如何正視普京的危險？

How dangerous is Vladimir Putin’s Russia? That was the question that Rex Tillerson was grappling with, just hours before he was sacked. The former US secretary of state told reporters: “We’ve seen a pivot on their part to become more aggressive. And this is very, very concerning to me . . . We don’t fully understand what the objective behind that is.”

弗拉基米爾•普京(Vladimir Putin)領(lǐng)導(dǎo)的俄羅斯有多危險?雷克斯•蒂勒森(Rex Tillerson)在被解雇的幾小時前還在思索這個問題。這位前美國國務(wù)卿當時告訴記者：“我們已經(jīng)看到他們的核心人物變得更加好斗。這讓我非常、非常擔憂……我們還沒有完全理解這背后的目標是什么。”

The question of Russia’s real intentions is all the more urgent because, to nobody’s surprise, Mr Putin has just been declared the victor in the presidential election, and is set for another six years in the Kremlin. Normally, a president entering his fourth term in office is a known quantity. But the Russian leader seems to be becoming more reckless and confrontational with the passage of time.

俄羅斯的真正意圖是什么?這個問題正變得愈發(fā)迫切，因為普京——不出所料地——剛被宣布為此次總統(tǒng)大選的勝利者，他將再執(zhí)掌克里姆林宮六年。通常來說，一位進入第四個任期的總統(tǒng)已為人們所熟知。但這位俄羅斯領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人隨著時間的推移似乎變得更加冒進和愛挑釁。

Russia’s deployment of a deadly nerve agent on the streets of the UK is a new and dangerous departure. The US government has just accused Russia of scoping out possible attacks on America’s critical infrastructure. In a recent speech, Mr Putin boasted of a new generation of “invincible” Russian nuclear weapons that could devastate America, and used videos to illustrate his threats. And he closed his re-election campaign with a flag-waving rally in Crimea, the territory that Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014.

俄羅斯在英國街頭動用致命神經(jīng)毒劑是一個危險的新開端。美國政府最近指責俄羅斯研究對美國關(guān)鍵基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施發(fā)動潛在攻擊的機會。在最近一次講話中，普京夸耀新一代俄羅斯核武器“無敵”，可以摧毀美國，并用視頻演示來佐證他的威脅。他在克里米亞——2014年俄羅斯從烏克蘭手中奪取了這片領(lǐng)土——舉辦了一場狂熱愛國主義集會結(jié)束了自己的連任造勢。

But while Mr Putin is reckless, he is not irrational. The record suggests that he can be deterred. Just three years ago, there was a widespread fear in the west that the annexation of Crimea would be followed by further seizures of territory in Ukraine. Russian state television seemed to be preparing the ground for this by suggesting that large parts of Ukraine were historically Russian territory. Some analysts worried that Mr Putin’s tanks would roll all the way into Kiev, the Ukrainian capital.

不過，普京雖然膽大妄為，卻并非喪失理性。過往作為表明他是可以被震懾住的。就在三年前，西方普遍擔心俄羅斯吞并克里米亞之后將進一步侵占烏克蘭領(lǐng)土。當時俄羅斯國家電視臺似乎已在為此鋪墊，稱歷史上烏克蘭大部分地區(qū)都是俄羅斯領(lǐng)土。一些分析人士擔心普京的坦克將一路開進烏克蘭首都基輔。

But although Russia-backed violence has continued in eastern Ukraine, there have been no further seizures of territory. The most likely explanation is that the Kremlin was deterred by the unexpected strength of the sanctions imposed on Russia by the US and the EU — as well as the threat that the west will step up military assistance to Ukraine.

盡管俄羅斯仍在烏克蘭東部支持暴力活動，但沒有進一步侵占其國土。最合理的解釋是，美國和歐盟制裁俄羅斯的力度之大超出了意料，并且西方揚言要加強對烏克蘭的軍事援助，把克里姆林宮給嚇住了。

More recently, there have been widespread reports that scores of Russians may have been killed in US-backed air strikes in Syria. But rather than react strongly, the Russian government has refused to discuss the alleged incident. There are some confrontations that Russia is not eager to rush into.

最近有大量報道稱，可能有數(shù)十名俄羅斯人在美國支持的對敘利亞空襲中遇害。但俄羅斯政府沒有作出強烈反應(yīng)，反而拒絕討論這起所謂的事故?？梢姸砹_斯并不想倉促展開某些對抗。

Mr Putin seems willing to take big risks when he believes that the west is not paying attention. But when the Russian leader meets clear resistance, he backs off.

當普京認為西方不太注意時，他似乎愿意冒著巨大風險。但當這位俄羅斯領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人遇到明顯阻力時，他就退縮了。

The real danger for both Russia and the west is therefore not that Mr Putin is seeking outright conflict with the west, but that he miscalculates and creates confrontations that he cannot control. Mr Putin’s fans at home and abroad have fallen for the idea that he is a brilliant strategist who annexed Crimea, intervened in Syria and meddled in the US elections without paying a price.

因此對于俄羅斯和西方來說，真正的危險不是普京尋求與西方發(fā)生直接沖突，而是他可能錯誤估計形勢，制造了他無法控制的對抗。普京的海內(nèi)外粉絲真心相信他是一位出色的戰(zhàn)略家，他兼并了克里米亞、干預(yù)敘利亞并插手了美國大選，還不付任何代價。

But a cooler look at the record shows that the Russian leader’s interventions frequently backfire. The conflict in Ukraine led to Russian-backed separatists shooting down the civilian airliner MH17 in 2014, killing 298 people and provoking greatly intensified sanctions on Russia. Moscow’s intervention in the US elections may have tipped the vote towards President Donald Trump, which would be an extraordinary coup for Mr Putin. But the subsequent backlash has led to the Mueller inquiry, which in turn may lead to further sanctions on Russia.

但如果冷眼查看其過往記錄就能發(fā)現(xiàn)，這位俄羅斯領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人的干預(yù)經(jīng)常適得其反。烏克蘭沖突導(dǎo)致俄羅斯支持的分裂分子在2014年擊落民航客機MH17航班，造成298人死亡，使俄羅斯遭受到更加嚴厲的制裁。莫斯科對美國大選的干預(yù)可能讓投票結(jié)果對唐納德•特朗普(Donald Trump)有利，這對普京來說是一大非凡成就。但隨后引起的強烈反彈導(dǎo)致了米勒(Mueller)調(diào)查，這進而可能又導(dǎo)致對俄羅斯的進一步制裁。

When Mitt Romney described Russia as the foremost threat to America in 2012, he was widely derided. But now a whole new generation of opinion-formers in the US is being raised with a deep suspicion and resentment towards Russia, of a kind that had previously been fading into history.

2012年，當米特•羅姆尼(Mitt Romney)將俄羅斯稱為美國最大的威脅時，他遭到了普遍嘲笑。但是美國全新一代意見領(lǐng)袖是在對俄羅斯的深切懷疑和憎惡這種此前已逐漸消失在歷史中的情緒里成長起來的。

Meanwhile Russian casualties in the war in Syria appear to be mounting, and Mr Putin’s promises of an early conclusion to the conflict have not been met.

與此同時，俄羅斯方面在敘利亞戰(zhàn)爭中的傷亡人數(shù)似乎在不斷攀升，而普京早日結(jié)束這場沖突的承諾仍未兌現(xiàn)。

Even relatively trivial violations of international rules by the Kremlin have backfired. A state-sponsored doping programme for Russian athletes was discovered and led to a ban on official Russian participation in the Winter Olympic Games. Now the attempted murder of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the UK has provoked an unexpected display of western unity — just when cracks were widening between Britain, the EU and the US.

克里姆林宮就算只是稍微違反國際規(guī)則也可能引起強烈抵制。俄羅斯在國家層面上支持運動員使用興奮劑的計劃被揭露，導(dǎo)致俄羅斯被禁止參加冬奧會(Winter Olympic Games)。而前雙面間諜謝爾蓋•斯克里帕爾(Sergei Skripal)和他女兒在英國遭謀殺的事件則意外引發(fā)了西方的團結(jié)景象——眼下正值英國、歐盟和美國之間裂縫不斷加大之時。

The cumulative result of all these mis-steps is that Russia is much poorer and more isolated than it should be. Its economy is under sanctions and the years of rapid growth before 2008 are a receding memory. The staging of the football World Cup in the summer is no more likely to revive Russia’s image than did the Sochi Winter Olympics of 2014.

在所有這些失策的累積作用下，俄羅斯的貧窮和孤立都遠遠超出了其應(yīng)有程度。它的經(jīng)濟遭到連番制裁，2008年之前的快速增長成了消逝的回憶。即將在夏季舉辦的足球世界杯(World Cup)至多像2014年索契冬奧會那樣略微重振俄羅斯形象。

Despite all this, Mr Putin still has his fans in the west, on both the far-left and the far-right. These fringe parties are gathering strength in Europe and may seek to promote more Putin-friendly policies. But the weakness of the Russian economy means that even politicians who are sympathetic to Mr Putin’s style of tough-guy nationalism are unlikely, ultimately, to break with the EU or the western alliance. A Russian government that specialises in assassinations and nuclear threats does not have all that much to offer its foreign admirers.

盡管如此，普京在西方仍有不少擁躉，極左和極右都有。在歐洲，這些邊緣黨派正在擴大勢力，且可能尋求推動對普京更友好的政策。但俄羅斯經(jīng)濟的衰弱意味著，即便是對普京民族主義硬漢風格心存贊賞的政客，也終究不太可能與歐盟或西方聯(lián)盟決裂。一個擅長暗殺和核威脅的俄羅斯政府并沒有多少東西可提供給其外國崇拜者。