原文地址：http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/02/03/the_end_of_diplomacy?page=0,1

The End of Diplomacy?

美国外交政策的终结？

Once up a time, Americans achieved great things abroad. No longer.

曾经，美国在国外取得了巨大的成就。但，再也不是了。

BY AARON DAVID MILLER | FEBRUARY 3, 2010

Back in the day, there was a time when American diplomacy did big and important things.

曾几何时，美国在外交上做了很多成功和重要的事情。

No more, it seems. The world's gotten complicated; America is a good deal weaker; and the U.S. administration is handicapping itself with a dysfunctional bureaucratic setup that makes it harder to focus and find its footing.

但是看起来那样的日子一去不返了。世界在变得复杂；美国也衰落了许多；而且美国政府正在把自己变成一个无能的官僚机构让它自己难以找到自己的立足点。

Effective American diplomacy may well be going the way of the dodo; and the sad fact is there may be little Barack Obama can do about it.

事实上美国外交可能正在走向不可挽回的灭亡，而令人难过的事实是奥巴马在挽回美国外交上几乎什么都做不了。

Lamenting the absence of great men years before his own shining moment, Winston Churchill wrote that in England, once upon a time, "there were wonderful giants of old." There's always a danger in idealizing what once was or seemed to be in order to make a point about the present. Still, looking back over the last 60 years, you really do have to wonder whether America's best diplomacy and foreign policy are behind it.

在伟人闪光之前是没有伟人的悲伤岁月，丘吉尔一次在英格兰的时候写到，“现在只有老去的巨人了。”通过对于过去的理想化猜想来解决今天的看法是危险的。让我们回眸过去的六十年，你会禁不住猜想美国最好的外交政策是在这之前的。

America never ran the world (an illusion the left, right, and much of the third and fourth worlds believe); but there were moments (1945-1950, the early 1970s, 1988-1991) when the United States marshaled its military, political, and economic power toward impressive ends.

美国从来没有驾驭过全世界（不过左右派和大多数的第三世界国家相信这个假象），但是确实有几个时期（1945-1950，1970年代初，1988-1991）当时美国在军事、政治和经济上的实力是给人们留下了深刻印象的。

There were, or course, disasters and plenty of dysfunction during these years, including Vietnam War and out-of-control CIA operations. But there were also brilliant achievements: the Marshall Plan, NATO, effective Arab-Israeli diplomacy, détente with the Russians, opening to China, a competent American role in the acceleration and management of the end of the Cold War, and the first Gulf War.

这些年有一些事情是或造成了灾难和政府功能的失效，其中包括了越南战争和对CIA控制的失灵。但是美国也有几个明智的功绩：马歇尔计划、北约、有效的阿拉伯—以色列外交、与俄国关系的缓和、对中国的开放、称职的完成了在结束冷战中的职责以及第一次海湾战争。

For most of the last 16 years, however -- under Bill Clinton and George W. Bush -- America has been in a diplomatic dry patch. In the face of terrorism, nuclear proliferation, wars of choice, and nasty regional conflicts, conventional diplomacy has either not been tried or not been very successful. The image of the shuttling secretary of state pre-empting crises or exploiting them to broker agreements, doggedly pursuing Middle East peace, achieving dramatic breakthroughs with spectacular secret diplomacy seems a world away.

然而在过去16年在比尔克林顿和小布什管理下的大多数时候，美国的外交政策陷于停滞。当面对恐怖主义、核武器扩散、战争的选择以及令人厌恶的地区冲突的时候，常规的外交策略已经不能适用或是不成功了。那种国务卿来来回回的预先化解危机或是促进他们达成协议、，不屑的促进中东和平，通过令人吃惊的秘密来戏剧性的获得民主上的突破的景象看起来一去不复返了。

The Obama administration wants to do this kind of stuff. And it has done pretty well in managing the big relationships with Russia and Europe, though it has had its share of problems with China. But frankly, these are the easy ones. It's not from the big that the president's problems come; it's from the small.

奥巴马政府希望能做这种事。而且它在管理与俄国和欧洲的重要关系上做的很不错，尽管仍然同中国还有些问题。但是说实话，这些都是小问题。这并不是来自总统的大问题，这些都是小问题。

In garden spots like Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia, the problems are four parts military, five parts nation-building, and maybe one part diplomacy. And America is unlikely to prevail in any meaningful sense of the word where corrupt, extractive regimes are unable to control their own territory and cut deals with anti-American elements and place their security and political concerns first.

在热点问题如伊拉克、巴基斯坦、阿富汗、也门和索马里，这些是四个地区的军事问题、五个国家的国家建设问题，以及也许是一个部分的外交问题。美国不大可能去劝说那些腐败丛生、不能有效控制它们自己的恐怖活动或者切断与反美组织把自己的安全和政策放在第一位的国家。

Even in areas where diplomacy might seem to work on paper -- Kashmir, Arab-Israeli peacemaking -- the United States is hampered by conflicts driven by deep ethnic and religious hostility and by internal politics in which its own allies (Israel, Pakistan, and India) can't be of much help. And in one of the cruelest ironies of all, the U.S. president who has gone further to engage Iran than any of his predecessors is watching any hope for diplomacy being ground up by a regime under siege in Tehran.

即使是那些看起来外交政策还不错的地区——克什米尔、阿拉伯-以色列和平进程——美国也被种族宗教和内部同盟之间（以色列、巴基斯坦和印度）驱使的争斗所阻碍。而且最具有讽刺意味的就是当现任美国总统比他的前任们更努力的去解决伊朗的问题却看到任何外交上的希望都被德黑兰的政权所碾碎。

What's more, the power of the small is being matched by the weakening of the big. You don't have to be a declinist (I'm not) to see how far the image of American power has fallen. Forget the economic meltdown, which has much of the world wondering about what kind of great power the United States really is. America's currently fighting two wars where the standard for victory is not whether it can win but when it can leave.

而且小的国家已经开始被与衰落的大国开始相提并论。你不必是个衰落主义者（我就不是）就可以看到美国的势力已经有多么的衰落。忘记经济的衰败吧，那让世界很大程度的猜测美国到底真实水平是什么。美国进行的两场战争胜利标准已经不是是否可以赢，而是多会能撤军了。

Whether it's an inability to get tough sanctions from the international community against Iran, bring Tehran to heel, make North Korea play ball, get the Arabs and the Israelis to cooperate, or push the Pakistanis to hit the Taliban and al Qaeda in a sustained way, the world has gotten used to saying no to America without cost or consequence. And that's very bad for a great power.

对是否能得到国际社会制裁伊朗把德黑兰摔入地狱这样支持的无能为力，让朝鲜遵守国际规则，让阿拉伯世界和以色列合作或者是推动巴基斯坦长期打击塔利班和基地组织，这些事件已经让世界开始不用惧怕和承担任何后果的对美国说不。这对这个超级大国来说真是再糟糕不过了。

Finally, there's the issue of how the country organizes itself. A new bureaucratic flowchart won't replace skill and luck, better marshal American power, or create genuine opportunities for success abroad. But if you don't have the right structure, it makes success all that much harder.

最终，这儿还有这个国家如何管理它自己的问题。一个新的官僚体系运转图不能取代技术和运气，更好的重整美国的力量或者创造真正在国外成功的机会。但是如果你没有一个正确的架构，要成功是难于登天。

And the United States has departed from the one model that has proven successful: the strong foreign-policy president empowering the strong secretary of state who rides herd over subcabinet-level envoys in real time and in close coordination with the president on strategy.

美国已经开始背弃了一个已经被证明是成功的模式：强力的总统授权国务卿的外交政策，而国务卿实时聚集总统顾问级别的使节与他们密切合作来符合总统的政策。

Instead, the Obama administration has created an empire of envoys with power concentrated in the White House but without real purpose or strategy. The nation's top diplomat (the secretary of state) seems to be everywhere and nowhere in terms of owning issues and finding a way to take on some of the nastiest challenges, which is what secretaries of state are supposed to do.

取而代之的是，奥巴马政府实现了对使节的绝对控制但却没有明确的目标和策略。这个国家的最高外交官（国务卿）看起来哪儿都去了，但是没有在任何地方进行谈判和解决一些最危机的问题，而这本应该是国务卿的职责。

It's still early, and maybe the Obama administration will get lucky. Perhaps the Iranian regime will collapse or the Arabs and Israelis will do something good by themselves. But the next several years are more likely to be tough ones for American diplomacy. And the image that comes to mind isn't a terribly kind one: America as a kind of modern-day Gulliver tied up by tiny tribes abroad and hobbled by its inability to organize its own house at home.

现在断言为时尚早，而且奥巴马政府也许会变得幸运。也许伊朗政权会倒台或者阿拉伯世界和以色列会做一些做他们自己有益的事。但接下来的几年对于美国外交政策看起来会有更大的考验。下面这个情形并不是最艰难的一种：美国像现代的格利弗一样被众多国外的小国所羁绊而且因为他自己国内机构的无能而步履蹒跚。