《纽约时报》发表一篇了评论，题为The Biggest Threat to America Is America Itself（美国最大的威胁是美国自己），作者是该报评论版专栏作家尼古拉·克里斯托夫（Nicholas Kristof）。文章提醒美国当政者认清一个现实，即美国最大的问题不是其他国家对自己做了什么，而是美国自己做了什么。原文及译文如下：
“America is back” became President Biden’s refrain on his European trip this month, and in a narrow sense it is.
“美国回来了”成为拜登总统本月欧洲之行的口头禅。从狭义上讲，也确实如此。
We no longer have a White House aide desperately searching for a fire alarm to interrupt a president as he humiliates our country at an international news conference, as happened in 2018. And a Pew Research Center survey found that 75 percent of those polled in a dozen countries expressed “confidence in the U.S. president to do the right thing,” compared with 17 percent a year ago.
我们没再出现白宫助手见总统在国际新闻发布会上羞辱我们国家而设法打断他的窘境，就像2018年发生的那样。皮尤研究中心调查发现，在十几个国家接受调查的人中，75%表示“对美国总统做正确的事情有信心”，而一年前这一比例为17%。
Yet in a larger sense, America is not back. In terms of our well-being at home and competitiveness abroad, the blunt truth is that America is lagging. In some respects, we are sliding toward mediocrity.
然而，从更广的意义上说，美国并没有回来。就我们的国内福利和国外竞争力而言，严峻的事实是美国落后了。某种程度上看，我们正在走向平庸。
Greeks have higher high school graduation rates. Chileans live longer. Fifteen-year-olds in Russia, Poland, Latvia and many other countries are better at math than their American counterparts — perhaps a metric for where nations will stand in a generation or two.
希腊人有更高的高中生毕业率，智利人寿命更长，俄罗斯、波兰、拉脱维亚和许多其他国家的15岁儿童的数学比他们的美国同龄人更好，——恐怕在一两代人中比较的结果都差不多。
As for reading, one-fifth of American 15-year-olds can’t read at the level expected of a 10-year-old. How are those millions of Americans going to compete in a globalized economy? As I see it, the greatest threat to America’s future is less a surging China or a rogue Russia than it is our underperformance at home.
至于阅读，五分之一的美国15岁儿童的阅读能力达不到10岁儿童的预期水平。数百万美国人将如何在全球化经济中竞争？在我看来，对美国未来的最大威胁与其说是崛起的中国或无赖的俄罗斯，不如说是我们自己在国内表现乏善可陈。
We Americans repeat the mantra that “we’re No. 1” even though the latest Social Progress Index, a measure of health, safety and well-being around the world, ranked the United States No. 28. Even worse, the United States was one of only three countries, out of 163, that went backward in well-being over the last decade.
我们美国人总是在絮叨“我们是世界第一”，尽管最新的“社会进步指数”（SPI，一种衡量全球健康、安全和福利的指标）将美国排在第28位。更糟糕的是，在过去十年中，美国是163个国家中仅有的三个在福利方面出现倒退的国家之一。
Another assessment this month, the I.M.D. World Competitiveness Ranking 2021, put the United States No. 10 out of 64 economies. A similar forward-looking study from the World Bank ranks the United States No. 35 out of 174 countries.
本月的另一项评估是I.M.D.的2021年世界竞争力排名（I.M.D. World Competitiveness）把美国排在64个经济体中的第10位（中国的排名中由去年的第20名升至第16名——译注）。来自世界银行一项类似的前瞻性研究，则将美国列为174个国家中的第35位。
So it’s great that we again have a president respected by the world. But we are not “back,” and we must face the reality that our greatest vulnerability is not what other countries do to us but what we have done to ourselves. The United States cannot achieve its potential when so many Americans are falling short of theirs.
我们很高兴再次拥有一位受世界尊重的总统，但我们并没有“回来”。我们必须面对这样一个现实，即我们最大的弱点不是其他国家对我们做了什么，而是我们对自己做了什么。当这么多美国人不能发挥他们的潜力时，就别指望美国能发挥自己的潜力。
“America’s chronic failure to turn its economic strength into social progress is a huge drag on American influence,” said Michael Green, chief executive of the group that publishes the Social Progress Index. “Europeans may envy America’s corporate dynamism but can comfort themselves that they are doing a much better job on a host of social outcomes, from education to health to the environment.
“美国长期未能将其经济实力转化为社会进步，这极大地拖累了美国的影响力，”发布SPI指数的组织的首席执行官迈克尔·格林（Michael Green）说。“欧洲人可能羡慕美国的企业活力，但却可以安慰自己，他们在一系列社会成果方面做得更好，例如从教育到健康再到环境。”
“Rivals like China may see the fraying of America’s social fabric as a sign of strategic weakness,” he added. “Emerging economies, whose citizens are starting to enjoy quality of life ever closer to that of Americans, may be less willing to take lectures from the U.S. government.”
“像中国这样的竞争对手可能会将美国社会结构的消磨视为一种战略弱点的标志，”他补充道。“新兴经济体的公民开始享受的生活质量正前所未有地接近美国人，他们可能不太愿意接受美国政府的指点。”
Biden’s proposals for a refundable child credit, for national pre-K, for affordable child care and for greater internet access would help address America’s strategic weaknesses. They would do more to strengthen our country than the $1.2 trillion plan pursued by American officials to modernize our nuclear arsenal. Our greatest threats today are ones we can’t nuke.
拜登提出的可退还儿童信贷、全国范围的学前班、可负担的儿童保育和扩大互联网接入等建议，将有助于克服美国的战略弱点。这些措施将更加有利于加强我们的国家，而不是美国官员屡屡提及的投资1.2万亿美元更新我们的核武库。我们今天最大的威胁，并非我们用核武器就能应对的。
America still has enormous strengths. Its military budget is bigger than the military budgets of the next 10 countries put together. American universities are superb, and the dynamism of United States corporations is reflected in the way people worldwide use their iPhones to post on their Facebook pages about Taylor Swift songs.
美国仍然拥有巨大的优势。它的军事预算比排在其后的 10个国家的军事预算总和还要多很多。美国的大学也非常棒。美国公司的活力体现在全世界人们都使用iPhone在Facebook页面上发布有关泰勒·斯威夫特（ Taylor Swift ，当今红遍全球的美国青年女歌手、词曲作家——译注）歌曲的方式上。
But they also comment, aghast, about the Capitol insurrection and attempts by Republicans to impede voting. American democracy was never quite as shimmering a model for the world as we liked to think, but it is certainly tarnished now.
但他们也惊讶地评论国会大厦暴乱和共和党人试图阻止投票的行为。美国的民主从来不像我们想象的那样闪闪发亮，而它现在肯定更加失去光泽。
Likewise, the “American dream” of upward mobility (which drew my refugee father to these shores in 1952) is increasingly chimerical. “The American dream is evidently more likely to be found on the other side of the Atlantic, indeed most notably in Denmark,” a Stanford study concluded.
同样，由草根逆袭的“美国梦”（正是它在1952年将我的难民父亲吸引到这片海岸）也变得空无所依。“美国梦显然更可能出现在大西洋的另一边，尤其是在丹麦，”斯坦福大学的一项研究这样下结论。
“These things hold us back as an economy and as a country,” Jerome Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, said Tuesday.
“这些事情阻碍了我们成为一个更强大的经济体和一个强国，”美联储主席杰罗姆·鲍威尔（Jerome Powell）周二（22日）说。
More broadly, the United States has lost its lead in education overall and in investments in children. The World Bank Human Capital Project estimates that today’s American children will achieve only 70 percent of their potential productivity. That hurts them; it also hurts our nation.
更广泛地说，美国在整体教育和儿童投资方面失去了领先地位。据世界银行人力资本项目（WBUCP）估测，今天的美国儿童只能发挥他们70%的潜力。这既伤害了他们，也伤害了我们的国家。
We can’t control whether China builds more aircraft carriers. We can’t deter every Russian hacker.
But to truly bring America back, we should worry less about what others do and more about what we do to ourselves.
By Nicholas Kristof
June 23 2021
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