美国大选是全世界的事情
In the last century, the US homeland suffeRed a terrible foreign attack at Pearl Harbor, and again on 9/11.
在过去一个世纪里，美国本土两次遭受了可怕的外国攻击，第一次是在珍珠港，还有一次是9/11恐怖袭击。
Each time, the American response changed the world order.
每次美国的回应都改变了世界秩序。
But that’s about it.
但也就这么多了。
Add on a few smaller terrorist atrocities, and the total death toll from foreign action on US soil these past 100 years is somewhere under 6,000.
再加上寥寥几次规模较小的恐怖袭击事件，美国本土过去100年死于外国袭击活动的人数不足6000人。
The Bosnian town of Srebrenica lost more people in a single Serb massacre in 1995.
1995年波斯尼亚斯雷布雷尼察市(Srebrenica)被塞族人一次屠杀的人就不止这么多。
The US inhabits a gated mansion in the safest neighbourhood in geopolitics.
从地缘政治角度来说，美国居住在最安全地段的封闭式豪宅。
Even if the Red Army had rolled across western Europe, life in Alabama or Ohio would have been almost undisturbed.
即便俄罗斯军队长驱直入西欧，阿拉巴马州或俄亥俄州的生活也几乎不会受到影响。
It’s telling that when Donald Trump launched his presidential campaign, he had to invent a foreign bogeyman, the Mexican rapist.
颇能说明问题的是，当唐纳德.特朗普(Donald Trump)发起总统竞选活动的时候，他不得不发明一个外国魔鬼——来自墨西哥的强奸犯。
The US is immune to the world in a way that British Brexiters can only fantasise about.
美国与世界隔绝的程度，英国退欧派人士只能幻想。
This means that the American election probably matters more to foreigners than it does to most Americans.
这意味着，美国选举对外国人的影响很可能比它对大多数美国人的影响更大。
The US president has the power to protect the rest of the world, mess us up or simply ignore us.
美国总统有实力保护全球其他国家，把别国搞得一团糟，或者干脆忽视我们。
No country can exist in glorious isolation, but the US very nearly can.
任何国家都不能完全与世隔绝，但美国非常接近这种境界。
Long before this election campaign, it was already retreating from a pesky world.
早在此次总统大选之前，美国就已经从麻烦不断的世界抽身。
Barack Obama has spent eight years trying to ditch the global policeman’s baton – although, as Xenia Wickett of Chatham House notes, he didn’t bother to explain his policy and therefore this was often interpreted simply as weakness.
巴拉克.奥巴马(Barack Obama)花了8年时间努力扔掉世界警察的警棍——尽管正如英国皇家国际事务研究所(Chatham House)的克塞尼娅.维克特(Xenia Wickett)所指出的，他没有花费精力解释自己的政策，因此往往被解读为只是出于软弱。
Trump offers a grotesque caricature of American isolationism, but even presuming Hillary Clinton wins, the US has lost its urge to meddle in faraway countries of which it knows nothing.
特朗普描绘了一幅美国孤立主义的荒诞漫画，但即便假设希拉里.克林顿(Hillary Clinton)赢得大选，美国也失去了对自己一无所知的遥远国家进行干预的冲动。
Scarier for us foreigners than American isolationism is American irresponsibility.
对我们外国人来说，比美国孤立主义更可怕的是美国的不负责任。
This too is a luxury that only an extraordinarily safe country can afford.
这也是只有极度安全的国家才能负担得起的奢侈品。
Donald Trump is such an impulse-driven ignoramus that in one poll for the Lincoln Leadership Initiative, his own supporters thought there was a 22 per cent chance that he would start a nuclear war.
唐纳德.特朗普极为冲动且无知，以至于在林肯领导倡议(Lincoln Leadership Initiative)进行的一项民调中，他自己的支持者都认为，他发动核战争的可能性达到22%。
Nonetheless, just six weeks before the election he had a 50:50 shot at becoming president.
然而，就在大选投票的6周前，特朗普还有一半的几率当选总统。
He might still win.
他仍有可能赢得大选。
His astonishing run could probably happen only in a country that feels secure enough to subsume its politics into TV entertainment and culture war.
他的令人错愕的人气很可能只会发生在一个自认为足够安全、可以将政治融入电视娱乐和文化战争的国家里。
Europe produces xenophobic populists too, but they tend to be better-informed xenophobic populists such as Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders, and anyway, they cannot destroy the world.
欧洲也涌现仇外的民粹主义者，但他们往往是马琳.勒庞(Marine Le Pen)和海尔特.维尔德斯(Geert Wilders)等更接地气的仇外民粹主义者，再说无论如何，他们不可能毁掉世界。
Abroad seems tiny to most American voters — and yet it’s the only place where their presidents can have much impact.
在大多数美国选民眼里，国外是个小地方，然而这是他们的总统唯一可以产生巨大影响的地方。
At home, a president is usually stymied by Congress.
在国内，总统通常受到国会的掣肘。
Obama probably did less than the iPhone to change most Americans’ lives.
要说改变大多数美国人的生活，奥巴马的影响很可能还没有iPhone大。
But if a president suddenly feels an itch to transform some foreign country, he can do it.
但如果一位总统突然心痒难耐地想要改变某个国家，他是可以做到的。
Foreigners therefore swing between two fears about the US: either that it will hurt us or, at times like now, that it will forget us.
外国人因此在对美国的两种担忧中摇摆：既怕它伤害我们，又怕它像现在这样忘掉我们。
Europe is a pretty good neighbourhood nowadays but compared with the US it remains uncomfortably close to the action.
如今欧洲是相当宜居的地段，但与美国相比，它依然令人不安地靠近战乱。
A French foreign minister once used a rare tête-à-tête in the back of a limousine with his president, Jacques Chirac, to ask why he was always so friendly to Russia.
一位法国外长曾经利用在豪车后座与时任总统雅克.希拉克(Jacques Chirac)密谈的难得机会，质问他为何总是对俄罗斯那么友好。
Because, said Chirac, when I look at the map of Europe, I see a lot of sweet little countries, and right next to them, this massive great bear.
希拉克说道：因为，当我查看欧洲地图的时候，我看到许多可爱的小国家，而就在它们旁边是这个庞大的熊。
So I’m nice to the bear.
因此我对这只熊客客气气。
To Europe’s south-east is a violent ghetto with 24-hour shooting, while just south of the stream there are people dying of hunger.
欧洲东南方向是一块暴力贫民区，24小时随时可能听到枪声，而更靠南的地方则有人因饥饿而死亡。
And as the current French president François Hollande says, The US will ask Europeans to defend themselves.
正如法国现任总统弗朗索瓦.奥朗德(François Hollande)所说的那样，美国将会要求欧洲人自己保护自己。
That’s a problem, because merely creating our own neighbourhood watch committee will probably always be beyond us.
这是一个问题，因为仅仅组建欧洲自己的邻里守望委员会就很可能超出了我们的能力范围。
The UK is now consumed with Brexit (making it even less useful as an American ally), the French army is busy patrolling French streets and, in military terms, the other European states are what the French disdainfully call vegetarians.
英国正忙着处理退欧事宜（这让它作为美国盟友的有用程度进一步减弱），法国军队忙着巡逻法国街道，而从军事上说，其他欧洲国家被法国人轻蔑地称为素食主义者。
Most European foreign action is now led by Angela Merkel.
欧洲的大部分海外行动由安格拉.默克尔(Angela Merkel)主导。
Though Americans and even Germans are expending lots of energy trying to work out what kind of power Germany is becoming, it definitely won’t be a hard power.
尽管美国人（甚至德国人）投入大量精力研究德国会成为哪类强国，但它肯定不会是一个施展硬实力的国家。
Vladimir Putin has just sent nuclear weapons into Kaliningrad, between Poland and Lithuania.
弗拉基米尔.普京(Vladimir Putin)刚刚在位于波兰和立陶宛之间的加里宁格勒(Kaliningrad)部署了核武器。
All of Europe risks ending up where eastern Europe used to be: inside Russia’s sphere of influence.
整个欧洲最终可能沦落到当年东欧的处境：处于俄罗斯的势力范围内。
Still, that might not turn out disastrously.
话虽如此，最终这可能不是灾难性的。
Putin is not stupid, says Daniel Keohane of the Centre for Security Studies in Zurich.
苏黎世安全研究中心(Centre for Security Studies)的丹尼尔.基奥恩(Daniel Keohane)表示：普京并不蠢。
I’m not sure he is keen to have an actual war with a Nato member state.
我确信他不会渴望真的与北约成员国打一仗。
Putin probably prefers just to make a big nuisance of himself, thinks Keohane.
基奥恩认为，普京很可能只是想制造些大麻烦。
The worst consequences of American isolation would therefore fall on the Middle East: what happens there if the US can no longer maintain the delicate Iranian-Saudi balance?
因此，美国孤立主义的最糟糕后果将落在中东：如果美国不再能够保持伊朗与沙特之间的微妙平衡，那里将会发生什么？
Whatever happens, it probably won’t be felt on American main streets.
无论发生什么，美国普通人很可能感觉不到。
As this election shows, the world’s most powerful country isn’t very interested in the world.
正如此次选举表明的那样，这个世界上最强大的国家对世界没多大兴趣。
