美国需要理解一些残酷的事实
2023-07-28 05:25阅读：
过去十年来，地缘政治格局在美国脚下发生了变化。冷战结束时美国成为无人质疑的霸主的单极时代已经结束，30年后，美元在全球外汇储备中所占的份额稳步减少，传统的美国盟友与美国的对手达成了贸易协定，而崛起的全球南方国家正在寻求贸易、发展和安全方面的新规则。
可以肯定的是，美国两党帮助并加快了单极时代的终结，他们采取了无所顾忌的政策，比如在阿富汗和伊拉克发动战争，以及采取不负责任的财政政策。难怪现在沙特、南非、土耳其和埃及等国并不认可西方对抗俄罗斯的做法。
全球南方的许多国家认为，华盛顿自己也采取过类似的军事冒险主义行动，现在却批评俄罗斯，足见美国虚伪至极。
曾在美国国务院和国家安全委员会工作过的菲奥娜·希尔在5月的一次讲话中警告说：“世界‘其他地方’的国家寻求将美国缩小到另一个规模，并寻求在全球事务中发挥更大影响力。我们会听到对美国的统治响亮说‘不’，看到对一个没有霸权的世界的明显渴望。”
在这种形势下，美国需要理解一些残酷的事实。华盛顿不能继续将其所有干涉行为或参与冲突的行为错误地描述为捍卫“基于规则的秩序”。在许多国家看来，美国遵循的是“规则适用于你而不适用于我”的信条。哪些冲突被界定为违反“基于规则的秩序”，哪些冲突不违反？正是美国在不断挑选。
华盛顿必须承认，如果在世界舞台上朋友和盟友的利益与美国的利益不一致，这些国家往往会按自己的方式行事。在中国的调解帮助下，沙特和伊朗消除了多年的隔阂。不少海湾阿拉伯国家正在积极与俄罗斯进行贸易，似乎对美国漠不关心。美国指望印度制衡中国，但自俄乌冲突以来，印度从莫斯科采购的能源和武器增加了。巴西、阿根廷、南非等国正在积极寻求用美元以外的货币进行贸易。
美国可以不再以它自己认为合适的方式“监管和维持”世界秩序，而是成为召集各
国以解决人类最棘手问题的一个重要参与者。
“基于规则的国际秩序”正在不可逆转地加速衰落，美国应接受这一事实。
Why the US 'Rules-Based Order' Needs
Rethinking
Eli Clifton and Amir Handjani
Over the past decade, the geopolitical landscape shifted beneath
the feet of the United States. The end of the Cold War, the
unipolar moment in which the US was the unquestioned hegemon of the
world, is over. Thirty years later, that moment is a distant
memory, as the dollar steadily declines as a share of global
currency reserves, traditional US allies forge trade agreements
with US adversaries, and a rising Global South seeks new rules for
trade, development, and security.
To be sure, the bipartisan US political establishment aided and
abetted the demise of the unipolar moment with reckless policies
such as launching an unwinnable war in Afghanistan and an endless
war in Iraq and engaging in irresponsible fiscal policies that have
raised the US national debt by 520 percent since 2000, culminating
with the 2008 financial crises. It is no wonder that now, as the US
is intensely involved in fending off Russia’s war of aggression
against Ukraine alongside allies in Europe, middle powers such as
Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, and Egypt collectively
shrug.
Meanwhile, despite a US-led sanctions regime, countries like India
and China continue to do business with Russia and refrain from
reprimanding Moscow. Unfortunately, although not unexpectedly, many
countries in the Global South believe it is the height of hypocrisy
for the United States to criticize Russia for launching a reckless
invasion when Washington has recently engaged in similar military
adventurism.
Global powers like Russia and China aren’t the only countries
seeking to defend their spheres of influence, warned former State
Department and National Security Council staffer Fiona Hill in a
speech in May:
Other countries that have traditionally been considered “middle
powers” or “swing states”—the so-called “Rest” of the world—seek to
cut the US down to a different size and exert more influence in
global affairs. They want to decide, not be told what’s in their
interest. In short, in 2023, we hear a resounding no to US
domination and see a marked appetite for a world without a
hegemon.
It is in this paradigm that the US needs to digest some hard
truths. First, Washington cannot continue to mischaracterize all
its interventions or involvement in conflicts as defending the
“rules-based order.” For example, the Trump administration went
against international law by recognizing Israel’s annexation of the
Golan Heights and unilaterally withdrew from the Security
Council–endorsed Iran nuclear agreement.
The Obama administration intervened in Libya and Syria and George
W. Bush invaded Iraq, all without the support of the United
Nations. To many countries, the United States follows the “rule for
thee but not for me” as it continues to pick and choose which
conflicts it frames as ones that violate “the rules-based order”
and which do not.
Washington must accept that friends and allies will often go their
own way if their interests are not aligned with America’s on the
world stage. Saudi Arabia and Iran squashed their decade-long
estrangement with the help of Chinese mediation. Many Persian Gulf
Arab states who rely on Washington’s security guarantee are
actively trading in Russian oil in seeming indifference to the
United States. India, whom the US counts on to balance China in the
“Indo-Pacific,” increased its energy and arms purchases from Moscow
since the war began. Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, and other
BRICS countries are actively looking to trade with each other in
currencies that are not US-dollar-denominated.
Indeed, incentives for breaking from Washington’s “rules” have been
made higher than ever by the expansive implementation of
extraterritorial sanctions as a central tenet of US statecraft.
Forty percent of global oil reserves are under US sanctions,
creating enormous pressure on oil producers and buyers to shift to
non-dollar oil sales.
In 2001, the dollar accounted for 73 percent of global currency
reserves. This year, it is 58 percent, a 15 percent
reduction.
The problems don’t end with de-dollarization. US commitments to its
own bilateral agreements and geopolitical stability are coming
under scrutiny as calls grow in Washington to end US “strategic
ambiguity” regarding the defense of Taiwan against potential
Chinese aggression. Then–House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to
Taiwan on a US Air Force plane last summer incited China to conduct
aggressive naval maneuvers in the South China Sea. It also raised
concerns about US commitments to the five-decades-old Shanghai
Communique and the “one China policy,” the foundation of US-China
relations since 1972.
These provocations are coupled with calls for economic “decoupling”
from China. Beijing is Washington’s single largest trading partner
and both parties have largely favored engagement with China over
the past five decades, leading to Beijing’s permanent membership on
the UN Security Council as well as ascension to the WTO.
A “decoupling” between the two largest economies in the world in
favor of zero-sum military competition, an about-face in US policy,
poses severe consequences for both the United States and China. For
the rest of the world, bifurcating the globe into competing blocks
with different standards of trade, and technology, engaging in
frenetic competition potentially leading to a military
confrontation, is an outcome to be avoided.
Some in Washington may want the US to continue conducting business
as usual even as much of the world chooses to stand on the
sidelines of the Russia-Ukraine war, steadily de-dollarize their
economies, and no longer view the US, or the institutions it has
helped birth, such as the UN, as sources of legitimate rules. But
this is an act of futility with disastrous repercussions on
Washington and the global community.
Climate change, a war in Ukraine, and emerging technologies like
artificial intelligence all pose global threats. But the United
States is still a global leader. It should advocate for true
multilateral burden sharing through existing and new institutions
and agreements. The US could stop “policing” the world order as it
sees fit, and become a vital participant in convening countries to
solve humanity’s most vexing problems.
The “rules-based international order” is in irreversible free fall.
Accepting that fact and leading the drive for a new, more inclusive
and imaginative, political and economic order is a task the United
States could be well positioned to embrace.
