西方組隊遏制俄羅斯難以奏效

中文在上，對照英文在下。

西方的所作所爲就像它面臨的問題是弗拉基米爾•普京(Vladimir Putin)一樣。事實上，西方面臨的問題在於俄羅斯本身。俄羅斯總統的立場與俄羅斯長期以來的思維傳統保持一致。他的離開不會解決任何事情。一個正常的繼任者依然會採取類似行動，即使在行動魄力方面或許比前任略遜一籌。

The west acts as if it has a Vladimir Putin problem. In fact it has a Russia problem. The Russian president stands within a long tradition of Russian thinking. His departure would fix nothing. Any plausible successor would pursue a similar course, if perhaps with a little less machismo.

俄羅斯的問題不是一個新問題。在200年前，拿破崙時代的末期這個問題就出現了，並且體現出我們今天所謂的價值鴻溝。在19世紀，俄羅斯依然維持着獨裁政權，而歐洲則開始走向自由的民主政體。

The Russia problem is not new. It emerged 200 years ago, at the end of the Napoleonic period, with the opening up of what we would today call a values gap. In the 19th century Russia maintained an autocratic regime as Europe moved towards liberal democracy.

然而俄羅斯依然是個大國，與歐洲的安全息息相關。面臨一個持不同世界觀的強國，歐洲該如何自保？這在當時是個難題，現在也是如此。

Yet Russia remained a great power, essential to European security. How to protect Europe in the presence of a powerful state that is alien in worldview? That was the problem then, as now.

歐洲國家通過均勢來尋求安全；俄羅斯則通過戰略縱深來尋求安全。這種觀點源於俄羅斯所處的位置——廣袤和幾乎沒有天險的歐亞大平原，軍隊可以輕鬆地四處移動。

European states seek security in balance; Russia seeks it in strategic depth. That view grows out of its location on the vast, nearly featureless great Eurasian plain, across which armies have moved with ease.

歷史上，俄羅斯一直努力將邊境線向外推進，儘可能地遠離腹地。在遇到可以防禦的實體邊界時它也不會停止推進，除非遭遇能與之抗衡的強大國家。西方認爲這是帝國主義，而莫斯科則將其視爲防禦的建立。

Historically, Russia has pushed its borders outward, as far away as possible from its heartland. It did not stop when it reached defensible physical borders, but only when it ran into powerful countervailing states. Where the west saw imperialism, Moscow saw the erection of defences.

隨着時間推移，俄羅斯遭遇了各方的抵抗——西方的日耳曼國家、英國和當時處於南方的美國、東方的中國和日本，這劃定了俄羅斯的安全區域，即歐亞大陸中部的北方，也就是前蘇聯的地盤。

Over time, resistance from the Germanic powers in the west, Great Britain and then the US in the south, and China and Japan in the east, came to define Russia’s zone of security as north central Eurasia, the former Soviet space.