Many years ago, I asked a friend who had been hired as a senior foreign policy official what he’d learned in government that he didn’t know beforehand. He replied: “I used to think policy-making was 75 percent about relationships. Now I realize it’s 95 percent about relationships.”

许多年前，我问过一名曾被聘为外交政策高级官员的朋友，为政府工作让他学到了什么以前不知道的东西。他答道：“我以前认为政策制定的75%与国家之间的关系有关。我现在认识到，95%与关系有关。”

It’s very hard to do big things alone. So competent leaders and nations rely on relationships built on shared values, shared history and shared trust. They construct coalitions to take on the big challenges of the age, including the biggest: whether the 21st century is going to be a Chinese century or another American century.

单干难做大事。所以，有能力的领导人和国家都依赖于建立在共同价值观、共同历史和共同信任基础上的关系。他们建立联盟，以应对这个时代的重大挑战，包括最大挑战：21世纪是中国世纪，还是又一个美国世纪。

In that contest the Chinese have many advantages, but until recently America had the decisive one — we had more friends around the world. Unfortunately, over the last month and a half, America has smashed a lot of those relationships to smithereens.

虽然中国人在这场竞争中有很多优势，但直到最近，美国曾拥有决定性的优势——我们在世界各地有更多的朋友。不幸的是，在过去的一个半月里，美国把许多这样的关系砸得粉碎。

President Trump does not seem to notice or care that if you betray people, or jerk them around, they will revile you. Over the last few weeks, the Europeans have gone from shock to bewilderment to revulsion. This period was for them what 9/11 was for us — the stripping away of illusions, the exposure of an existential threat. The Europeans have realized that America, the nation they thought was their friend, is actually a rogue superpower.

特朗普总统似乎没有意识到或者不在乎，如果你背弃别人或者随意摆布他们，他们就会由衷地讨厌你。在过去几周里，欧洲人已从震惊变为困惑，继而厌恶。这段时间对他们来说有与9·11事件对我们来说一样的意义——幻想被彻底剥除，生存威胁暴露无遗。欧洲人已经意识到，他们原以为是朋友的美国，实际上是一个流氓超级大国。

In Canada and Mexico you now win popularity by treating America as your foe. Over the next few years, I predict, Trump will cut a deal with China, doing to Taiwan some version of what he has already done to Ukraine — betray the little guy to suck up to the big guy. Nations across Asia will come to the same conclusion the Europeans have already reached: America is a Judas.

在加拿大和墨西哥，政客们现在把美国视为敌人就能赢得支持。我预测在未来几年，特朗普将与中国达成协议，对台湾做一些类似于他对乌克兰所做的事情——背弃小哥们，讨好大哥们。亚洲各国也会得出与欧洲人相同的结论：美国出卖朋友。

This is not just a Trump problem; America’s whole reputation is shot. I don’t care if Abraham Lincoln himself walked into the White House in 2029, no foreign leader can responsibly trust a nation that is perpetually four years away from electing another authoritarian nihilist.

这不只是特朗普的问题；美国的所有声誉都已丧尽丢绝。我才不管亚伯拉罕·林肯本人是不是会在2029年入主白宫呢，因为任何外国领导人都无法放心地信任一个每隔四年就有可能选出另外一个专制虚无主义者的国家。

So what’s going to happen?

那么，会发生什么呢？

NATO is over. Joe Biden spent four years defending the postwar liberal order. That order grew out of a specific historical experience: Isolationism after World War I led to the horrors of World War II; internationalism after World War II led to 80 years of superpower peace. You tell that narrative to the younger generations and many look at you as if you’re talking about the 14th century. The postwar order was a historic accomplishment, but it was a product of its time, and we are not going back to it. It does no good to try to revive the ghost of Dean Acheson; we have to think of a new global architecture.

北约结束。拜登花了四年时间捍卫第二次世界大战后的自由秩序。这个秩序产生于一段特定的历史经历：第一次世界大战后的美国孤立主义导致了“二战”的可怕经历；“二战”后的国际主义带来了80年的超级大国和平。你把这段历史讲给年轻一代听，他们中有许多人会用奇怪的眼光看你，好像你讲的是14世纪。虽然“二战”后的秩序是一个历史性的成就，但它也是时代的产物，我们不会再回到那个时代。让迪安·艾奇逊的幽灵复活没有好处；我们需要设想一个新的全球架构。

The West is (temporarily) over. What we call “the West” is a centuries-long conversation — Socrates searching for truth, Rembrandt embodying compassion, Locke developing enlightenment liberalism, Francis Bacon pioneering the scientific method. This is our heritage. For all of our history America understood itself as the culmination of the great Western project. The idea of the West was reified in all the alliances and exchanges between Europe and North America.

西方（暂时）结束。我们所说的“西方”是一场始于西元前的对话——苏格拉底追寻真理，伦勃朗体现慈悲，洛克发展启蒙自由主义，弗朗西斯·培根开创科学方法。这是我们的遗产。在我们的整个历史中，美国曾把自己理解为伟大西方事业的顶点。西方的概念在欧洲与北美的所有联盟和交流中被具体化。

But the category “the West” does not seem to be in Donald Trump’s head. Trump is cutting America off from its spiritual and intellectual roots. He has completed the project that Jesse Jackson started in 1987 when he and a bunch of progressive activists at Stanford chanted, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western Civ has got to go.”

但特朗普的脑子里似乎没有“西方”这个概念。特朗普正在切断美国与它的精神和知识根源的联系。他完成了杰西·杰克逊1987年开启的事业，那年，杰克逊曾和斯坦福大学的一群进步活动人士高呼“嘿，嘿，嗬，嗬，西方文明必须走。”

The new civilizational struggle is between hard and soft. Don’t overthink this. Trump is not playing four-dimensional chess and trying to pry Russia from its alliance with China. American foreign policy is now oriented to whatever gets Trump’s hormones surging. He has a lifelong thing for manly virility. In the MAGA mind, Vladimir Putin codes as hard; Western Europe codes as soft. Elon Musk codes as hard; U.S.A.I.D. codes as soft. WWE is hard; universities are soft. Struggles for dominance are hard; alliances are soft.

新的文明斗争是硬与软的斗争。不要过度思考。特朗普不是在下四维象棋，试图将俄罗斯从它与中国的联盟中分离出来。美国外交政策现在是以能让特朗普的荷尔蒙激增的事情为导向的。他一生都热衷于雄劲的男子气概。在MAGA（让美国恢复伟大荣光）大脑里，普京代表硬，西欧代表软。埃隆·马斯克代表硬，美国国际开发署代表软。世界摔跤娱乐代表硬，大学代表软。争取支配地位的斗争代表硬，联盟代表软。

Europe will either revive or become a museum. It’s possible Europe will become a low-fertility, low-innovation, slow-growth vacation destination for the world. But Europeans know that this is their moment to cut the security cord with America and revive their own might. Germany is increasing its borrowing capacity so it can build weapons. The former Italian prime minister Mario Draghi jolted the continent by arguing that market fragmentation was killing innovation in tech. Many conservatives are convinced that Europe is too secular and decadent to ever recover. Maybe. But Germany is a serious nation. France has an unsurpassed Civil Service. History has shown that the British people can be trusted when times are hard.

欧洲或将复兴，或将沦为博物馆。欧洲有可能成为低生育率、低创新、慢增长的世界旅游地。但欧洲人知道，现在是他们切断与美国的安全脐带、重振自身威力的时刻。德国正在为制造武器增加借贷能力。意大利前总理马里奥·德拉吉关于市场分裂正在扼杀科技创新的言论震惊了整个欧洲大陆。许多保守派人士深信欧洲太过世俗和腐朽，无法恢复元气。也许吧。但德国是个认真严肃的国家。法国有无与伦比的公务员体系。历史已表明，英国人民在艰难时刻是值得信赖的。

A new age of nuclear proliferation. As America withdraws its security umbrella, nations around the world, from Poland to even Japan, will conclude that they need nuclear weapons. What could go wrong?

核扩散的新时代。随着美国撤走安全保护伞，世界各国——从波兰到甚至日本，都将得出结论，它们需要核武器。这会有什么问题呢？

China will fill the gap. As America betrays its friends, China will seek to make them. China’s special representative for European affairs to the E.U. recently called the Trump administration’s treatment of Europe “appalling.” He continued: “I believe European friends should reflect on this and compare the Trump administration’s policies with those of the Chinese government. In doing so, they will see that China’s diplomatic approach emphasizes peace, friendship, good will and win-win cooperation.”

中国将填补空白。随着美国背弃朋友，中国将努力交朋友。中国驻欧盟的欧洲事务特别代表最近表示，特朗普政府对待欧洲的做法让他“感到有点心寒”。他接下来说：“我希望欧洲朋友能够在当前的形势下能够有所思考，并将特朗普政府的政策与中国政府的政策进行比较。通过这样做，他们会发现中国的外交方式强调和平、友好、善意和合作共赢。”

This kind of plea will fall on skeptical ears, but the reality is that when they are faced with two rogue superpowers — China and America — nations across Europe, Asia and Africa will have to hedge their bets and play both sides.

虽然这种呼吁将受到怀疑，但现实是，当面对中国和美国这两个流氓超级大国时，欧洲、亚洲、非洲的国家都将不得不两面下注，左右逢源。

A global culture war. For years, the World Values Survey has shown that Western Europe and the blue parts of America are drifting toward a hyper-individualistic, postmodern culture that is farther and farther away from the more traditional communal cultures in other parts of the globe. That was bound eventually to produce political rifts. One of the reasons MAGA conservatives admire Putin is that they see him as an ally against their ultimate enemy — the ethnic studies program at Columbia.

一场全球文化战。多年来，世界价值观调查的结果一直显示，西欧和美国偏民主党地区正朝着一种超个人主义的后现代文化发展，这种文化与世界其他地区更传统的集体文化越来越远。这最终必将导致政治上的分歧。MAGA保守派钦佩普京的原因之一是，他们将普京视为对抗他们终极敌人——哥伦比亚大学民族研究项目的盟友。

A return to national greatness. History is not over. As the historian Robert Kagan points out, America oscillates between periods of isolationism and interventionism. We also oscillate between individualism and communitarianism, cynicism and idealism, secularism and religiosity, irrational pessimism and irrational optimism. We are now on the extreme edge of the former of all those polarities.

返回国家的伟大光荣。历史尚未结束。如历史学家罗伯特·卡根指出的那样，美国在孤立主义时期与干涉主义时期之间摆动。我们也在个人主义与社群主义、犬儒主义与理想主义、世俗主义与笃信宗教、非理性悲观主义与非理性乐观主义之间摆动。我们现在正处于每一种对立体的前一种的最极端状态。

Trumpian incompetence will provoke a counterreaction, which will prove to be an opportunity and rebirth. When that happens people will be ready to hear the truth that Trump will never understand — that when you turn America into a vast extortion machine, you will get some short-term wins as weaker powers bend to your gangsterism, but you will burn the relationships, at home and abroad, that are actually the source of America’s long-term might.

特朗普的无能将激起一个逆向反应，那将被证明是一个机会和重生。这个反应发生时，人民将准备好接受一个特朗普永远不会理解的事实——当你把美国变成一个巨大的敲诈机器后，你会得到一些短期的胜利，因为弱国会在你的强盗行径下屈服，但你也将毁掉国内外的关系，而这些关系实际上才是美国长远力量的来源。