美国从世界第一的位置上“再崛起”？
美国《华盛顿邮报》10月18日刊登文章《美国没有衰落——它在崛起》作者为美国新安全研究中心“亚太安全”研究项目副主任埃立・拉特纳；布鲁金斯学会“维持全球秩序”研究项目会员托马斯・赖特。文章强调，“新兴国家”正在遭遇困难，美国仍占有世界上独一无二的优势，因此美国将不会衰落而是再次崛起。这或许是美国学术界对世界“去美国化”说法的最新回应。
以下为《美国没有衰落——它在崛起》全文：
过去一个月很好地印证了美国衰落的预言。联邦政府关门、债务违约风险，以及导致美国在叙利亚问题上茫然失措并迫使奥巴马总统亚洲行取消的政治机能失调等问题，似乎证实美国的优势地位终于走向终结。
迎来战略优势新时代
但预测美国衰落一直都是有风险的。20世纪70年代和80年代末，伴随着强权衰落预期而来的是地缘政治复兴。
我们有充分理由相信，如今这种循环再次上演。尽管华盛顿陷入僵局，但美国正从金融危机中恢复过来，并把持久的力量和能源等影响力的新来源结合起来。与此同时，新兴国家陷入自身的麻烦中。综合来看，这些事态发展预示着美国战略优势新时代将要来临。
新兴经济体是过去十年的宠儿，2003年至2012年间年均增长率达到约7%。有人估计，到2016年，中国的国内生产总值(GDP)将超越美国。
如今的情况已大不相同。巴西的增长率从2010年的超过7%跌至不到1%。与之类似，2012年印度的增长率下滑至约3%，而仅仅两年前还是两位数的增长。也许最显著的是，中国政府正在下调官方增长目标。
新兴国家的政治体制也出现了裂痕。从整体角度看，这些“崛起国家”也好不到哪去。它们建立的国际框架———金砖国家、上海合作组织以及印度、巴西和南非对话论坛持续令人失望。
软硬实力仍遥遥领先
与此同时，美国的命运出现转机。失业率已从2009年的峰值10%降至7%多一点。相比之下，欧元区失业率仍困在12%左右。
美国财政状况也在好转。超党派的国会预算局估计，2013年的年度预算赤字将降至6500亿美元以下，是2008年以来规模最小的赤字，约等于2011年的一半。此外，美元仍是世界第一储备货币。
更具变革意义的是，美国正在经历能源革命。据麦肯锡全球研究所预测，这场能源革命对年度GDP增长的贡献值达到4%，而且能在2020年前创造170万个新就业岗位。美国已准备好取代俄罗斯成为世界第一大石油和天然气生产国。而且有迹象表明，低成本和丰富的能源正在推动美国制造业复兴。
就硬实力而言，美国军队走在下一代技术的前沿，包括无人系统、机器人技术和激光等。比硬件更杰出的是软件，如能够应对高度先进的联合行动和大规模战役的指挥与控制系统。此外，美国仍是国际社会的关键。借助于强硬外交、经济压力和军事行动的“幽灵”，华盛顿保留了集结有效多国联盟的能力，把利比亚的穆阿迈尔・卡扎菲赶下台，让武器核查员进入叙利亚，并着手正式谈判以约束伊朗的核武器计划。
更广泛也是最重要的，美国享有人口、地理、高等教育和创新等良好基本面的极佳组合。这确保了美国拥有能够让它在国内和世界舞台上意气风发的人力、思想和安全。
当然，经济复苏还不完全，美国仍需花大力气解决债务和增长问题，但正如2012年7月澳大利亚时任外长鲍勃・卡尔恰如其分地表示：“美国只需要一个预算协议就能终结所有关于美国正在衰落的言论。”说起来容易做起来难，但与新兴国家所面临的巨大挑战相比，美国的问题还是容易解决一些。
尽管现在华盛顿的党派之争如此激烈，但美国克服了更严重的社会纷争和政治混乱。近来公众对国会蓄意阻挠者的不满是有关美国政治革新倾向的有益提醒。
领导建立新国际规范
“独居高位”也会带来巨大机遇，有助于建设美国在20世纪90年代所未能巩固的自由秩序。这不是对现有体制的简单重建，而是需要在美国领导下从头开始建立国际规范、准则和制度。华盛顿将拥有重新商讨美国-中东关系及在该地区事务的新优势；美国对伊朗制裁的成功仅仅是美国作为一个能源强国的初步表现。
美国还能牵头订立横跨太平洋和大西洋的历史性贸易协议，为长期以来被保护主义和低标准所破坏的全球贸易日程重新注入活力。华盛顿可以利用其新能量，在无人机战争和攻击性网络能力等新兴安全议题上研究制定国际准则。这一切均有利于建设一个更繁荣、更安全的美国。
上述设想面临的首要风险是，在经历了艰难的十年之后，美国人可能选择对国际事务不管不问。据芝加哥全球事务学会的一项调查，38%的美国人想要从国际事务中抽身而出，为1947年以来的最高水平。
但是，收缩是一个严重错误。美国在国内的振作为其在海外的领导权提供了所有必要工具。对美国塑造外部社会的能力持谦虚态度，不是欠缺继续在海外推进美国利益和普世价值所需雄心的借口。
华盛顿应准备再次领导世界，而不是接受衰落。 （文学城）
America’s not in decline — it’s on the rise
By Ely Ratner and Thomas Wright, Published: October 18 E-mail the writers
Ely Ratner is deputy director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. Thomas Wright is a fellow with the Managing Global Order project at the Brookings Institution.
It’s been a banner month for the oracles of American decline. The shutdown of the federal government, the prospect of a default on the country’s debt, and the political dysfunction that made the United States seem rudderless on Syria and forced the cancellation of President Obama’s trip to Asia seemed to confirm that the end of American preeminence is finally upon us.
Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass argued that Washington was “hastening the emergence of a post-American world.” The Guardian’s Timothy Garton Ash wrote that “the erosion of American power is happening faster than most of us predicted — while the politicians in Washington behave like rutting stags with locked antlers.” And the financial Web site MarketWatch declared: “This is what decline of a superpower looks like.”
The idea that such a moment was coming has dominated U.S. foreign policy circlessince the late 2000s. The declinists warn that in light of American difficulties at home and abroad, and the rapid rise of new powers such as Brazil, India and China, we should prepare for a global order no longer dominated by the United States. Some argue that the United States should retrench and do less. Others that it should share the burden of leadership with the emerging titans.
But predicting the decline of the United States has always been risky business. In the 1970s and late 1980s, expectations of waning power were followed by periods of geopolitical resurgence.
There’s every reason to believe that cycle is recurring today. Despite gridlock in Washington, America is recovering from the financial crisis and combining enduring strengths with new sources of influence,including energy. Meanwhile, emerging powers are running into troubles of their own. Taken together, these developments are ushering in a new era of American strategic advantage.
Emerging economies were the darlings of the past decade, growing at an average of roughly 7 percent annually between 2003 and 2012. By some calculations, China was poised to surpass the United States in GDP by 2016.
Today, the picture couldn’t look more different. Brazil’s growth rate has fallen from more than 7 percent in 2010 to just under 1 percent. Likewise, Indian growth tumbled to about 3 percent in 2012, down from double digits as recently as two years earlier. Perhaps most pronounced, China’s government is revising down its official growth targets. Analysts are no longer asking whether there will be a Chinese economic slowdown but rather how hard the landing will be.
Morgan Stanley has identified five particularly fragile emerging-market currencies: Brazil’s real, India’s rupee, Indonesia’s rupiah, South Africa’s rand and Turkey’s lira. Those countries are vulnerable to high inflation, large deficits, low growth and a downturn in China. And they may soon face problems in international financing.
The political systems in emerging powers are fraying, too. There have been huge protests in Brazil over wasteful government spending and inadequate social programs. Russia looks more authoritarian by the day. And the Chinese Communist Party is stepping up efforts to crack down on journalists, academics and bloggers in what seems to be an attempt to control the discontent that accompanies slower growth and painful economic reforms.
These “rising powers” are hardly faring better collectively. The international institutions they established — BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and IBSA — continue to disappoint.
At the same time, the United States is experiencing a turnaround of fortunes. The unemployment rate has fallen to just over 7 percent from an October 2009 peak of 10 percent. By contrast, euro-zone unemployment remains stuck at around 12 percent.
The U.S. fiscal picture is also looking up. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the annual budget deficit will drop below $650 billion in 2013, the smallest shortfall since 2008 and approximately half the size it was in 2011. Meanwhile, the dollar remains the world’s top reserve currency.
Even more transformative, the United States is experiencing an energy revolution that the McKinsey Global Institute estimates could add as much as 4 percent to annual GDP and create up to 1.7 million new jobs by 2020. America is poised to overtake Russia as the world’s largest producer of oil and natural gas, and there are signs that low-cost and abundant energy is driving a revival of the U.S. manufacturing industry. Although the United States will have an enduring interest in stable global energy prices, it will no longer rely on direct and uncertain access to Middle Eastern oil, in sharp contrast to energy-starved countries in Asia.
In terms of hard power, the U.S. military is at the forefront of next-generation technologies, including unmanned systems, robotics and lasers. Even more superior than its hardware is its software: the command and control systems to conduct highly advanced joint operations and major wars.
The United States also remains the linchpin of the international community. Through hard-nosed diplomacy, economic pressure and the specter of military action, Washington has retained its ability to marshal effective multinational coalitions, bringing down Libya’s Moammar Gaddafi, getting weapons inspectors on the ground in Syria and embarking on serious negotiations to curb Iran’s nuclear weapons program. You can quibble with process and style, but it’s hard to argue that any of these would have happened without the United States.
More broadly, and most important, the United States is blessed with a superior combination of sound fundamentals in demography, geography, higher education and innovation. That ensures it has the people, ideas and security to thrive at home and on the world stage. There’s a reason elites around the world remain eager to send their fortunes, and often their families, to the United States.
Of course, the economic recovery is incomplete, and much remains to be done on the debt and growth, but as Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr aptly noted in July 2012, “America is just one budget deal away from ending all talk of America being in decline.” Easier said than done, but still easier to address than the mammoth challenges facing the emerging powers.
As partisan as Washington is today, the United States has overcome episodes of far greater social discord and political turmoil. The recent souring of public opinion on the obstructionists in Congress is a healthy reminder of America’s propensity for political renewal.
In this dawning era of strategic advantage, the United States will confront foreign policy challenges largely associated with weakness and instability abroad. Washington will wrestle with the consequences of a fragile China and its implications for the economics and politics of East Asia. The Middle East will continue its painful and bloody revolution. And Europe appears increasingly unable to move beyond protracted stagnation, eroding its ability to play a constructive role in world affairs.
But being lonely at the top will also engender huge opportunities to build the kind of liberal order that the United States failed to consolidate in the 1990s. Rather than simply reengineering the existing system, this will require U.S. leadership to build international norms, rules and institutions from the ground up. Washington will have new leverage to renegotiate its relationships and engagements with the Middle East; the success of U.S. sanctions on Iran is only the first manifestation of America as an energy powerhouse.
The United States can also lead in knitting together historic trade pacts across the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, reenergizing a first-rate global trade agenda long sabotaged by protectionism and low standards. And Washington can use its newfound strength to exercise restraint and develop international rules around emerging security issues such as drone warfare and offensive cyber-capabilities. All of this will contribute to a more prosperous and secure United States.
The principal risk to these efforts is that Americans could choose to wall themselves off from the world after a difficult decade. According to a survey by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, 38 percent of Americans want to stay out of world affairs, the highest share since 1947, and the figure rises to a majority among young Americans who came of age during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
But retrenchment would be a huge mistake. America’s domestic revival provides all the necessary tools to facilitate American leadership abroad. Being humble about the United States’ ability to shape foreign societies, particularly through military means, is no excuse for a lack of ambition to continue advancing U.S. interests and universal values overseas.
Rather than bracing for American decline, Washington should prepare to lead the world anew.
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