乌克兰只是普京一步棋

Europe thinks it has a Ukraine problem. In truth, it has a Russia, or more precisely, a Vladimir Putin problem. Moscow’s war against Kiev is a fragment of a bigger picture. The Russian president’s revanchism reaches well beyond Ukraine. The bigger goal is to tear up the continent’s post-communist settlement.

欧洲认为，它的麻烦是乌克兰，实际上，这个麻烦是俄罗斯，或者更准确地说，是俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔•普京(Vladimir Putin)。莫斯科对基辅的战争是冰山一角。普京的复仇主义目标远不止乌克兰。他的更大目标是撕毁欧洲大陆共产主义时代结束后的安排。

European hesitation about confronting Russia is readily explained. Economic self-interest, history, cultural affinity, and latent anti-Americanism have persuaded many Europeans to look at Mr Putin as the leader they hoped for rather than the one who saw the fall of the Soviet Union as the geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.

欧洲不愿与俄罗斯正面对抗的原因很好解释。经济上的利己主义、历史、文化上的亲缘性以及潜在的反美主义都让许多欧洲人认为，普京是他们所希望的领导人，而不是那个将苏联解体视为20世纪地缘政治灾难的领导人。

There is a seductive narrative for a west chastened by bungled interventions in the Middle East. If Mr Putin’s demands are sometimes provocative — and, as in Georgia as well as Ukraine, can turn into outright aggression — the west should be mindful of the circumstances. Perhaps Nato had indeed broken promises about admitting former Soviet satellites? Maybe it had bent the rules when it bombed Serbia? As for the Iraq war, well, enough said.

一个有诱惑性的说法是，西方由于搞砸了对中东地区的干预已经学乖了。如果说普京的要求有时是挑衅性的——而且正如格鲁吉亚和乌克兰的情形那样，可能演变为彻底的侵略——西方应该时刻牢记当前形势。或许北约(Nato)真的放弃了接纳前苏联卫星国的承诺？或许当北约轰炸塞尔维亚的时候，它就已经有所松动了？至于伊拉克战争，嗯，就不用多说了。

The annexation of Crimea and the march into Ukraine’s Donbass region should have dispelled the doubts. In the case of Angela Merkel this is what seems to have happened. Not a politician to prefer confrontation over negotiation, the German chancellor has been offered too many lies and broken promises.

俄罗斯吞并克里米亚以及进入乌克兰顿巴斯地区后，人们应该不再怀疑了。就德国总理安格拉•默克尔(Angela Merkel)而言，这些怀疑似乎已成现实。默克尔不是一位喜欢对抗胜过谈判的政客，她遭遇了太多的谎言和失信。

The argument within Europe, though, has not ended. Much has been made of the sympathy towards Moscowshown by the Syriza government in Greece. It is not alone. Italy’s prime minister Matteo Renzi has been outdoing Silvio Berlusconi in his fealty to Mr Putin. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán publicly disdains liberal democracy. Cyprus always speaks up for Russia, while French consent to the sanctions regime is halfhearted. So no one should be surprised by the latest Russian offensive: there is no more powerful a provocation to the Kremlin than appeasement.

然而，欧洲内部的争论没有结束。众所周知，希腊激进左翼联盟党(Syriza)领导的政府对莫斯科深表同情。这并非个例。在对普京忠诚方面，意大利总理马泰奥•伦齐(Matteo Renzi)一直胜过西尔维奥•贝卢斯科尼(Silvio Berlusconi)。匈牙利总理欧尔班•维克托(Viktor Orbán)公开鄙视自由民主。塞浦路斯总是维护俄罗斯，而法国对制裁俄罗斯只是半心半意地赞同。因此，应该没有人对俄罗斯最新的进攻感到意外：对克里姆林宫来说，没有比绥靖政策更大的挑衅了。

Mr Putin’s litany of grievances — Nato’s “encirclement” of Russia, a plan to humiliate Moscow, broken international rules — have been heard over and over. Occasionally there is a small truth hidden in the big lie, but the essential storyline never deviates. The west wants to destroy the power and dignity of Russia. So familiar are the charges that the implications are often discounted. Everyone has heard Mr Putin pledge to roll back the frontiers, but few have really been listening.

人们不断地听到普京的一连串抱怨：北约“包围”俄罗斯、计划羞辱莫斯科、违反国际规则。弥天大谎中偶尔也会隐藏着些许真相，但基本的故事情节永远差不了多少。西方希望破坏俄罗斯的实力和尊严。这些指控已是家常便饭，其影响往往大打折扣。所有人都听到普京承诺收缩疆界，但很少有人真的把他的话当回事。

The annexation of Crimea and the push into eastern Ukraine were in one dimension opportunistic. Mr Putin had misread the Maidan protests and failed to anticipate the fall of former president Viktor Yanukovich. So he grabbed what he could. Expedient as the war may have been, it fitted the game plan to restore suzerainty over much of the former Soviet empire.

从某个方面来说，俄罗斯吞并克里米亚和进入乌克兰东部有些机会主义。普京误读了独立广场的抗议活动，未能预见到乌克兰前总统维克多•亚努科维奇(Viktor Yanukovich)的垮台。因此他抓住了他能抓住的机会。虽然战争可能是权宜之计，但它符合俄罗斯对前苏联帝国的许多加盟共和国恢复宗主国地位的通盘计划。

General Yury Baluyevsky, the former chief of staff of the Russian armed forces, says the confrontation with the west is a continuation of the cold war. The methods, though, are now more sophisticated. Military force, he says, is “the final stage of the process”. Moscow has mastered the art of hybrid warfare, including “information and psychological pressure”. To paraphrase the general, Mr Putin will divide and weaken his enemies before deploying force.

俄军前总参谋长尤里•巴卢耶夫斯基将军(General Yuri Baluyevsky)表示，与西方对峙是冷战的延续。然而，现在的对峙方式更加复杂。巴卢耶夫斯基将军说，军事力量是“这一过程的最后阶段”。莫斯科掌握了混合战争的艺术，包括运用“信息和心理压力”。用巴卢耶夫斯基将军的话来说，普京将会在动用武力之前分化削弱其敌人。

In its softest form, this means presenting rolling propaganda as rolling news with the rapid expansion of the Kremlin-controlled Russia Today news network. Then there is the funding of populist parties of left and right in western European capitals. Marine Le Pen’s National Front in France has taken a Russian loan. Nigel Farage, the leader of the anti-immigrant UK Independence party, counts himself an admirer of the Russian leader.

其最温和的斗争方式，就是借助俄罗斯政府控制的“今日俄罗斯”(Russia Today)新闻网络的快速扩张，不断地以滚动新闻的形式滚动宣传。然后是向西欧国家的左右翼民粹主义政党提供资金。法国马琳•勒庞(Marine Le Pen)领导的国民阵线(National Front)已经接受了俄罗斯的贷款。反对移民的英国独立党(UK Independence party)的领导人奈杰尔•法拉奇(Nigel Farage)自称是普京的仰慕者。

Further along the spectrum there are the bribes paid to politicians and business leaders and the stakes taken in vulnerable financial institutions in south eastern Europe and the Balkans. There is a none-too-subtle campaign to destabilise pro-western governments in the former Soviet space — Bulgaria is a recent victim — by exploiting their dependence on Russian energy. Add in the testing of Nato defences by Russian fighter planes, cyber attacks and kidnappings in the Baltics, and the incursions of nuclear bombers, and you can see what the general was talking about.

再接下来是贿赂政客和商界领导人，以及收购东南欧国家和巴尔干地区的脆弱金融机构的权益。俄罗斯利用前苏联势力范围内亲西方国家对其能源的依赖，毫不掩饰地发动破坏这些国家政府稳定的攻势——保加利亚就是最近的一个受害者。再加上俄罗斯战机、网络袭击和巴尔干地区绑架事件对北约防务的考验，以及携带核弹头的轰炸机的入侵，你就可以明白巴卢耶夫斯基将军在说什么。

Ms Merkel has recognised the danger, publicly warning about subversion in Moldova and attempts to pull Serbia back into the Russian orbit. The US has been working with the European Commission to ease some of the vulnerabilities of energy-dependent governments in southeastern Europe. But in western Europe there is widespread reluctance still to recognise the big picture — to set the Ukraine crisis in the context of Mr Putin’s broader aims.

默克尔意识到了这种威胁，对摩尔多瓦境内的颠覆活动和俄罗斯将塞尔维亚拉回自身轨道的企图进行了公开警告。美国一直在与欧盟委员会(European Commission)合作，以减轻有能源依赖性的东南欧国家的部分脆弱性。但在西欧，人们仍普遍不愿承认这种大局，不愿从普京更大范围企图的角度看待乌克兰危机。

Mr Putin is not the creation of western perfidy. Throughout his career, from the office of the mayor of St Petersburg to the top job in the Kremlin, he has been remarkably constant in his ambitions and in the ruthlessness he will deploy to achieve them.

普京并非是西方背信弃义的产物。在从担任圣彼得堡市副市长、到入主克里姆林宫的整个政治生涯中，普京的抱负及实现抱负过程中的冷酷无情没有变过。

A collapsing oil price and the impact of sanctions have made him more dangerous: without oil and gas revenues, his domestic support now rests on his capacity to mobilise nationalist anger against the alleged attempt by Nato and the EU to subjugate “mother Russia”. The west’s options are limited, but the beginning of wisdom is to understand that this is not just about Ukraine.

油价暴跌和制裁的影响让普京变得更加危险：没有了石油和天然气收入，现在普京在国内能否获得支持，取决于他能否挑起民族主义者的怒火，对抗所谓的北约和欧盟要征服“俄罗斯母亲”的企图。西方的选择是有限的，但要想明智行事，最起码要明白这不仅仅与乌克兰有关。