美国国家公共电台 NPR 'Destined For War' Explores How To Avoid Unnecessary Future Conflicts

 

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

After his speech, President Trump¹ visited the graves of fallen service members who died in Iraq and Afghanistan, walking among the white marble headstones. On a day when we remember those who died fighting in America's wars, we're going to take a moment to ask, how many casualties of war throughout the ages died unnecessarily? And I don't mean in friendly-fire incidents or moments of tactical error, I mean in wars that could have been prevented.

The Harvard political scientist Graham Allison says that many conflicts were unnecessary. Allison has written about conflict starting in ancient Greece - conflicts in which an established power has felt threatened by a rising power. And he's written a book called "Destined² For War: Can America And China Escape Thucydides's trap? Graham Allison, welcome to the program.

GRAHAM ALLISON: Thank you very much for having me.

SIEGEL: Thucydides was an ancient Greek historian. What was the trap that he described?

ALLISON: The trap that he described goes, when a rising power threatens to displace a ruling power, one sees inherent structural³ stress that makes conflict likely. I look at the last 500 years, find 16 cases - 12 of them ended tragically⁴ in war, four in not war. And I hope that we can learn the lessons of the past in looking at the current challenge that China poses to a ruling America.

SIEGEL: Is the rise of China creating a fear in the United States that might, indeed, lead toward a war?

ALLISON: I think absolutely. And I think the election of Trump was an expression of what happens in ruling powers as they become alarmed. So the big question in the book is what the impact of a rising China will be on the U.S. and on the international order that the U.S. has organized for the past seven decades.

SIEGEL: What are the keys to averting⁵ a conflict?

ALLISON: Well, in the cases in which war was averted⁶, both the rising power and the ruling power had to make painful adjustments. And in both cases, one when needed surges of strategic imagination that would do something more than business as usual.

SIEGEL: Another reading might be that the age of nuclear weapons has made the kind of conflict you describe less likely to turn into a war and that that's why the Cold War stayed cold, for example. Could mutual⁷ deterrence⁸ prevent a U.S.-China war down the road?

ALLISON: Absolutely. One of the three big factors that count against war in the relationship between China and the U.S. are, first, nuclear weapons and even a condition of mutual assured destruction. Secondly⁹, one's got two economies that have become so deeply interlaced that a war between the U.S. and China would leave Wal-Marts empty and Chinese factories producing for nothing. Thirdly, climate - if between the two of us, we keep doing what we're doing, we can create a climate in which our grandchildren won't be able to live.

SIEGEL: As presidents have done before him, Donald Trump went to Arlington National Cemetery¹⁰ today. This, of course, was once a land owned by Robert E. Lee that was taken, and Union soldiers were buried there after the Civil War. There are people interred¹¹ there who fought in both world wars and other conflicts.

I can understand very easily the argument that the first World War was somehow avoidable, that it was a conflict of mistakes and misjudgments. World War II or for that matter - you don't write about much the Civil War. Were they really unnecessary, avoidable wars?

ALLISON: Well, I believe that we've - the Americans have had more unnecessary wars than necessary wars. World War II, though, as you say, is the hard case. If the Britain and France had done what they were obliged to do under the treaty and sent troops to enforce the treaty when Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland, the German general staff would have turned Hitler out. And one would not have had a cause for war, and you wouldn't have had World War II.

SIEGEL: Of course, considering that by the time that Germany and Russia had carved up Poland, and Germany later attacked the Soviet¹² Union, the U.S. didn't have those choices anymore. The U.S. couldn't turn the movie back to 1933. So U.S. entry in that sense could be called necessary in an unnecessary war.

ALLISON: But there was nothing preventing the U.S. being an actor in 1933 except for the fact that we had - basically, the Senate had rejected the U.S. role in the League of Nations. I mean, if Woodrow Wilson's vision had been the case and we'd stayed involved in Europe in the period in between, then we and the Brits and the French could have prevented Hitler becoming what became World War II. But by the time we sat on the sideline, it was too late, as you say.

SIEGEL: Graham Allison is director of the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. And he's the author most recently of "Destined For War: Can America And China Escape Thucydides's Trap?" Thanks for talking with us today.

ALLISON: Thank you very much for having me.

(SOUNDBITE OF JENNY LEWIS SONG, "RUN DEVIL RUN")

1 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

2 destined   

adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的

参考例句：

• It was destined that they would marry.他们结婚是缘分。
• The shipment is destined for America.这批货物将运往美国。

3 structural   

adj.构造的，组织的，建筑（用）的

参考例句：

• The storm caused no structural damage.风暴没有造成建筑结构方面的破坏。
• The North American continent is made up of three great structural entities.北美大陆是由三个构造单元组成的。

4 tragically   

adv. 悲剧地，悲惨地

参考例句：

• Their daughter was tragically killed in a road accident. 他们的女儿不幸死于车祸。
• Her father died tragically in a car crash. 她父亲在一场车祸中惨死。

5 averting   

防止，避免( avert的现在分词 )； 转移

参考例句：

• The margin of time for averting crisis was melting away. 可以用来消弥这一危机的些许时光正在逝去。
• These results underscore the value of rescue medications in averting psychotic relapse. 这些结果显示了救护性治疗对避免精神病复发的价值。

6 averted   

防止，避免( avert的过去式和过去分词 )； 转移

参考例句：

• A disaster was narrowly averted. 及时防止了一场灾难。
• Thanks to her skilful handling of the affair, the problem was averted. 多亏她对事情处理得巧妙，才避免了麻烦。

7 mutual   

adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的

参考例句：

• We must pull together for mutual interest.我们必须为相互的利益而通力合作。
• Mutual interests tied us together.相互的利害关系把我们联系在一起。

8 deterrence   

威慑，制止； 制止物，制止因素； 挽留的事物； 核威慑

参考例句：

• An extreme school of "disarmers" pronounced stable deterrence was a dangerous deception. “裁军论者”中的极端派声称，稳定的威摄是一种危险的骗局。
• Escalation is thus an aspect of deterrence and of crisis management. 因此逐步升级是威慑和危机处理的一个方面。

9 secondly   

adv.第二，其次

参考例句：

• Secondly,use your own head and present your point of view.第二，动脑筋提出自己的见解。
• Secondly it is necessary to define the applied load.其次，需要确定所作用的载荷。

10 cemetery   

n.坟墓，墓地，坟场

参考例句：

• He was buried in the cemetery.他被葬在公墓。
• His remains were interred in the cemetery.他的遗体葬在墓地。

11 interred   

v.埋，葬( inter的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Marie Curie's remains were exhumed and interred in the Pantheon. 玛丽·居里的遗体被移出葬在先贤祠中。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The body was interred at the cemetery. 遗体埋葬在公墓里。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。