本期原文选自The Economist 2016-10-22的封面文章Putinism，释义来自牛津高阶七版、剑桥在线词典等资源。如果您也在学习The Economist，欢迎订阅我的文集The Economist，一起学习交流。

Putinism

Four years ago Mitt Romney, then a Republican candidate, said that Russia was America’s “number-one geopolitical foe”. Barack Obama, among others, mocked this hilarious gaffe【1】: “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back, because the cold war’s been over for 20 years,” scoffed the president. How times change. With Russia hacking【2】 the American election, presiding over【3】 mass slaughter in Syria, annexing【4】 Crimea and talking casually about using nuclear weapons, Mr Romney’s view has become conventional wisdom. Almost the only American to dissent from【5】 it is today’s Republican nominee, Donald Trump.

【1】gaffe 失言，失态

【2】hack 本义是砍，劈，还可指非法入侵他人计算机系统；此处一语双关

【3】preside at/over 主持会议、仪式等，担任主席

【4】annex 吞并，抢占

【5】dissent from 持不同意见

Every week Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, finds new ways to scare the world. Recently he moved nuclear-capable missiles【6】 close to Poland and Lithuania. This week he sent an aircraft-carrier group【7】 down the North Sea and the English Channel. He has threatened to shoot down any American plane that attacks the forces of Syria’s despot, Bashar al-Assad. Russia’s UN envoy has said that relations with America are at their tensest in 40 years. Russian television news is full of ballistic missiles【8】 and bomb shelters【9】. “Impudent behaviour” might have “nuclear consequences”, warns Dmitry Kiselev, Mr Putin’s propagandist-in-chief—who goes on to cite Mr Putin’s words that “If a fight is inevitable, you have to strike first.”

【6】nuclear-capable missiles 核导弹

【7】aircraft-carrier group 航空母舰舰队

【8】ballistic missile 弹道导弹

【9】bomb shelter 防空洞

In fact, Russia is not about to go to war【10】 with America. Much of its language is no more than bluster【11】. But it does pose a threat to stability and order. And the first step to answering that threat is to understand that Russian belligerence【12】 is not a sign of resurgence, but of a chronic, debilitating weakness.

【10】go to war (against/with sb) （向某人）开战

【11】bluster

【12】belligerence 好战性，斗争性；belligerent 好战的，参战的，交战国

Vlad the invader

As our special report this week sets out, Russia confronts grave problems in its economy, politics and society. Its population is ageing and is expected to shrink by 10% by 2050. An attempt to use the windfall【13】 from the commodity boom to modernise the state and its economy fell flat【14】. Instead Mr Putin has presided over a huge increase in government: between 2005 and 2015, the share of Russian GDP that comes from public spending and state-controlled firms rose from 35% to 70%. Having grown by 7% a year at the start of Mr Putin’s reign, the economy is now shrinking. Sanctions are partly to blame, but corruption and a fall in the price of oil matter more. The Kremlin decides who gets rich and stays that way. Vladimir Yevtushenkov, a Russian tycoon, was detained for three months in 2014. When he emerged, he had surrendered his oil company.

【13】windfall 意外之财，飞来横福

【14】fall flat 未达到预期效果

Mr Putin has sought to offset vulnerability at home with aggression abroad. With their mass protests after election-rigging【15】 in 2011-12, Russia’s sophisticated urban middle classes showed that they yearn for a modern state. When the oil price was high, Mr Putin could resist them by buying support. Now he shores up【16】 his power by waging foreign wars and using his propaganda tools to whip up【17】 nationalism. He is wary of giving any ground to Western ideas because Russia’s political system, though adept at repression, is brittle. Institutions that would underpin a prosperous Russia, such as the rule of law, free media, democracy and open competition, pose an existential threat to Mr Putin’s rotten state.

【15】rigging 操纵，营私舞弊

【16】 shore sth up 支撑

【17】whip sth up 煽动，激发

For much of his time in office Mr Obama has assumed that, because Russia is a declining power, he need not pay it much heed. Yet a weak, insecure, unpredictable country with nuclear weapons is dangerous—more so, in some ways, even than the Soviet Union was. Unlike Soviet leaders after Stalin, Mr Putin rules alone, unchecked by a Politburo or by having witnessed the second world war’s devastation. He could remain in charge for years to come. Age is unlikely to mellow【18】 him.

【18】mellow （使）成熟、老练、柔和

Mr Obama increasingly says the right things about Putinism—he sounded reasonably tough during a press conference this week—but Mr Putin has learned that he can defy America and come out on top. Mild Western sanctions make ordinary Russians worse off, but they also give the people an enemy to unite against, and Mr Putin something to blame for the economic damage caused by his own policies.

Ivan the bearable

What should the West do? Time is on its side. A declining power needs containing until it is eventually overrun by its own contradictions—even as the urge to lash out【19】 remains.

【19】lash out 狠打，痛打，怒斥

Because the danger is of miscalculation and unchecked escalation, America must continue to engage in direct talks with Mr Putin even, as today, when the experience is dispiriting【20】. Success is not measured by breakthroughs and ceasefires—welcome as those would be in a country as benighted【21】 as Syria—but by lowering the chances of a Russian blunder【22】.

【20】dispiriting 令人沮丧的

【21】benighted 愚昧的，落后的

【22】blunder 愚蠢或粗心的错误

Nuclear miscalculation【23】 would be the worst kind of all. Hence the talks need to include nuclear-arms control as well as improved military-to-military relations, in the hope that nuclear weapons can be kept separate from other issues, as they were in Soviet times. That will be hard because, as Russia declines, it will see its nuclear arsenal as an enduring advantage.

【23】nuclear miscalculation 核误判

Another area of dispute will be Russia’s near abroad. Ukraine shows how Mr Putin seeks to destabilise countries as a way to stop them drifting out of Russia’s orbit (see article). America’s next president must declare that, contrary to what Mr Trump has said, if Russia uses such tactics against a NATO member, such as Latvia or Estonia, the alliance will treat it as an attack on them all. Separately the West needs to make it clear that, if Russia engages in large-scale aggression against non-NATO allies, such as Georgia and Ukraine, it reserves the right to arm them.

Above all the West needs to keep its head【24】. Russian interference in America’s presidential election merits measured retaliation. But the West can withstand such “active measures”. Russia does not pretend to offer the world an attractive ideology or vision. Instead its propaganda aims to discredit and erode universal liberal values by nurturing the idea that the West is just as corrupt as Russia, and that its political system is just as rigged. It wants to create a divided West that has lost faith in its ability to shape the world. In response, the West should be united and firm.

【24】keep sb's head，keep a clear/cool head 保持镇静，头脑清醒

【小结】

四年前，当时的共和党候选人米特·罗姆尼声称俄国是美国的“头号地缘政治敌人”。奥巴马嘲笑他的失言（gaffe）之举。然而，俄国破坏（hack）美国大选，在叙利亚进行大屠杀，吞并（annex）克里米亚，对不动就扬言使用核武器。如今，罗姆尼先生的话一语成谶。美国人当中不赞同（dissent from）该观点的恐怕只有川普一人。普京最近在波兰和立陶宛附近部署核导弹（nuclear-capable missiles），本周经过北海和英吉利海峡南下派驻航空母舰舰队（aircraft-carrier group），还说要是美国袭击叙利亚部队他就把美国的飞机击落。俄罗斯的电视新闻中有很多关于弹道导弹（ballistic missile）和防空洞（bomb shelter）的报道。其实俄罗斯并不打算跟美国开战（go to war with America），只不过是在威吓（bluster）罢了。俄罗斯的好战性（belligerence）并不能使其东山再起，而是恰恰影射了其每况愈下的颓势（debilitating weakness）。实际上，俄国正面临严峻的经济、政治和社会问题。利用商品繁荣的意外之财（windfall）推动国家和经济现代化的举措根本达不到预期效果（fell flat）。普京政府大幅增加政府开支。俄罗斯经济不断萎缩（shrinking）。政府决定谁能发财。2011至2012年选举操控（election-rigging）事件之后，俄国的城市中产阶级表达了对于现代政府的渴求。油价高企的时候，普京还能花钱收买人心，而现在他只能通过发动对外战争和煽动民族主义（ whip up nationalism）来支撑（shores up）政权。他不敢对西方思想做出让步，因为俄罗斯的政治体系非常脆弱（brittle）。俄罗斯要想实现繁荣昌盛，必须依赖于法治（rule of law）、自由媒体、民主和开放竞争，而这些对于普京的腐败政府来说却构成生存威胁。奥巴马认为俄罗斯正走向衰败，不需要对其太留意。然而，俄罗斯现在比过去的苏联还要危险。普京独裁统治，而且还要执政很多年。岁月也不会让他变得成熟温和起来（mellow）。西方各国该怎么做？时间会作出评判。俄罗斯国内的各种矛盾会使其最终走向灭亡。误判（miscalculation）和不受控制的局势升级（unchecked escalation）才是危险所在，所以美国必须继续与普京进行直接对话，尽管目前的对话令人沮丧（dispiriting）。成功与否不是以重大突破和停火来衡量（像叙利亚那样愚蠢的（benighted）国家才希望这样），而是要降低俄罗斯铸成大错（blunder）的可能。核误判（nuclear miscalculation）是最坏的结果，所以核武器应该与其他问题分开而论。俄国与近邻国家的关系是另一个争议焦点。乌克兰表示，普京试图破坏各国稳定（destabilise），以此防止邻国脱离俄国势力范围（drifting out of Russia’s orbit）。 美国下一届总统必须声明，如果俄罗斯对北约成员国采取这样的策略，盟国会将此举视为对于所有成员国的攻击。西方各国也必须明白，如果俄罗斯对非北约盟国发动大规模侵略，各国作为单独的国家也有权将受侵国家武装起来。最重要的是，西方各国要保持头脑冷静（keep its head）。俄罗斯干涉美国总统大选，理应遭到应有的报复。但西方国家能够承受这样的明枪出击。俄罗斯没有假装向世界展现一种吸引人心的思想或远景，它的宣传是为了让人怀疑（discredit）和腐蚀普遍自由观。俄罗斯希望西方分裂，让人们对于塑造世界格局的信心破灭。对此，西方国家应团结起来，坚定不移。

注：本文仅供学习交流之用，不代表作者观点。