《泰晤士报》5月26日刊登哈佛大学历史学教授尼尔·弗格森文章《特朗普应该知道，世界经不起另一场三十年战争》
文：Niall Ferguson
译：杨瑞赓
老读者们并不会对第二次冷战的爆发感到意外。自从唐纳德·特朗普去年首轮对中国进口商品加征关税以来，我就提出，中美贸易战持续的时间将比大多数人预期得更长，并且冲突会进一步升级并通过其他形式的斗争表现出来。
从美国五月份对中国电信设备制造商华为公司所采取的措施就能看出，中美技术战争已经全面展开。5月22日，美国海军“普雷布尔号”导弹驱逐舰穿越台湾海峡，这一举动提醒着人们，展示军事力量也是冷战的重要组成部分。另外，宣传战也在如火如荼地进行，不久前中国中央电视台重新播放了抗美援朝老电影，美国人在其中扮演着坏人的角色。
如果你仍然认为六月底中美两国领导人在大阪20国集团峰会上见个面就能带来和平，那你一定会失望。根据中国国际经济交流中心首席研究员张燕生预测，中美之间的摩擦可能以当前强度一直持续到2025年。
历史类比是个强有力的工具，它比社会科学任何正规模型都更有助于我们理解当今时事。美国前国防部长阿什·卡特最近在哈佛大学召开的应用历史学会议上表示，在最高的权力舞台上，“大人物们谈的是历史，而不是政治、经济或国际关系。”而当下中美对抗的突然升级，就很像冷战的初期阶段。
但应用历史学家接下来要问的问题是：冷战和当下有什么区别？目前，人们对第二次冷战的观念还未根深蒂固，它尚不足以成为一个自我实现的预言，此时我们应该退后一步纵览全局，认清2019年与1949年的差异，其中一点就是现在中美两国政治、经济、社会和文化存在千丝万缕的联系，这与70年前苏联与美国之间几乎彻底脱钩的情况非常不同。
几十年来，大宗商品、制造业产品、劳动力和资本市场的全球一体化，商业航空，以及最关键的互联网等因素综合作用，铸造了一个网状互联的世界，这与杜鲁门和斯大林瓜分的那个泾渭分明、百废待兴的世界截然不同。上世纪40年代末，苏俄确实有能力打造丘吉尔口中的“铁幕”，因为东欧和西欧之间有限的沟通渠道很容易就可以关闭。尽管如今“数字铁幕”一词开始流传，但坦率地说，我对如今中美像过去美苏那样切断关系的可能性表示怀疑。
由于互联网和智能手机获得了广泛应用，它们对人们的社交网络起到拓展、加速和赋权的作用，与印刷媒体在16、17世纪的作用一样。今天的战略对立关系是在一个近乎无国界的世界中展开的，这与冷战时期的世界完全不同。
17世纪发生了很多事情：气候变化（小冰河期导致泰晤士河经常冰冻）、难民危机（新教狂热分子横渡了大西洋）、极端观点（天主教徒和新教徒极力诋毁对方），以及假新闻（猎巫行动导致成千上万无辜者被处死）。但那个时代最让我们感到熟悉的特征，是国家主权受到侵蚀。
1555年的《奥格斯堡和约》为天主教徒和路德宗新教徒明确了一点，即每个诸侯有决定其领地内宗教教派的权力，无需担心受到外来干涉。但到了17世纪初，这一原则似乎受到了威胁，它变相鼓励反宗教改革势力拥立信仰天主教的统治者，来取代信仰新教的统治者。宗教战争根本不管什么边界不边界：天主教的耶稣会渗透了信奉新教的英格兰，跟今天俄罗斯网络水军干涉西方民主国家没什么两样。
然而，三十年战争既是一场宗教战争，也是一场权力战争。它与由美苏两个超级大国发动的冷战不同，它是一场多人游戏。神圣罗马帝国皇帝试图强迫波希米亚重新尊奉天主教。西班牙想让叛逆的荷兰人回归哈布斯堡王朝的统治。法国尽管是天主教国家，却试图挑战西班牙和奥地利的权力。瑞典抓住时机大胆地向南推进。丹麦虽与瑞典同属新教路德宗，却成了瑞典的敌人。尽管葡萄牙和西班牙一样也信天主教，它却摆脱了后者的统治。
同样，今天的世界也不是两极的——美国或许会叫其他国家抵制华为，但并非所有欧洲国家都会遵从美国的意愿；中国的确是亚洲最大的经济体，但它也无法支配印度。
冷战的产物包括庞大的坦克部队和核武库，美苏之间相互瞄准，但从未使用过。三十年战争是一个充斥着恐怖主义和残酷暴力的时代，士兵和平民之间没有明显的区别（这和今天的叙利亚差不多）。当时的情况和今天一样，受影响最严重的地区人口大量死亡凋零。另一个类似之处是，当时的战争缺乏威慑手段，正如今天的网络战也没有威慑手段。事实上，当时各国往往低估了卷入冲突可能付出的代价。比如英国和法国，结果它们都陷入了内战。
透过这段历史来看当下，多少有些悲观。我唯一能找到宽慰之处在于，由于技术进步，如今大多数事情发生的速度比400年前快了大约10倍。因此，我们未来要面对的可能是一场三年战争，而不是三十年战争。无论三年还是三十年，我们都得知道如何终结这场冲突。
终结三十年战争的不是一个条约，而是好几个条约，其中最重要的是1648年10月的《明斯特和约》与《奥斯纳布吕克条约》。这一系列条约史称《威斯特伐利亚和约》。但与传说相反的是，《威斯特伐利亚和约》并没有带来和平，因为法国和西班牙还继续打了11年，它当然也没有建立起一个以现代国家为基础的世界秩序。
威斯特伐利亚体系的作用是，在皇帝和德意志诸侯之间、在敌对的宗教团体之间建立权力共享机制，其基础是有限的、有条件的权利。整体和平建立在各势力之间相互保证之上，而不再沿袭更古老的第三方保证之惯例。
美苏冷战是以一方屈服而告终的。这样的结局不会出现在我们的时代。民主国家和威权国家之间可能较量三年或三十年，仍然没有哪一方赢得决定性胜利。迟早有一天，双方不得不达成妥协——具体而言，就是要恪守自我约束的承诺，不充分利用现代技术来挖空对方的主权。
我们要去的未来应该是1648年，而不是1989年。我们要争取的是网络版的《威斯特伐利亚和约》，而不是拆掉所谓的防火长城。如果可以选择的话，我们当然应该在三年内，而不是三十年内，实现这一目标。
Donald Trump should know, the world cannot afford another Thirty Years’ War
Regular readers of this column will not have been surprised by the outbreak of the Second Cold War. Ever since Donald Trump imposed the first tariffs on Chinese imports last year, I have argued that the trade war between the United States and China would last longer than most people expected and that it would escalate into other forms of warfare.
The tech war — exemplified by last week’s US measures against the Chinese telecoms company Huawei — is now in full swing. The passage of the destroyer USS Preble through the Taiwan Strait was a reminder that shows of military force are also part and parcel of a cold war. And the propaganda war is now well under way, too, with Chinese state television digging out old Korean War films in which the Americans are the bad guys.
If you still think peace will break out when Trump meets Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in Osaka next month, you’re in for a disappointment. Zhang Yansheng, chief researcher at the China Centre for International Economic Exchanges in Beijing, predicted last week that the friction could continue at this level until 2025.
Historical analogies are powerful. More than any formal model from the social sciences, they help us make sense of contemporary events. As the former US defence secretary Ash Carter said at the recent applied-history conference at Harvard, in the corridors of power “real people talk history, not economics, political science or IR [international relations]”. The first question they ask is: what is this like? And, yes, this sudden escalation of Sino-American antagonism is a lot like the early phase of the Cold War.
But the next question the applied historian asks is: what are the differences? Before the idea of the Second Cold War gets so well established that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, it’s time to take a step back and acknowledge that 2019 isn’t 1949, not least because of the profound economic, social and cultural entanglement of America and China, which is quite unlike the almost total separation of the United States from the Soviet Union 70 years ago.
The networked world forged by decades of commercial aviation, globally integrated markets for commodities, manufactures, labour and capital and — above all — the internet is radically different from the segmented and half-ruined world that Harry Truman and Joseph Stalin carved up between them. In the late 1940s it was possible for Soviet Russia to bring down Winston Churchill’s metaphorical Iron Curtain because the limited channels of communication between eastern and western Europe were so easy to shut down. Although the phrase “digital Iron Curtain” is doing the rounds, I am frankly doubtful that such a severance of ties is possible today.
Because the internet and the smartphone have enlarged, accelerated and empowered social networks in the same way as the printing press did in the 16th and 17th centuries, today’s strategic rivalry is being played out in a near-borderless world, altogether different from the world of early John le Carré.
The 17th century had it all: climate change (the Little Ice Age that often froze the Thames), refugee crises (as Protestant zealots crossed the Atlantic), extreme views (as Catholics and Protestants sought to smear one another) and fake news (as witch-finders condemned thousands of innocent people to death). But its most familiar feature to our eyes is the erosion of state sovereignty.
Catholics and Lutherans had been given a certain amount of clarity by the Peace of Augsburg of 1555, which left it to each individual prince to decide the denomination of his realm without fear of outside interference. But that principle seemed under threat by the early 1600s. In any case, it had created an incentive for the proponents of the Counter-Reformation to replace Protestant rulers with Catholic ones. The war of religion had no respect for borders: Jesuits infiltrated Protestant England just as Russian trolls now meddle in western democracies.
The Thirty Years’ War was as much about power as it was about religion, however. Unlike the Cold War, which was waged by two superpowers, it was a multiplayer game. The Holy Roman Emperor sought to reimpose Catholicism on Bohemia. Spain wanted to bring the rebellious Dutch back under Habsburg rule. Despite being Catholic, France sought to challenge the power of both Spain and Austria. Sweden seized the moment to thrust boldly southwards. Although also Lutheran, Denmark ended up as Sweden’s foe. Although also Catholic, Portugal threw off Spanish rule.
In the same way, today’s world is not bipolar. America may tell others to boycott Huawei, but not all Europeans will comply. China is the biggest economy in Asia, but it does not control India.
The Cold War created vast tank armies and nuclear arsenals, pointed at each other but never used. The Thirty Years’ War was a time of terrorism and gruesome violence, with no clear distinction between soldiers and civilians. (Think Syria today.) Then, as now, the worst-affected areas suffered death and depopulation. There was no deterrence then, just as there is none now in cyber-warfare. Indeed, states tended to underestimate the costs of getting involved in the conflict. Both Britain and France did so — only to slide into civil war.
The implications of this analogy are not cheering. The sole consolation I can offer is that, thanks to technology, most things nowadays happen roughly 10 times faster than they did 400 years ago. So we may be heading for a Three Years’ War, rather than a Thirty Years’ War. Either way, we need to learn how to end such a conflict.
The end of the Thirty Years’ War was not brought about by one treaty, but by several, of which the most important were signed at Münster and Osnabrück in October 1648. It is these treaties that historians refer to as the Peace of Westphalia. Contrary to legend, they did not make peace, as France and Spain kept fighting for 11 more years. And they certainly did not establish a world order based on modern states.
What the Westphalian settlement did was to establish power-sharing arrangements between the emperor and the German princes, as well as between the rival religious groups, on the basis of limited and conditional rights. The peace as a whole was underpinned by mutual guarantees, as opposed to the third-party guarantees that had been the norm before.
The Cold War ended when one side folded. That will not happen in our time. The democratic and authoritarian powers can fight for three or 30 years; neither side will win a definitive victory. Sooner or later there will have to be a compromise — in particular, a self-restraining commitment not to take full advantage of modern technology to hollow out each other’s sovereignty.
Our destination is 1648, not 1989 — a Cyber-Westphalia, not the fall of the Great Firewall of China. If we have the option to get there in three years, rather than in 30, we should take it.
(End)
