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这篇文标题为：The Thucydides Trap - Will America and China go to war?
The big foreign-policy question that is worrying Washington
修昔底德陷阱-中美是否终将一战？重大的外交问题让华盛顿的小伙伴们很焦虑
Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? By Graham Allison. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 384 pages; $28. Scribe; £18.99.
终将一战：中美是否能摆脱修昔底德陷阱？作者Graham Allison. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt，书共384页卖28美金18.99英镑
ON JULY 2nd an American guided-missile destroyer sailed within 12 nautical miles (22.2km) of Triton, a tiny Chinese-occupied island in the South China Sea. It was on a “freedom of navigation” operation, sailing through disputed waters to show China that others do not accept its territorial claims. Such operations infuriate China. But they have not brought the two superpowers to blows. So far.
7月2日美国的导弹驱逐舰在中国南海控制区的一个叫Triton的小岛附近海域巡航了12海里（22.2公里）。这是一个代号“自由航行”的行动，通过在争议水域中航行向中国表示，其他国家的小伙伴并不接受你这种领土宣告的霸王条款。这行动直接惹毛了中国。当然就目前而言，两个超级大国还不至于一言不合就开打
Graham Allison, a Harvard scholar, thinks the world underestimates the risk of a catastrophic clash between China and the United States. When a rising power challenges an incumbent, carnage often ensues. Thucydides, an ancient historian, wrote of the Peloponnesian war of 431-404 BC that “It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable.” Mr Allison has examined 16 similar cases since the 15th century. All but four ended in war. Mr Allison does not say that war between China and the United States is inevitable, but he thinks it “more likely than not”.
Graham Allison, a Harvard scholar,觉得整个世界都低估了中美之间灾难性冲突的风险。当一种力量开始崛起，并威胁到现有霸主之时，大屠杀往往随之而来。古代历史学家修昔底德，在描述公元前431-404年发生的伯罗奔尼撒战争中曾这样写道：“正是雅典势力的崛起和斯巴达因此而逐渐产生的恐惧，让这场战争变得无可避免” Allison同学研究了15世纪之后的16个类似案例，发现除了4例之外均以战争收尾。Allison并没说中美之战不可避免，但他觉得开干的可能性更大些
This alarming conclusion is shared by many in Washington, where Mr Allison’s book is causing a stir. So it is worth examining his reasoning. America has shaped a set of global rules to suit itself. China has different values and different interests which it would like others to accommodate. Disagreements are inevitable.
这种令人担忧的结论通过Allison同学的书在华盛顿广为流传。他的推理当然值得检验，美国已然制定了一系列对其自身有利的国际准则，而中国则有着不同的价值观和利益，也希望其他国家能够接纳。分歧变得无可避免。
War would be disastrous for both sides, but that does not mean it cannot happen. No one wanted the first world war, yet it started anyway, thanks to a series of miscalculations. The Soviet Union and America avoided all-out war, but they came close. During the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, when the Soviets tried to smuggle nuclear missiles onto Cuba, 90 miles (145km) from Florida, there were at least a dozen close calls that could have led to war. When American ships dropped explosives around Soviet submarines to force them to surface, one Soviet captain thought he was under attack and nearly fired his nuclear torpedoes. When an American spy plane flew into Soviet airspace, Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader, worried that America was scoping targets for a nuclear first strike. Had he decided to pre-empt it, a third world war could have followed.
战争无疑对于双方都是灾难，但这并不意味着就不会发生。没人想要第一次世界大战，然而并没有什么卵用，在各种机缘巧合下还是发生了。前苏联和美国避免了直接战争，但也是擦枪走火差一点点。古巴1962年导弹危机，当苏联偷运核导弹到距离弗罗里达只有90英里（145公里）的古巴时，至少有一打的事件都差点导致战争。当美国舰队扔下深水炸弹迫使苏联潜艇上浮之时，一位苏联艇长还以为他们遭受了攻击，差点就把核鱼雷发射出去。当美国的侦察机飞越苏联领空时，苏联领导人赫鲁晓夫担心美国是在为第一次核打击寻找目标。如果他当时选择先发制人的话，第三次世界大战就妥妥的开打了
China and America could blunder into war in several ways, argues Mr Allison. A stand-off over Taiwan could escalate. North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong Un, might die without an obvious heir, sparking chaos. American and Chinese special forces might rush into North Korea to secure the regime’s nuclear weapons, and clash. A big cyber-attack against America’s military networks might convince it that China was trying to blind its forces in the Pacific. American retaliation aimed at warning China off might have the opposite effect. Suppose that America crippled China’s Great Firewall, as a warning shot, and China saw this as an attempt to overthrow its government? With Donald Trump in the White House, Mr Allison worries that even a trade war might turn into a shooting war.
Allison同志表示，中国和美国有可能通过以下几种方式被卷入战争。 台湾平衡局势的升级。北朝鲜领袖金三胖在没有继承人的情况下挂掉，引发动乱，中美双方特种部队迅速进入朝鲜争夺核武器资源而引发冲突。对于美国军事网络的攻击有可能会把屎盆子扣在中国头上，觉得是中国正试图“致盲”美国在太平洋地区的军事力量。美国的反击也许只是想要威慑或赶跑中国，但可能效果正相反。假想一下，美国攻破了中国国家防火墙，只是想着作为警告，然后中国把这种行为看作是颠覆政府的举动？现在白宫掌权的是川普，Allison同志担心哪怕只是一场贸易之战，都有可能最终演化成双方对着突突的局面。
He is right that Mr Trump is frighteningly ignorant of America’s chief global rival, and that both sides should work harder to understand each other. But Mr Allison’s overall thesis is too gloomy. China is a cautious superpower. Its leaders stoke nationalist sentiment at home, but they have shown little appetite for military adventurism abroad. Yes, the Taiwan strait and the South China Sea are dangerous. But unlike the great powers of old, China has no desire to build a far-flung empire. And all the wars in Mr Allison’s sample broke out before the invention of nuclear weapons. China and America have enough of these to destroy the world. That alone makes war extremely unlikely.
他有一点是对的，川普对于美国的头号竞争对手中国那是惊人的无知和愚，而且双方都应当更加努力的去了解彼此。但Allison同志的整体观点过于阴暗。中国是一个非常谨慎的超级大国。对内，中国的领导人体现出很强的民族主义情绪，但对外的军事行动却是非常的小心谨慎。的确，台湾海峡和南海问题都很危险，但和过去的强权不同，中国无意开疆拓土去建立一个幅员辽阔的帝国，且Allison同志之前所举的例证都是在核武器这种东西发明之前。中国和美国都拥有这种毁灭世界的力量，单就这一点，中美战争的可能性就可以说是微乎其微。
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