shiite region.

Is it then possible to speak of a national army at all? Today the Iraqi forces are in their majority composed of Shiites, and the insurrection is mostly in traditional Sunni areas. It thus foreshadows a return to the traditional Sunni-Shiite conflict, only with reversed capabilities. These forces may cooperate in quelling the Sunni insurrection. But will they, even when adequately trained, be willing to quell Shiite militias in the name of the nation? Do they obey the ayatollahs, especially Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, or the national government in Baghdad?

And if these two entities are functionally the same, can the national army make its writ run in non-Shiite areas except as an instrument of repression? And is it then still possible to maintain a democratic state?

The ultimate test of progress will therefore be the extent to which the Iraqi armed forces reflect – at least to some degree – the ethnic diversity of the country and are accepted by the population at large as an expression of the nation. Drawing Sunni leaders into the political process is an important part of an anti-insurgent strategy. Failing that, the process of building security forces may become the prelude to a civil war.

Can a genuine nation emerge in Iraq through constitutional means?

The answer to that question will determine whether Iraq becomes a signpost for a reformed Middle East or the pit of an ever-spreading conflict. For these reasons, a withdrawal schedule should be accompanied by some political initiative inviting an international framework for Iraq's future. Some of our allies may prefer to act as bystanders, but reality will not permit this for their own safety. Their cooperation is needed, not so much for the military as for the political task, which will test, above all, the West's statesmanship in shaping a global system relevant to its necessities.