我们为什么要打仗？
Why We Fight

A century has passed since the start of World War I, which many people at the time declared was “the war to end all wars.” Unfortunately, wars just kept happening. And with the headlines from Ukraine getting scarier by the day, this seems like a good time to ask why.

现在距离一战爆发已经过去了一个世纪，当时许多人都说这场战争是“终止一切战争的战争”。不幸的是，战争仍在继续爆发。关于乌克兰的新闻标题一天比一天可怕，现在似乎是个询问原因的好时机。

Once upon a time wars were fought for fun and profit; when Rome overran Asia Minor or Spain conquered Peru, it was all about the gold and silver. And that kind of thing still happens. In influential research sponsored by the World Bank, the Oxford economist Paul Collier has shown that the best predictor of civil war, which is all too common in poor countries, is the availability of lootable resources like diamonds. Whatever other reasons rebels cite for their actions seem to be mainly after-the-fact rationalizations. War in the preindustrial world was and still is more like a contest among crime families over who gets to control the rackets than a fight over principles.

曾几何时，人们打仗是为了乐趣和利益；当罗马肆虐小亚细亚，西班牙征服秘鲁时，那都是为了金银财宝。如今，这种事情还在发生。哈佛(Oxford)经济学家保罗·科利尔(Paul Collier)在世界银行(World Bank)资助的颇有影响力的研究中指出，在贫穷国家屡见不鲜的内战的最佳预警器，就是一国是否拥有像钻石那样的可掠夺资源。不论反对派为自己的行动提供其他什么理由，似乎主要都是事后给出的辩解。不论过去还是现在，尚未实现工业化的地区间的战争更像是各犯罪集团为了争取非法生意的控制权而展开的竞争，而不是一场原则之战。

If you’re a modern, wealthy nation, however, war — even easy, victorious war — doesn’t pay. And this has been true for a long time. In his famous 1910 book “The Great Illusion,” the British journalist Norman Angell argued that “military power is socially and economically futile.” As he pointed out, in an interdependent world (which already existed in the age of steamships, railroads, and the telegraph), war would necessarily inflict severe economic harm even on the victor. Furthermore, it’s very hard to extract golden eggs from sophisticated economies without killing the goose in the process.

不过，如果你是一个现代的富裕国家，战争——即使是轻松取胜的战争——是划不来的。很长时间以来，这都是事实。英国记者诺曼·安吉尔(Norman Angell)在他1910年的著作《大幻觉》(The Great Illusion)中称，“军事力量对于社会和经济没有任何意义。”正如他所说，在一个相互依存的世界中（这种情况的确在蒸汽船、铁路和电报时代就已存在），战争必然会造成严重的负面经济影响，即便对战胜方也是如此。此外，很难在不杀死鸡的情况下，从复杂的经济体中取出金蛋。

保罗·克鲁格曼

We might add that modern war is very, very expensive. For example, by any estimate the eventual costs (including things like veterans’ care) of the Iraq war will end up being well over $1 trillion, that is, many times Iraq’s entire G.D.P.

我们或许还可以说，现代战争非常、非常之昂贵。例如，以任何方式衡量，伊拉克战争的最终花费（其中包括退伍军人疗养费）将远超1万亿美元（约合6.15万亿元人民币），是伊拉克GDP的许多倍。

So the thesis of “The Great Illusion” was right: Modern nations can’t enrich themselves by waging war. Yet wars keep happening. Why?

所以，《大幻觉》(The Great Illusion)的论点是正确的：现代国家并不能通过发动战争来变得富有。但是，战争还是频频发生。为什么呢？

One answer is that leaders may not understand the arithmetic. Angell, by the way, often gets a bum rap from people who think that he was predicting an end to war. Actually, the purpose of his book was to debunk atavistic notions of wealth through conquest, which were still widespread in his time. And delusions of easy winnings still happen. It’s only a guess, but it seems likely that Vladimir Putin thought that he could overthrow Ukraine’s government, or at least seize a large chunk of its territory, on the cheap — a bit of deniable aid to the rebels, and it would fall into his lap.

其中一个答案就是，领导人或许不懂其中的算法。顺便说一句，那些认为安吉尔在预言战争的终结的人经常会对他表示批评。其实，他这本书只是为了驳斥通过征服来获得财富的古老观点，而这种观点在他的时代还很常见。轻松取胜的错觉仍然存在。这只是个猜测，不过弗拉基米尔·普京(Vladimir Putin)似乎认为他能不花太大代价就推翻乌克兰政府，或者至少占领它的大片领土，然后乌克兰就会落入他的手中，方法就是向反叛分子提供一点可以否认的援助。

And for that matter, remember when the Bush administration predicted that overthrowing Saddam and installing a new government would cost only $50 billion or $60 billion?

说到这一点，大家还记不记得，布什政府曾预计推翻萨达姆、建立一个新政府只用花费500到600亿美元？

The larger problem, however, is that governments all too often gain politically from war, even if the war in question makes no sense in terms of national interests.

然而，一个更大的问题是，各国政府经常会从战争中获得政治利益，即使相关战争在国家利益层面并不合理。

Recently Justin Fox of the Harvard Business Review suggested that the roots of the Ukraine crisis may lie in the faltering performance of the Russian economy. As he noted, Mr. Putin’s hold on power partly reflects a long run of rapid economic growth. But Russian growth has been sputtering — and you could argue that the Putin regime needed a distraction.

最近，《哈佛商业评论》(Harvard Business Review)的贾斯汀·福克斯(Justin Fox)表示，乌克兰危机的根源或许在于俄罗斯经济的不稳定表现。正如他所言，普京对权力的掌控程度在一定程度上反映了长时间的快速经济增长。但是，俄罗斯的经济增长已经放缓——可以说，普京政府需要一些事情来转移注意力。

Similar arguments have been made about other wars that otherwise seem senseless, like Argentina’s invasion of the Falkland Islands in 1982, which is often attributed to the then-ruling junta’s desire to distract the public from an economic debacle. (To be fair, some scholars are highly critical of this claim.)

对于其他一些似乎原本没有任何意义的战争，人们也找到了一些相似的理由，比如阿根廷1982年对福克兰群岛的入侵。人们通常认为，之所以发动这场战争，是因为当时执政的军政府希望能把公众的注意力从经济困境上转移开来。（平心而论，有些学者对这种说法持强烈的批判态度。）

And the fact is that nations almost always rally around their leaders in times of war, no matter how foolish the war or how awful the leaders. Argentina’s junta briefly became extremely popular during the Falklands War. For a time, the “war on terror” took President George W. Bush’s approval to dizzying heights, and Iraq probably won him the 2004 election. True to form, Mr. Putin’s approval ratings have soared since the Ukraine crisis began.

事实是，在战争时期，各国国民总是会团结在其领导人身边，不论这场战争多么愚蠢，他们的领导人又有多么糟糕。在福克兰群岛的战争中，阿根廷军政府在短时间内突然变得非常受欢迎。曾有一段时间，美国总统乔治·W·布什(George W. Bush)所发动的“反恐战争”使他的支持率达到了令人目眩的高度，伊拉克或许使他赢得了2004年的选举。一如往常，自乌克兰危机开始以来，普京的支持率也出现飙升。

No doubt it’s an oversimplification to say that the confrontation in Ukraine is all about shoring up an authoritarian regime that is stumbling on other fronts. But there’s surely some truth to that story — and that raises some scary prospects for the future.

毫无疑问，说乌克兰冲突只是为了巩固一个在其他方面出现问题的威权主义政府，或许有过分简单化事情的嫌疑。但是这种说法肯定有它的道理，而这让未来变得有些可怕。

Most immediately, we have to worry about escalation in Ukraine. All-out war would be hugely against Russia’s interests — but Mr. Putin may feel that letting the rebellion collapse would be an unacceptable loss of face.

着眼近期，我们现在必须对乌克兰局势的恶化表示关注。发动全面战争将会对俄罗斯的利益造成巨大损害——但普京或许会觉得，任由反对派失败会很没有面子，将令人无法接受。

And if authoritarian regimes without deep legitimacy are tempted to rattle sabers when they can no longer deliver good performance, think about the incentives China’s rulers will face if and when that nation’s economic miracle comes to an end — something many economists believe will happen soon.

如果缺乏广泛合法性的威权主义政府在无法拿出良好表现的时候，倾向于威胁别的国家，那么请想象一下：当中国的经济奇迹结束时——许多经济学家都认为这种局面很快就会到来——中国领导人会面临怎样的选择。

Starting a war is a very bad idea. But it keeps happening anyway.

发动战争是个非常糟糕的主意。但是不论如何，战争仍然在继续爆发。

翻译：陈柳