Why Presidents Love Foreign Affairs
I'd like to apologize to American voters. I'm one of the 5 percent. The 5 percent, that is, who vote in presidential elections based on the foreign policy views of the candidates. It might seem to the other 95 percent of you that we pull the strings. At his taped fund-raiser, for example, Mitt Romney complained that the common folk weren't asking him enough foreign policy questions. It certainly must appear as if we control presidents once they're elected - after their first year in office, all we read about is that they're attending some fancy-pants summit meeting or using force somewhere exotic.我愿意向美国选民道歉。因为我是只占5%的选民之一。也就是说，我们这5%的选民根据候选人在外交政策上的观点来投票。可能在你们另外95%的人看来，我们是幕后操纵者。比如，在他被偷录的筹款餐会上，米特·罗姆尼(Mitt Romney)抱怨说普通老百姓不会在外交政策方面对他提足够多的问题。至少在他们当选后，肯定看上去总统仿佛是被我们控制着——执政一年后，在报纸上读到的，不是他们正在出席某个摆架子的峰会，就是他们在某个遥远的地方动用武力。
While I wish that this were true, the reality is a lot more complex. Really, those of us paying attention to foreign policy are trying to do the rest of you a favor. Maybe if some of you paid attention to the rest of the world as well, American presidents would be more cautious about expending blood and treasure abroad. That sounds crazy, but it's true.
尽管我希望真能这样，但现实却复杂多了。真的，我们这些关注外交政策的人，是在尽力想帮你们那些人的忙儿。如果你们中有些人关心点世界其他地方的事儿，也许美国总统们对在国外干让美国人流血流汗、劳民伤财的事儿会更谨慎。虽然这听起来不可思议，但是真的。
I was being generous with the "5 percent" appellation. Poll after poll shows that when Americans are asked what they consider the most important issue in presidential campaigns, an overwhelming majority choose the economy. Answers related to foreign policy or national security typically yield between 3 and 5 percent.
我用“5%”来表述也够大方的了。一次又一次的民意调查显示，如果问美国人认为什么问题在总统竞选中最要重，绝大多数人选择经济。回答外交政策或国家安全的一般只有3%到5%。
Many pollsters don't even bother asking about international issues because it seems manifestly obvious that they're not terribly important. When pollsters prod Americans about their foreign policy views, the results are clear: they want the government to focus less on the rest of the world.
很多调查人员不再为国际问题花时间，因为这些问题不重要是再明显不过的事情了。如果调查人员非要问美国人对外交政策的看法，结果也很清楚：他们希望政府对世界其他地方少关心点儿。
Politicians are not blind to these numbers. Short of a war or other violent attacks on American installations, foreign policy rarely takes center stage during presidential elections. Presidential candidates almost always campaign on how they intend to jump-start the economy.
政客们对这些数字并非视而不见。如果没有战争或其他针对美国设施的暴力袭击，外交政策很少会成为总统选举的核心。总统候选人几乎总是靠强调他们打算如何全力以赴启动经济来竞选。
It must be maddening to voters, then, that about a year or two after they are elected, presidents seem to devote an ever increasing amount of time to the rest of the world. The Balkans appeared to consume the Clinton administration. George W. Bush launched two wars during his tenure. Barack Obama has devoted a considerable amount of his time to revamping counterterrorism policies, rebalancing attention to the Pacific Rim, prosecuting a war in Libya - and killingOsama bin Laden.
不过，当选一两年后，总统们花在世界其他地方的时间似乎是越来越多，这一定让选民非常生气。巴尔干半岛地区好像占据了克林顿政府的注意力，乔治·W·布什(George W. Bush)任内发动了两场战争，而贝拉克·奥巴马也把大量时间用在对外上：修改反恐政策、重新调整对太平洋沿岸地区(Pacific Rim)的注意力、在利比亚发动战争，以及除掉奥萨马·本·拉登(Osama bin Laden)。
Why do presidents campaign as economic wizards but govern as foreign policy leaders? The first thing to realize is that presidents are not doing this on purpose. Their focus on foreign policy actually reveals the constraints on the modern American presidency.
为什么总统竞选时冒充经济行家，却以外交政策领导人的身份统治呢？首先要认识到的是，总统们不是故意这么做的。他们对外交政策的关注，其实揭示出现代美国总统所受的限制。
On most big economic matters, presidents cannot act alone. Congress has to approve things like budgets and taxes, and in case you haven't noticed, Congress has become increasingly sclerotic. During the 1950s, for example, Congress passed an average of 800 laws per session; in the post-cold-war era, that figure has declined to fewer than 400. Based on the 112th Congress, that figure will continue to decline in the future.
在大多数重大经济事务上，总统不能单独行动。包括预算和税收在内的事务需要得到国会的批准。而且，不知道你们注意到没有，国会已经变得越来越僵硬。比如，在上世纪50年代，每届国会平均通过800项法律，在冷战后时期，这一数字下降到不足400。从第112任国会（美国国会每两年一任，每任召集两届会议——译注）的情况来看，这个数字将会继续下降。
The party not in the White House has been increasingly obstructionist - and if you doubt this, look up the filibuster statistics. Any president trying to accomplish something with Congressional approval either needs a majority of the House and 60 votes in the Senate, or needs to compromise with an opposition party ever further away on the ideological spectrum. Short of a landslide, presidents have a brief honeymoon period in which to push major domestic policy initiatives through Congress.
没能进驻白宫的政党日益成为蓄意阻挠者。如果你对此有所怀疑，查一查故意拖延决议行为的统计数据吧。任何一位总统，如果想做获得国会批准的事儿，要么需要在众议院获得超过半数的支持并在参议院获得60张赞成票，要么需要向意识形态上越来越分道扬镳的反对党妥协。如果没有获得大选的压倒性胜利，总统能在国会推进重大国内政策举措的蜜月期很短暂。
If presidents seem to be ever more constrained in their domestic policy making, in foreign affairs the executive branch has far more leeway. Sure, Congress has to approve treaties and budgets, but they are reluctant to challenge the executive branch on most national security matters. The Bush administration was able to implement the Iraq surge despite skeptical majorities in both houses of Congress. The Obama administration authorized the use of force in Libya without even notifying Congress. Neither policy was terribly popular with the American people, yet both presidents were able to do what they wanted.
如果看上去，总统在制定国内政策方面受到的制约越来越多，那么在国外事务方面，联邦行政部门拥有的余地就多得多了。诚然，国会需要批准条约和预算，但他们不愿在大部分国家安全事务上挑战行政部门。尽管参众两院多数人都曾表示怀疑，但布什政府依然得以在伊拉克实施了增兵计划。奥巴马甚至在没有通知国会的情况就授权在利比亚使用武力。这两项政策都不太受美国人民欢迎，但两位总统却都能为所欲为。
Indeed, invoking national security seems to eliminate a disturbing number of institutional impediments for the executive branch. The National Security Agency can admit that it violated the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of illegal search and seizure without much in the way of political or legal blowback.
其实，用国家安全的名义看来能消除相当数量的、针对行政部门设置的制度性障碍。美国国家安全局(National Security Agency)可以承认它违反了宪法第四修正案(Fourth Amendment)中对无理搜查和查封的禁令，而并不受政治或法律的报应。
Of course, all of this presumes that presidents can control the international environment. This is an utter fantasy. As the 9/11 attacks made clear, small groups of actors can be responsible for large conflagrations. The pretext for the recent attacks on American embassies and consulates across the Middle East was a cartoonish YouTube video. If that is the bar for inciting action against American interests, then any intelligence agency would drown in possible provocations. Most of the time presidents don't pick the foreign policy issues they want to tackle - the issues choose them.
当然，所有这些都假定总统能控制国际环境。但这纯属幻想。正如“9·11”恐怖袭击表明的那样，小队人马能制造大混乱。近来对中东美国使领馆袭击的借口，是一段YouTube上的卡通片式的视频。如果那是煽动反对美国利益的行动的门槛，那么所有情报机关都将被众多可能的挑衅所淹没。大多数时候，不是总统选择他们想解决哪些外交政策问题，而是问题自己找上门来。
America remains the world's pre-eminent power. This means that whenever something happens somewhere in the world, the expectation is that the United States will be part of the policy solution. When presidents are reluctant to intervene, they are attacked by domestic and foreign adversaries as being weak, passive or "leading from behind."
美国依然是全世界首屈一指的强国。这就意味着，不管什么时候、世界上哪个地方出了事，人们都指望美国参与制定解决问题的政策。如果总统不情愿，国内外的对手们会攻击他软弱、被动或“跟在后面领导”。
It's precisely because presidents have so much more leeway to do what they want in the global realm that I now vote based on foreign policy. Mistakes in international affairs can lead to incalculable losses in blood and treasure. Paradoxically, if Americans suddenly started to vote based on national security issues, presidents would have to start to care about the domestic political consequences of their overseas actions.
正是因为总统有这么多余地可以在全球范围内为所欲为，我才要根据候选人的外交政策来投票。国际事务中的错误会导致无法估量的人员伤亡和财富损失。看似矛盾的是，如果美国人突然开始根据国家安全问题进行投票，总统们就不得不开始关心他们海外行动在国内产生的政治后果。
Who knows, they might just start redirecting their efforts to problems at home.
谁知道呢？他们也许还会把注意力重新转向国内的问题呢。
页:
[1]