In a span of only 50 days, President Trump has done more than any of his modern predecessors to hollow out the foundations of an international system that the United States painstakingly erected in the 80 years since it emerged victorious from World War II.

在短短50天的时间里，一个美国自“二战”胜利以来80年间精心构建的国际体系被特朗普严重动摇了根基，他在这方面的作为超过了他之前的任何一位现代美国总统。

Without formally declaring a reversal of course or offering a strategic rationale, he has pushed the United States to switch sides in the Ukraine war, abandoning all talk about helping a nascent, flawed democracy defend its borders against a larger invader. He did not hesitate when he ordered the United States to vote with Russia and North Korea — and against virtually all of America’s traditional allies — to defeat a U.N. resolution that identified Moscow as the aggressor. His threats to take control of the Panama Canal, Greenland, Gaza and, most incredibly, Canada, sound predatory, including his claim Tuesday that the border with America’s northern ally is an “artificial line of separation.”

他没有正式宣布改变路线，也没有解释战略上的考量，却推动美国在乌克兰战争中改变了立场，放弃了所有关于帮助一个新生的、有缺陷的民主国家保卫边界、抵御大国入侵的言论。他毫不犹豫地命令美国投出与俄罗斯和朝鲜一致的票，反对美国几乎所有的传统盟友，挫败一项将莫斯科认定为侵略者的联合国决议。他威胁要控制巴拿马运河、格陵兰岛、加沙，最令人难以置信的是，还要控制加拿大，显得予取予求，包括他周二声称与美国北方盟友的边界是一条“凭空捏造的分隔线”。

He cut Ukraine off from arms and even American commercial satellite imagery, partly out of pique over his blowup in the Oval Office with President Volodymyr Zelensky, but largely because the Ukrainian president insists on a guarantee that the West would come to his country’s aid if Russia rebuilds and reinvades.

他切断了对乌克兰的武器供应，甚至切断了美国的商业卫星图像，部分原因是乌克兰总统泽连斯基与他在椭圆形办公室发生的争执让他愤怒，但主要是因为泽连斯基坚持要求西方保证，如果俄罗斯重整旗鼓再次入侵，他们将向乌克兰提供援助。

Mr. Trump has imposed tariffs on his allies after describing them as leeches on the American economy. And he has so damaged trust among the NATO allies that France is discussing extending its country’s small nuclear umbrella over Europe, and Poland is thinking of building its own atomic weapon. Both fear the United States can no longer be counted on to act as the alliance’s ultimate defender, a core role it created for itself when the NATO treaty was written.

特朗普说盟友是美国经济的水蛭，并对他们征收关税。他严重破坏了北约盟国之间的信任，以至于法国正在讨论将其小型核保护伞扩大到欧洲，波兰正在考虑建造自己的核武器。双方都担心，再也不能指望美国充当北约的终极捍卫者，而这是北约条约起草时美国为自己创造的核心角色。

No one knows how successful Mr. Trump will be in ripping asunder what every American president since Harry Truman has built — an era of institution-building that Mr. Truman’s secretary of state memorialized in a book entitled “Present At the Creation.” To live in Washington these days is to feel as if one is present at the destruction.

没有人知道特朗普会在多大程度上成功地瓦解自杜鲁门以来的每一位美国总统所建立的制度——杜鲁门的国务卿在一本名为《参与创始》(Present At the Creation)的书中回忆了一个体制建设的时代。如今生活在华盛顿，感觉就像身处毁灭的现场。

上个月在圣地亚哥边境口岸附近等待进入墨西哥的货运卡车。特朗普将盟友称为美国经济的水蛭，并对其征收关税。

It could be four years or more before we know whether these changes are permanent or whether the guardians of the old system will hunker down, like soldiers seeking to survive in the trenches of Donbas. By then, the Western allies may have moved on from an America-centric system.

可能需要四年或更长时间，我们才能知道，这些变化是不是永久性的，抑或旧制度的捍卫者会像在顿巴斯战壕中求生的士兵一样躲藏起来。然而到那个时候，西方盟国可能已经脱离了以美国为中心的体系。

Or, as Joseph S. Nye Jr., the political scientist known for his work on the nature of soft power, said of Mr. Trump recently, “He is so obsessed with the problem of free riders that he forgets that it has been in America’s interest to drive the bus.”

或者，正如以研究软实力本质而闻名的政治学家小约瑟夫·奈最近在谈到特朗普时说的那样，“他太沉迷于被别人蹭车的问题，以至于忘记了驾驶这辆大巴从来都是符合美国的利益的。”

But perhaps the more remarkable thing is that Mr. Trump is eroding the old order without ever describing the system he envisions replacing it with. His actions suggest he is most comfortable in the 19th-century world of great-power politics, where he, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and President Xi Jinping of China, negotiate among themselves, and let lesser powers fall in line.

但或许更值得注意的是，特朗普正在侵蚀旧秩序，却从未描述过他设想用什么制度来取代这个秩序。他的行动表明，他最喜欢的是19世纪的大国政治，在这样的体系之下，他与俄罗斯总统普京和中国国家主席习近平彼此谈判，让较小的国家服从。

Mr. Trump is already claiming successes. To his advocates, Ukraine’s agreement on Tuesday to a proposal for a temporary cease-fire, one Russia has yet to accept, appears to demonstrate that Mr. Trump’s use of his leverage over Mr. Zelensky was worth the uproar. But historians may determine these 50 days were critical for reasons that had little to do with Ukraine.

特朗普已经宣称自己取得了成功。在他的支持者看来，乌克兰周二同意临时停火的提议（俄罗斯尚未接受该提议）似乎表明，特朗普对泽连斯基施加影响所激起的轩然大波是值得的。但历史学家可能会认为，这50天之所以至关重要，与乌克兰关系不大。

“The big debate now is whether this is a tactical move to reshape our foreign policy or a revolution?” said R. Nicholas Burns, the American ambassador to China under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and to NATO under President George W. Bush.

“现在，最大的争论是，这是重塑我们外交政策的战术性举措，还是一场革命？”拜登总统任内的美国驻华大使、乔治·W·布什总统任内的美国驻北约大使尼古拉斯·伯恩斯说。

“I’ve come to think it’s a revolution,” he said. “When you are voting with North Korea and Iran against NATO allies, when you are failing to stand up to Russian aggression, when you are threatening to take the territory of your allies, something has fundamentally changed. There is a breaking of the trust with allies we may never be able to repair.”

“我开始认为这是一场革命，”他说。“当你与朝鲜和伊朗一起投票反对北约盟国时，当你未能站出来反对俄罗斯的侵略时，当你威胁要夺取盟友的领土时，有些事情已经发生了根本性的变化。我们与盟友之间的信任被打破了，我们可能永远无法修补。”

‘Nothing will stand in our way’

“谁也别想拦着我们”

In retrospect, the first sign that Mr. Trump’s approach to the world would be dramatically different from the one he pursued in the first term came on a chilly morning early in January at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.

如今看来，特朗普对世界的态度将与他在第一任期中的追求大相径庭，这样的迹象首次出现在1月初一个寒冷的早晨，地点是他位于佛罗里达州的马阿拉歌俱乐部。

For weeks he had sounded increasingly martial about the need for the United States to control Greenland, because of its mineral wealth and its strategic location near Arctic waters used by Russia and China. He accelerated his demands for access to the Panama Canal and kept repeating the need for Canada to become a 51st state, until it became clear that he was not joking.

那个时候，他接连几周使用越来越强硬的语气，强调美国控制格陵兰岛的必要性，因为那里拥有丰富的矿产资源，而且临近俄罗斯和中国使用的北极水域，具有战略价值。他在获取巴拿马运河控制权方面的言论越来越紧迫，并且不断重申加拿大应该成为美国的第51个州，直到人们发现他不是在开玩笑。

At a news conference on Jan. 7, two weeks before his inauguration, he was asked whether he would rule out using military or economic coercion to achieve his goals in Greenland or Canada. “I’m not going to commit to that,” he said. “You might have to do something.”

在1月7日的新闻发布会上，也就是他就职前两周，有人问他是否排除使用军事或经济胁迫手段来实现他在格陵兰岛或加拿大的目标。“我不会为此做出承诺，”他说。“你可能必须做点什么。”

格陵兰伊卢利萨特的渔民。特朗普越来越多地表达了他希望美国控制格陵兰岛的愿望。

It was a stunning threat. An incoming president had threatened to use the world’s largest military against a NATO ally. Some brushed it off as Trump bravado. But in his inauguration, he doubled down. He said the world would no longer exploit America’s generosity and the security it offered to allies. He spoke of an America that would “pursue our manifest destiny,” a rallying call from the 1890s, and praised William McKinley, the tariff-loving president who took the Philippines in the Spanish-American War. And he spoke of creating an “External Revenue Service” to “tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens.”

这是一个令人震惊的威胁。即将上任的总统威胁要动用世界上最强大的军队来对付北约盟友。一些人认为这是特朗普的虚张声势。但在就职典礼上，他变本加厉，声称世界不能再利用美国的慷慨，以及它为盟国提供的安全。他谈到了一个将会“追求我们的天定命运”的美国，这是19世纪90年代的口号，他赞扬崇尚关税、在美西战争中占领菲律宾的总统威廉·麦金莱。他还谈到要建立一个“对外收税署”，“向外国征收关税和税收，让我们的公民富起来”。

“Nothing will stand in our way,” he declared. And nothing has.

“谁也别想拦着我们，”他宣布。他确实没有受到阻挡。

The effort to rip apart the U.S. Agency for International Development, created by President John F. Kennedy as part of the vanguard of American soft power, took just a few weeks; the primary argument playing out in the courts is whether the government has to pay contractors $2 billion for work already completed. Mr. Trump and Elon Musk, who is leading the charge in remaking the government, recognized that foreign aid is so derided by the MAGA movement as a hotbed of liberal values and corruption that the agency was an easy first mark.

美国国际开发署是约翰·肯尼迪总统创建的，是美国软实力先头部队的一部分，瓦解它只用了几个星期；在法庭上的主要争论点是，政府是否必须为已经完成的工作向承包商支付20亿美元。特朗普和负责重塑政府的埃隆·马斯克认识到，对外援助被“让美国恢复伟大荣光”运动嘲笑为自由主义价值观和腐败的温床，因此该机构很容易成为第一个目标。

Dismantling it, they knew, would also strike fear into the hearts of government employees who realized they could be next. Groups that do similar work and were once lauded by Republicans — like the United States Institute for Peace and the National Endowment for Democracy — are on life support.

他们知道，拆除它也会让政府雇员感到恐惧，因为他们意识到自己可能是下一个。美国和平研究所和国家民主基金会等从事类似工作并曾受到共和党人称赞的组织已经岌岌可危。

Ukraine: the first test

乌克兰：第一个考验

The biggest shift was still to come: Ukraine.

最大的转变还在后头：乌克兰。

For three years, Democrats and most Republicans had largely viewed the war through the lens of traditional American foreign policy. It was incumbent on the United States to defend a struggling democracy that had been illegally invaded by a larger power seeking its territory.

三年来，民主党人和大多数共和党人基本上是通过传统的美国外交政策来看待这场战争的。美国有责任保护一个正在挣扎的民主国家，因为它遭到了一个窥觎其领土的大国的非法入侵。

But now, as president, Mr. Trump called Mr. Zelensky a “dictator,” while refusing to say the same of Mr. Putin. He justified his refusal to call Russia the aggressor in the war as a necessary measure to act as a neutral mediator. Then, on his first trip to Europe, his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, declared that the United States would never agree to Ukraine’s admission to the NATO alliance, and said it would have to give up the territory it had lost to Russian aggression.

但现在，作为总统的特朗普称泽连斯基是“独裁者”，却拒绝对普京说同样的话。他为自己拒绝称俄罗斯为侵略者辩护，认为这是作为中立调解人的必要措施。然后，他的国防部长皮特·海格塞斯在首次欧洲之行中宣布，美国永远不会同意乌克兰加入北约联盟，并表示乌克兰将不得不放弃因俄罗斯侵略而失去的领土。

库拉霍夫前线的一名乌克兰士兵。三年来，民主党人和大多数共和党人基本上都是从美国传统外交政策的角度来看待这场战争的。

With Mr. Trump’s blessing, they had given Mr. Putin two of his upfront demands, while making it clear that if Ukraine wanted a security guarantee, he should talk to his European neighbors — but the United States would not participate. The other day Mr. Trump said he found dealing with Russia easier than dealing with Ukraine.

在特朗普的支持下，他们答应了普京的两项首要要求，同时明确表示，如果乌克兰想要安全保证，他应该与欧洲邻国谈判——但美国不会参与。前几天，特朗普表示，他发现同俄罗斯打交道比同乌克兰打交道更容易。

“He has turned U.S. policy on the Russo-Ukraine war 180 degrees,” said John R. Bolton, Mr. Trump’s third, and perhaps most embittered, national security adviser. “Trump now sides with the invader.”

“他让美国对俄乌战争的政策发生了180度大转弯，”特朗普的第三任、或许也是对此最为愤慨的一任国家安全顾问约翰·博尔顿说。“特朗普现在站在侵略者一边。”

But Europe has dug in deeper with the Ukrainians, essentially dividing NATO’s largest power from all but a few of its 31 other members. Not since the Suez crisis in 1956 — when France, Britain and Israel invaded Egypt — has the United States found itself on other side of a conflict from its closest allies. But this breach has been deeper, and more fundamental.

但欧洲加强了与乌克兰共命运的立场，这从根本上将美国这个北约最大国与其他31个成员的绝大多数对立起来。自从1956年苏伊士运河危机（当时法国、英国和以色列入侵埃及）以来，美国从未发现自己在冲突中站在最亲密盟友的对面。但这次的裂痕更深、更根本。

Now his aides are scrambling, with little success, to impose a logic to it all.

现在他的助手们正忙着给这一切强加一个逻辑，但收效甚微。

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a classic Russia hard-liner before he took his current post, suggested that Mr. Trump was trying to tear Russia away from its growing partnership with China. There is no evidence that this is working.

国务卿鲁比奥在担任现任国务卿之前是典型的对俄强硬派，如今，他表示，特朗普正试图让俄罗斯脱离与中国日益紧密的伙伴关系。没有证据表明这是有效的。

Other members of Mr. Trump’s national security team have talked about a “Monroe Doctrine 2.0.” That suggests a world in which the United States, China, Russia and perhaps Saudi Arabia take responsibility for their distinct spheres of influence. Sir Alex Younger, the former head of MI6, the British spy agency, said in a BBC interview that it reminded him of the Yalta Conference — the meeting of Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin in 1945 — where “the strong countries decided the fate of small countries.”

特朗普国家安全团队的其他成员谈到了“门罗主义2.0”。它的意思是，在这个世界上，美国、中国、俄罗斯（或许还有沙特阿拉伯）将为各自的势力范围负责。英国情报机构军情六处前负责人亚历克斯·杨格在接受BBC采访时表示，这让他想起了1945年罗斯福、丘吉尔和斯大林参加的雅尔塔会议，也就是“强国决定小国命运”的时刻。

“That’s the world we’re going into,” he predicted, adding “I don’t think we’re going back to the one we had before.”

“这就是我们将要进入的世界，”他预言，并表示，“我不认为我们会回到过去的世界。”

Of course, such an arrangement has long been a dream of Mr. Putin’s, because it would elevate the power of his economically declining state. But as Dmitri Medvedev, the former Russian president, said on social media the other day, “If you’d told me just three months ago that these were the words of the US president, I would have laughed out loud.”

当然，这样的安排一直是普京的梦想，因为这将提升他这个经济日渐衰颓的国家的权力。但正如俄罗斯前总统德米特里·梅德韦杰夫不久前在社交媒体上所说的那样，“如果你三个月前告诉我，这些话出自美国总统之口，我会笑出声来。”