世界文明与大国体系

3.世界文明与大国体系　World Civilizations to 2000＆ the Great-Power System,1500-2000^[53]

本节导读

Joshua S.Goldstein，美国美利坚大学名誉教授，研究领域包括战争与冲突、世界秩序、大国关系、国际政治经济学、南北关系、性别与国际关系等等，著有The Real Price of War(2004)（《战争的真实代价》）、War and Gender:How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice Versa(2001)（《战争与性别——性别因素与战争系统如何互相影响》）、International Relations(1994)（《国际关系》）、Three-Way Street:Strategic Reciprocity in World Politics(1990)（《三行道——世界政治中的战略互惠》）、Long Cycles:Prosperity and War in the Modern Age(1988)（《历史大循环——近代的经济繁荣与战争》）等书，其中《国际关系》是较受欢迎的教科书，自1994年初版以来已多次重版，内容也不断更新。《国际关系》以国际安全与国际政治经济学作为全书的基本框架，全方位、多角度地介绍了国际关系理论、安全事务、经济和全球性议题等内容，还配套丰富的网上教学资源，供教学或学习使用。

在本选段中，作者同样强调在21世纪的今天学习历史的重要性：观古鉴今、温故知新。作者粗略勾画了世界史上北美、欧洲、中国、日本、中南美、非洲、阿拉伯等各地的文明发展情况，并指出：当代的国际体系是特定的文明——西方文明的产物，从公元1500年起欧洲已开始走向世界主导的道路。这与上篇选文作者的观点刚好针锋相对，后者认为从公元1500年至1750年是欧洲逐渐积累财富和力量以与东方诸帝国抗衡的一个时期。在介绍“大国体系”时，作者认为16世纪初以来欧洲即已存在大国均势的体系，1648年的《威斯特伐利亚和约》只是正式确立了国际体系至今仍发挥作用的基本原则——国家主权独立、领土完整、在国际社会中地位平等，等等。作者指出，在当代国际体系的形成中，欧洲文明在世界范围内的传播起到了重要的作用，但大部分地区仍受其本身根深蒂固的文化传统和历史所影响，由此产生了“文明的冲突”，如当代中东地区、巴尔干地区动荡的局势均有历史的渊源。

The turn of the century and millennium finds the world breaking free of the logic of the two world wars and the Cold War that dominated the twentieth century. New possibilities are emerging everywhere,some good and some bad.With so much change occurring,one might wonder whether history is still relevant to understanding the world.It is.The basic structures and principles of international relations,even in the current era,are deeply rooted in historical developments.Our discussion of these developments—necessarily only a series of brief sketches—begins with a long-term perspective and gradually focuses on more recent history.

World Civilizations to 2000

The present-day international system is the product of a particular civilization—Western civilization,centered in Europe.The international system as we know it developed among the European states of 300 to 500 years ago,was exported to the rest of the world,and has in the last century subsumed^[54]virtually all of the world’s territory into sovereign states.It is important to keep in mind that other civilizations existed in other world regions for centuries before Europeans ever arrived. These cultural traditions continue to exert an influence on IR,especially when the styles and expectations of these cultures come into play in international interactions.

North American students should note that much of the world differs from the North America in this regard.Before Europeans arrived,cultures in North America did not have large cities,irrigation and the other trappings of states.Its indigenous^[55]cultures were largely exterminated^[56]or pushed aside by European settlers.Today’s North American population is overwhelmingly descended from immigrants.In other regions,however,the European conquest followed many centuries of advanced civilizations—more advanced than that of Europe in the case of China,India,Japan, the Middle East,and Central America.In most of the world(especially in Africa and Asia),European empires incorporated rather than pushed aside indigenous populations.Today’s populations are descended primarily from indigenous inhabitants, not immigrants.These populations are therefore more strongly rooted in their own cultural traditions and history than are most Americans.

European civilization evolved from roots in the Eastern Mediterranean—Egypt, Mesopotamia(Iraq),and especially Greece.Of special importance for IR is the classical period of Greek city-states around 400 B.C.,which exemplified^[57]some of the fundamental principles of interstate power politics(reflected in Thucydides’s^[58]classic account of the Peloponnesian Wars between Athens^[59]and Sparta^[60]).By that time states were carrying out sophisticated trade relations and warfare with each other in a broad swath of the world from the Mediterranean through India to East Asia. Much of this area came under Greek influence with the conquests of Alexander the Great^[61](around 300 B.C.),then under the Roman Empire(around A.D.1),and then under an Arab empire(around A.D.600).

China remained an independent civilization during all this time.In the“warring states”period,at about the same time as the Greek city-states,sophisticated states(organized as territorial political units)first used warfare as an instrument of power politics.This is described in the classic work The Art of War^[62],by Sun Tzu.By about A.D.800,when Europe was in its“dark ages”and Arab civilization in its golden age,China under the Tang dynasty was a highly advanced civilization quite independent of Western influence.Japan,strongly influenced by Chinese civilization,flowered on its own in the centuries leading up to the Shoguns^[63](around A.D.1200).Japan isolated itself from Western influence under the Tokugawa shogunate^[64]for several centuries,ending after 1850 when the Meiji restoration^[65]began Japanese industrialization and international trade.Latin America also had flourishing civilizations—the Mayans^[66]around A.D.100 to 900 and the Aztecs^[67]and Incas^[68]around 1200—independent of Western influence until conquered by Spain around 1500.In Africa,the great kingdoms flowered after about A.D.1000(as early as A.D.600 in Ghana)and were highly developed when the European slave traders arrived on the scene around 1500.

The Arab empire of about A.D.600 to 1200 plays a special role in the international relations of the Middle East.Almost the whole of the region was once united in this empire,which arose and spread with the religion of Islam.European invasions—the Crusades^[69]—were driven out.In the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, the eastern Mediterranean came under the Turkish-based Ottoman Empire,which gave relative autonomy to local cultures if they paid tribute.This history of empires continued to influence the region in the twentieth century.For example,pan-Arabism^[70](or Arab nationalism),especially strong in the 1950s and 1960s,saw the region as potentially one nation again,with a single religion,language,and identity. Iraq’s Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War likened himself to the ruler who drove away Crusaders a thousand years ago.The strength of Islamic fundamentalism^[71]throughout the region today,as well as the emotions attached to the Arab-Israeli conflict,reflect the continuing importance of the historic Arab empire.

Europe itself began its rise to world dominance around 1500,after the Renaissance^[72](when the Greek and Roman classics were rediscovered).The Italian citystates of the period also rediscovered the rules of interstate power politics,as described by an adviser to Renaissance princes named Niccolò Machiavelli^[73].Feudal units began to merge into large territorial nation-states under single authoritarian rulers(monarchs^[74]).The military revolution of the period created the first modern armies.European monarchs put cannons on sailing ships and began to“discover”the world.The development of the international system,of imperialism,of trade and war,were all accelerated by the Industrial Revolution^[75]after about 1750.Ultimately the European conquest of the world brought about a single world civilization,albeit with regional variants and subcultures.

In recent decades,the world regions formerly dominated by Europe have gained independence,with their own sovereign states participating in the international system.Independence came earlier in the Americas(around 1800).In Latin America, most of the nineteenth century was absorbed with wars,border changes,the rise and fall of dictatorships and republics,a chronic^[76]foreign debt problem,revolutions, and recurrent^[77]military incursions by European powers and the United States to recover debts.

The Great-Power System,1500-2000

The modern international system is often dated from the Treaty of Westphalia^[78]in 1648,which established the principles of independent,sovereign states that continue to shape the international system today.These rules of state relations did not,however,originate at Westphalia;they took form in Europe in the sixteenth century. Key to this system was the ability of one state,or a coalition,to balance the power of another state so that it could not gobble up smaller units and create a universal empire.

This power-balancing system placed special importance on the handful of great powers with strong military capabilities,global interests and outlooks,and intense interactions with each other.A system of great-power relations has existed since around A.D.1500,and the structure and rules of that system have remained fairly stable through time,although the particular members change.The structure is a balance of power among the six or so most powerful states,which form and break alliances,fight wars,and make peace,letting no single state conquer the others.

The most powerful states in sixteenth-century Europe were Britain(England),France, Austria-Hungary,and Spain.The Ottoman Empire(Turkey)recurrently fought with the European powers,especially with Austria-Hungary.Today,that historic conflict between the(Islamic)Ottoman Empire and(Christian)Austria-Hungary is a source of ethnic conflict in the former Yugoslavia(the edge of the old Ottoman Empire).

Within Europe,Austria-Hungary and Spain were allied under control of the Hapsburg^[79]family,which also owned the territory of the Netherlands.The Hapsburg countries(which were Catholic)were defeated by mostly Protestant countries in northern Europe—France,Britain,Sweden,and the newly independent Netherlands—in the Thirty Years’War^[80]of 1618-1648.The 1648 Treaty of Westphalia established the basic rules that have defined the international system ever since—the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states as equal and independent members of an international system.Since then,states defeated in war might be stripped of some territories but were generally allowed to continue as independent states rather than being subsumed into the victorious state.

In the eighteenth century,the power of Britain increased as it industrialized,and Britain’s great rival was France.Sweden,the Netherlands,and the Ottoman Empire all declined in power,but Russia and later Prussia(the forerunner^[81]of modern-day Germany)emerged as major players.In the Napoleonic Wars^[82](1803-1815),which followed the French Revolution,France was defeated by a coalition of Britain,the Netherlands,Austria-Hungary,Spain,Russia,and Prussia.The Congress of Vienna^[83](1815)ending that war reasserted the principles of state sovereignty in reaction to the challenges of the French Revolution and Napoleon’s empire.In the Concert of Europe^[84]that dominated the following decades,the five most powerful states tried, with some success,to cooperate on major issues to prevent war—a possible precedent^[85]for today’s UN Security Council.In this period,Britain became a balancer, joining alliances against whatever state emerged as the most powerful in Europe.

By the outset of the twentieth century,three new rising powers had appeared on the scene:the United States(which had become the world’s largest economy), Japan,and Italy.The great-power system became globalized instead of European. Powerful states were industrializing,extending the scope of their world activities and the might of their militaries.After Prussia defeated Austria and France in wars, a larger Germany emerged to challenge Britain’s position.In World War I(1914-1918),Germany and Austria-Hungary were defeated by a coalition that included Britain,France,Russia,Italy,and the United States.After a 20-year lull^[86],Germany,Italy,and Japan were defeated in World War II(1939-1945)by a coalition of the United States,Britain,France,Russia(the Soviet Union),and China.Those five winners of World War II make up the permanent membership of today’s UN Security Council.

After World War II,the United States and the Soviet Union,which had been allies in the war against Germany,became adversaries^[87]for 40 years in the Cold War.Europe was split into rival blocs^[88]—East and West—with Germany itself split into two states.The rest of the world became contested terrain where each bloc tried to gain allies or influence,often by sponsoring opposing sides in regional and civil wars.The end of the Cold War around 1990,when the Soviet Union collapsed,returned the international system to a more cooperative arrangement of the great powers somewhat similar to the Concert of Europe in the nineteenth century. However,new strains^[89]emerged among the European-American-Japanese“allies”once they no longer faced a common threat from the Soviet Union.

思考题

1.Why is history still relevant to understanding the world in the 21^stcentury?

2.What is your opinion on the author’s claim that Europe began its rise to world dominance around 1500?

3.What has been the basic structure of great-power relations in Europe since 1500?

4.When did the great-power system become globalized?

5.Please recount major world events since the end of cold war.