打擊ISIS 美國不應“勝勇追窮寇”
Can the US “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or Isis, as President Barack Obama promised on Wednesday, without being drawn into another open-ended conflict?
美國能像總統巴拉克•奧巴馬(Barack Obama)上週三承諾的那樣，在不用陷入又一場無休止衝突的情況下，“不斷削弱直至最終消滅”伊拉克和黎凡特伊斯蘭國(ISIS)嗎？Not if America intends, as Joe Biden, the vice-president, put it last week, to follow Isis “to the gates of hell”. That open-ended commitment takes pressure off states in the region to solve their own problems, and acting upon it would be a strategic mistake. Americans are anyway unlikely to accept the cost in blood and treasure. That should primarily be borne by the regional states whose broken politics brought Isis into being, and which have the most to lose. Yet these states cannot realistically be expected to defeat Isis militarily without US support. Whether the US can avoid entanglement in a long war depends on how it defines its role in defeating Isis.
答案是否定的——如果美國打算像其副總統喬•拜登(Joe Biden)上週所說的那樣，把ISIS一路清剿“到地獄之門”。那種無止境的承諾緩解了中東國家解決它們自身問題的壓力，依此採取行動將是戰略上的錯誤。無論如何，美國人都不太可能接受生命和財力損失的代價。這些代價主要應該由中東國家承擔，正是後者的政治失敗催生了ISIS，它們面臨的潛在損失也最大。然而，從現實角度來說，如果沒有美國的支持，也別指望這些國家在軍事上擊敗ISIS。美國能否避免捲入一場長期戰爭，取決於它如何定義自己在擊敗ISIS中的角色。
When western forces fought in Afghanistan in 2001 and in Iraq in 2003, they quickly defeated the armies fielded by those states. But then the west took primary responsibility for defeating the insurgencies that had taken root inside the borders of those states. The follow-on mission, which I experienced as an infantry officer in southern Afghanistan, became indistinguishable from local politics. Given the need to tackle all the problems that stoked insurgency – poor governance, corruption, land rights, ethnic prejudice – it could not have been anything less. The hard military objective of defeating an enemy evolved into an open-ended commitment to stabilise politics and civil society.
當西方國家2001年出兵阿富汗、2003年出兵伊拉克的時候，它們迅速擊潰了這兩個國家的軍隊。但隨後西方承擔了擊敗叛亂的主要責任，而叛亂髮端於那些國家的境內。後續任務（我作爲步兵部隊軍官，在阿富汗南部執行任務時對此有親身經歷）變得與地方政治沒什麼兩樣。考慮到有必要應對當初引發叛亂的所有問題（糟糕治理、腐敗、土地權、族裔偏見），這是必然的。擊敗敵人的硬性軍事目標，演變爲穩定政治和公民社會的無止境承諾。
It is reasonable for the US to lead the initial phase of military action, to prevent Isis from exercising overt control of the territory it seeks by hitting their forces when they appear in the open, and striking their leadership, both from the air. However, if the mission is to remain within clear bounds, it cannot take responsibility for the permanent defeat of Isis, which must lie with local actors and regional states. Their security is what is primarily at stake, and the long-term stabilisation needed to defeat an insurgency requires them to fix their politics.
美國在軍事行動初期打頭陣是合理的：從空中打擊ISIS領導人以及出現在空曠地區的武裝分子，阻止ISIS控制其想要染指的地盤。然而，要使任務被限定在明確界限以內，美國就不能承擔永久擊敗ISIS的責任，那種責任必須由當地勢力和地區國家承擔。這件事主要關係到它們的安全，平息叛亂所需的長期穩定要求他們解決國內政治問題。Even a limited western mission will meet difficulties. In many areas there are no local forces suitable to receive western backing. In these places Isis might be forced to work covertly but the group would continue to operate. This is most obviously a problem in Syria, outside the sliver of Kurdish-controlled territory in the country’s north. But it is also a difficulty in non-Kurdish Iraq, where the much-foretold uprising of Sunni tribes against their co-religionists in Isis is merely an aspiration not a matter of hard fact – not least because Sunni there were badly abused during the rule of Nouri al-Maliki, the former prime minister. The primary problem here is Baghdad’s own politics, which western military action cannot fix.
西方揹負的有限任務也將面臨困難。在許多地區，當地沒有適合接受西方支持的勢力。在這些地區，ISIS可能被迫轉入地下活動，但它不會停止活動。這個問題在敘利亞表現得最爲明顯——除了該國北部庫爾德人控制的長條形地區外。但在伊拉克的非庫爾德人地區也是一個問題——許多人預言的遜尼派奮起反抗同爲遜尼派的ISIS只是一種願望，並非事實，尤其是因爲遜尼派在前總理努裏•馬利基(Nouri al-Maliki)統治期間吃盡苦頭。這裏的主要問題在於巴格達的政治，西方軍事行動不可能解決這個問題。Even where local forces can overwhelm Isis, there will be little the west can do to shape the politics on the ground, especially if it moves in undemocratic directions. That is a real possibility, given that a common enemy does not equate to a common political goal.
即便當地勢力可以擊潰ISIS，西方在塑造當地政治方面也將無能爲力，尤其是如果當地政治向非民主的方向發展的話。鑑於共同的敵人並不等同於共同的政治目標，這是一種非常真實的可能性。Some argue for a bigger western role. They might say that Libya is a lesson in what happens when the west does not seek to reshape local politics after a common enemy has been defeated. There, the west backed rebel factions, which then fragmented. The result was chaos.
一些人主張西方扮演更重要的角色。他們或許會說，利比亞就是一個教訓：在共同的敵人被擊敗後，西方沒有尋求重塑當地政治。西方曾在那裏支持叛軍派系，後來這些叛軍分崩離析了。結果是利比亞陷入混亂。But the parallels are inexact. Despite factional differences, the Kurds still form a coherent political entity in their autonomous region of northern Iraq (and to a lesser extent in Syria) which can govern retaken ground. Baghdad might be able to govern western Iraq if it can reach accommodation with Sunni tribes.
但這種比較並不準確。儘管存在派系上的分歧，但庫爾德人仍能夠在伊拉克北部自治區和敘利亞（程度不及前者）建立一個組織完善、可以治理收復地盤的政治實體。巴格達如果能夠與遜尼派部族達成和解，或許也能治理伊拉克西部。In non-Kurdish Syria, however, things are more difficult. There, the regime of Bashar al-Assad is the only coherent political force. The Free Syrian Army’s “moderate rebels” are a shambles, and many of their weapons have ended up in the hands of hardline Islamists.
然而，在沒有庫爾德人的敘利亞地區，情況更爲困難。在那裏，巴沙爾•阿薩德(Bashar al-Assad)政權是唯一組織完善的政治力量。敘利亞自由軍(Free Syrian Army)的“溫和派叛軍”已經瓦解，他們的許多武器最終落到死硬的伊斯蘭主義者手中。Backing them is comparable to the failed strategy in Libya.
支持他們和在利比亞的失敗戰略沒什麼兩樣。Finally, there is a moral limit to what western publics will support. Remember Tacitus who, describing Roman counter-insurgency efforts in Britain, said: “They made a wasteland and called it peace.” “Exterminate Isis” slips off the tongue now, but it will scar the eyes later, when we see what reprisals against civilians in Isis-supporting areas looks like. Should the local forces engage in atrocities, western public support for them will evaporate.
最後，西方公衆支持的勢力要有道德底線。別忘了塔西佗(Tacitus)這樣描述羅馬在英國鎮壓叛亂的努力：“他們製造了荒漠，卻將此稱爲和平。”現在人們已經把“消滅ISIS”說順了口，但當我們在支持ISIS的地區看到平民受到的報復時，又會有上當的感覺。如果當地勢力參與暴行，西方公衆對他們的支持將會消失。The lessons of the past decade suggest that a clearly bounded extension of US military action means taking responsibility at most for the initial phase, not the permanent defeat of Isis, in which the west should only play a supporting role. The alternative is to commit to a long fight, removing the pressure on regional states to act. Anyone advocating that would have to believe that western publics are prepared to bear the cost. They are not.
過去10年的教訓表明，美國擴大軍事行動要有明顯界限，這意味着至多在最初階段承擔責任，而不是永久性地擊敗ISIS——西方只應在後續階段扮演支持角色。另一個選擇是致力於打一場長期戰爭，消除中東國家採取行動的壓力。提倡這麼做的人必須認爲，西方公衆準備承擔爲此付出的代價。他們沒有這個意願。The writer is a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and author of ‘War From the Ground Up’
本文作者是美國哈佛大學肯尼迪政府學院(Harvard Kennedy School of Government)的研究員，著有《從地面戰爭開始》(War From the Ground Up)一書
