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Introduction
前言
This is a book about national and international power in the “modern”—that is, post-Renaissance—period. It seeks to trace and to explain how the various Great Powers have risen and fallen, relative to each other, over the five centuries since the formation of the “new monarchies” of western Europe and the beginnings of the transoceanic, global system of states. Inevitably, it concerns itself a great deal with wars, especially those major, drawn-out conflicts fought by coalitions of Great Powers which had such an impact upon the international order; but it is not strictly a book about military history. It also concerns itself with tracing the changes which have occurred in the global economic balances since 1500; and yet it is not, at least directly, a work of economic history. What it concentrates upon is the?interaction?between economics and strategy, as each of the leading states in the international system strove to enhance its wealth and its power, to become (or to remain) both rich and strong.
本书论述的是近现代（即文艺复兴之后）的国家或国际力量，追述和阐明了自西欧建立“新君主国”和全球性跨洋国家系统以来，五个世纪中各大国的相互关系与兴亡盛衰。毋庸赘言，这将涉及大量战争，特别是那些对国际秩序有巨大影响的、由大国联盟进行的大规模长期战争。但是，这又不完全是一部军事史，它也追溯公元1500年以来世界经济力量对比的变化；但它也不是一部经济史，本书重点是描绘国际体系中的一流强国在励精图治、富国强兵过程中经济与战略的相互影响。
The “military conflict” referred to in the book's subtitle is therefore always examined in the context of “economic change.” The triumph of any one Great Power in this period, or the collapse of another, has usually been the consequence of lengthy fighting by its armed forces; but it has also been the consequence of the more or less efficient utilization of the state's productive economic resources in wartime, and, further in the background, of the way in which that state's economy had been rising or falling,?relative?to the other leading nations, in the decades preceding the actual conflict. For that reason, how a Great Power's position steadily alters in peacetime is as important to this study as how it fights in wartime.
因此，本书副标题所讲的“军事冲突”，总是与“经济变化”联系起来考查（原书副标题为Economic Change and Military Conflict）。在这一时期，任何大国的胜利或崩溃，一般地都是其武装部队长期作战的结果；但也不仅如此，它也是各国在战时能否有效地利用本国可用于生产的经济资源的结果。进一步说，从历史背景上看，也是由于在实际冲突发生以前数十年间，这个国家的经济力量与其他一流国家相比是上升还是下降所致。有鉴于此，本书认为，研究和平时期大国地位如何持续变化，同研究它在战时如何打仗一样重要。
The argument being offered here will receive much more elaborate analysis in the text itself, but can be summarized very briefly:
这里提出的论点将在本书正文中详细分析，但也可概述如下：
The relative strengths of the leading nations in world affairs never remain constant, principally because of the uneven rate of growth among different societies and of the technological and organizational breakthroughs which bring a greater advantage to one society than to?another. For example, the coming of the long-range gunned sailing ship and the rise of the Atlantic trades after 1500 was not?uniformly?beneficial to all the states of Europe—it boosted some much more than others. In the same way, the later development of steam power and of the coal and metal resources upon which it relied massively increased the relative power of certain nations, and thereby decreased the relative power of others. Once their productive capacity was enhanced, countries would normally find it easier to sustain the burdens of paying for large-scale armaments in peacetime and of maintaining and supplying large armies and fleets in wartime. It sounds crudely mercantilistc to express it this way, but wealth is usually needed to underpin military power, and military power is usually needed to acquire and protect wealth. If, however, too large a proportion of the state's resources is diverted from wealth creation and allocated instead to military purposes, then that is likely to lead to a weakening of national power over the longer term. In the same way, if a state overextends itself strategically—by, say, the conquest of extensive territories or the waging of costly wars—it runs the risk that the potential benefits from external expansion may be outweighed by the great expense of it all—a dilemma which becomes acute if the nation concerned has entered a period of relative economic decline. The history of the rise and later fall of the leading countries in the Great Power system since the advance of western Europe in the sixteenth century—that is, of nations such as Spain, the Netherlands, France, the British Empire, and currently the United States—shows a very significant correlation?over the longer term?between productive and revenue-raising capacities on the one hand and military strength on the other.
一流国家在世界事务中的相对地位总是不断变化的。主要原因有二：一是各国国力的增长速度不同；二是技术突破和组织形式的变革，可使一国比另一国得到更大的优势。例如，公元1500年以后问世的帆动力远洋炮舰和大西洋贸易的繁荣，就使欧洲各国受益不同，一些国家的发展速度比另一些国家快得多。同样，后来开发的蒸汽动力及其依赖的煤炭和金属资源，大大增强了一些国家的力量。一些国家的生产力一旦得到提高，便自然能比较容易地在平时承受大规模扩军备战的负担，能在战时保持和供养庞大的陆军和舰队。这种说法听起来似乎具有浓厚的重商主义色彩，但财富通常是支撑军事力量的基础，而要获取和保卫财富又总是需要军事力量。然而，如果一个国家把它的很大一部分资源不是用于创造财富，而是用于军事目的，那么，从长远来看，这很可能会导致该国国力的削弱。同样，如果一个国家在战略上过分扩张（如侵占大片领土和进行代价高昂的战争），它就要冒一种风险：对外扩张得到的潜在好处，很可能被它付出的巨大代价抵消了。如果这个国家正处于相对经济衰退时期，这种困境将变得更加严重。自16世纪西欧进步以来，西班牙、荷兰、法国、英国和目前的美国等第一流强国的兴衰史表明，在国家的生产力和取得收入的能力与军事力量之间，从长期看有一种非常重要的相互依存关系。
The story of “the rise and fall of the Great Powers” which is presented in these chapters may be briefly summarized here.
本书论及的“大国兴衰”情况，可简单概述如下。
The first chapter sets the scene for all that follows by examining the world around 1500 and by analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of each of the “power centers” of that time—Ming China; the Ottoman Empire and its Muslim offshoot in India, the Mogul Empire; Muscovy; Tokugawa Japan; and the cluster of states in west-central Europe.
第一章的论述为以后各章奠定了基础，即考查公元1500年前后的世界形势，分析明代中国、奥斯曼帝国及其在印度的穆斯林支脉莫卧儿帝国、俄国、德川幕府时期的日本和中西欧诸国这些当时的“权势中心”的长处和弱点。
At the beginning of the sixteenth century it was by no means apparent that the last-named region was destined to rise above all the rest. But however imposing and organized some of those oriental empires appeared by comparison with Europe, they all suffered from the consequences of having a centralized authority which insisted upon a uniformity of belief and practice, not only in official state religion but also in such areas as commercial activities and weapons development. The lack of any such supreme authority in Europe and the warlike rivalries among its various kingdoms and city-states stimulated a constant search for military improvements, which interacted fruitfully with the newer technological and commercial advances that were also?being thrown up in this competitive, entrepreneurial environment. Possessing fewer obstacles to change, European societies entered into a constantly upward spiral of economic growth and enhanced military effectiveness which, over time, was to carry them ahead of all other regions of the globe.
16世纪初期，中西欧诸国能否在世界民族之林脱颖而出，显然未见端倪。但是，东方帝国中的一些国家与欧洲各国相比，尽管显得不可一世、组织得法，但它们都深受实行中央集权制的后果之害。这些中央集权制政府都要求其国民统一信仰和实践，不仅要信奉一个官方国教，而且在商业活动和武器发展等领域都是如此。在欧洲由于没有东方式的最高权力机构，各王国和城邦之间争战不已，这就推动人们经常寻求军事变革。军事变革又有力地推动了在竞争、积极进取的环境中出现的科学技术与商业贸易的发展。欧洲社会碰到的变革的障碍很少，很顺利地进入了持续向上的螺旋式的经济发展，增强了军事效能，随着时间的推移，这些因素就使欧洲社会走在世界其他地区的前列。
While this dynamic of technological change and military competitiveness drove Europe forward in its usual jostling, pluralistic way, there still remained the possibility that one of the contending states might acquire sufficient resources to surpass the others, and then to dominate the continent. For about 150 years after 1500, a dynastic-religious bloc under the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs seemed to threaten to do just that, and the efforts of the other major European states to check this “Habsburg bid for mastery” occupy the whole of?Chapter 2. As is done throughout this book, the strengths and weaknesses of each of the leading Powers are analyzed?relatively, and in the light of the broader economic and technological changes affecting western society as a whole, in order that the reader can understand better the outcome of the many wars of this period.
科技的进步和军事的竞争推动着欧洲各国以其通常的互不相让、各显其能的方式向前发展。尽管如此，仍有可能在各个敌对国家中，有一个国家因拥有充足的资源而脱颖而出，超出其他国家，控制整个欧洲大陆。在公元1500年以后的大约150年中，西班牙和奥地利哈布斯堡家族统治下的王朝——宗教联盟就企图这么做，而欧洲其他强国则竭力阻止“哈布斯堡王朝争当霸主”的活动。这在第二章中有详细阐述。本书各章在论及一流强国的长处和弱点时，都进行比较分析，即放在影响整个西方社会的经济和科技变化这个更广阔的背景下进行分析，以便使读者更好地了解这一时期多次战争所造成的后果。
The chief theme of this chapter is that despite the great resources possessed by the Habsburg monarchs, they steadily overextended themselves in the course of repeated conflicts and became militarily top-heavy for their weakening economic base. If the other European Great Powers also suffered immensely in these prolonged wars, they managed—though narrowly—to maintain the balance between their material resources and their military power better than their Habsburg enemies.
第二章的中心思想是，哈布斯堡王朝的君主们尽管拥有大量资源，但在一次又一次的战争中使地盘扩展过大，战线拉得过长，致使自己日益衰落的经济基础无法支持过于庞大的军队。其他欧洲大国在这些长期战争中也损失巨大，但它们想方设法地（虽很勉强）比哈布斯堡王朝更好地保持了物资资源与军事力量之间的平衡。
The Great Power struggles which took place between 1660 and 1815, and are covered in?Chapter 3, cannot be so easily summarized as a contest between one large bloc and its many rivals. It was in this complicated period that while certain former Great Powers like Spain and the Netherlands were falling into the second rank, there steadily emerged five major states (France, Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia) which came to dominate the diplomacy and warfare of eighteenth-century Europe, and to engage in a series of lengthy coalition wars punctuated by swiftly changing alliances. This was an age in which France, first under Louis XIV and then later under Napoleon, came closer to controlling Europe than at any time before or since; but its endeavors were always held in check, in the last resort at least, by a combination of the other Great Powers. Since the cost of standing armies and national fleets had become horrendously great by the early eighteenth century, a country which could create an advanced system of banking and credit (as Britain did) enjoyed many advantages over financially backward rivals. But the factor of geographical position was also of great importance in deciding the fate of the Powers in their?many, and frequently changing, contests—which helps to explain why the two “flank” nations of Russia and Britain had become much more important by 1815. Both retained the capacity to intervene in the struggles of west-central Europe while being geographically sheltered from them; and both expanded into the?extra-European world as the eighteenth century unfolded, even as they were ensuring that the continental balance of power was upheld. Finally, by the later decades of the century, the Industrial Revolution was under way in Britain, which was to give that state an enhanced capacity both to colonize overseas and to frustrate the Napoleonic bid for European mastery.
第三章的内容是发生于1660—1815年的大国之争，但这些战争很难轻易地概括为一个大集团与许多对手之间的斗争。在这个纷乱动荡的时期，西班牙、荷兰等以前的一流强国正沦为二流国家；法国、英国、俄国、奥地利、普鲁士这5个主要大国脱颖而出，逐渐主宰了18世纪欧洲的外交，并进行了一系列长期的联盟（这些联盟的成员变化很快）战争。在这一时期，最初由路易十四、后来又由拿破仑统治的法国，比历史上任何国家都更接近于控制整个欧洲。但是，它的努力总是由于其他强国组成的联盟反对而无法实现，至少是功败垂成。由于到18世纪初期供养庞大的常备军和国家舰队耗资巨大，能够建立先进的银行借贷系统的国家（如英国）比金融系统落后的对手，享有多方面的优势。但是，地理位置这一因素，在决定大国在许多变幻莫测的争斗中的命运方面，也起着非常重要的作用。这有助于说明为什么到了1815年，俄国和英国这两个“侧翼”国家已变得十分重要。两国既可随时参与中西欧各国的斗争，又由于地理位置的关系而不易受这些斗争的影响。此外，进入18世纪后，它们都在确保欧洲大陆均势的情况下，开始向欧洲以外的地区扩张。最后一点是，在18世纪中叶之后，英国发生了工业革命。这使它更有能力在海外建立殖民地和挫败拿破仑统治欧洲的企图。
For an entire century after 1815, by contrast, there was a remarkable absence of lengthy coalition wars. A strategic equilibrium existed, supported by all of the leading Powers in the Concert of Europe, so that no single nation was either able or willing to make a bid for dominance. The prime concerns of government in these post-1815 decades were with domestic instability and (in the case of Russia and the United States) with further expansion across their continental land-masses. This relatively stable international scene allowed the British Empire to rise to its zenith as a global power, in naval and colonial and commercial terms, and also interacted favorably with its virtual monopoly of steam-driven industrial production. By the second half of the nineteenth century, however, industrialization was spreading to certain other regions, and was beginning to tilt the international power balances away from the older leading nations and toward those countries with both the resources and organization to exploit the newer means of production and technology. Already, the few major conflicts of this era—the Crimean War to some degree but more especially the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War—were bringing defeat upon those societies which failed to modernize their military systems, and which lacked the broad-based industrial infrastructure to support the vast armies and much more expensive and complicated weaponry now transforming the nature of war.
在1815年以后的100年中，显著的差别是，长期的联盟战争完全绝迹。在欧洲形成的战略均势，得到了“协调的欧洲”各大国的支持，因为没有任何国家能够或试图建立霸主地位。在1815年以后的数十年中，各国政府主要关注的是国内动乱，并在本国所在的大陆不断进行领土扩张（如俄国和美国）。这种相对稳定的国际形势，不仅使英国这个在海军力量、殖民地和商业贸易等方面的全球强国发展到顶峰，而且由于良性的相互影响，还有利于它垄断以蒸汽为动力的工业生产。然而，19世纪下半叶，其他一些地区和国家也开始实现工业化。这使国际力量对比逐渐变得不利于旧有的一流强国，而有利于那些既有资源，又善于组织利用新生产工具和新技术的国家。在这一时期发生的几场重要战争（如在某种程度上的克里米亚战争，尤其是美国内战和普法战争等）表明，一些国家之所以在战争中失败，是由于它们未能实现军事系统的现代化，没有基础稳固的基本工业设施，来支持其庞大的军队和制造正在改变战争性质、造价昂贵、结构复杂的武器装备。
As the twentieth century approached, therefore, the pace of technological change and uneven growth rates made the international system much more unstable and complex than it had been fifty years earlier. This was manifested in the frantic post-1880 jostling by the Great Powers for additional colonial territories in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific, partly for gain, partly out of a fear of being eclipsed. It also manifested itself in the increasing number of arms races, both on land and at sea, and in the creation of fixed military alliances, even in peacetime, as the various governments sought out partners for a possible future war. Behind the frequent colonial quarrels and international crises of the pre-1914 period, however, the decade-by-capital indices of economic power were pointing to even more fundamental shifts in the global balances—indeed, to the eclipse of what had been, for over three centuries,?essentially a?Eurocentric?world system. Despite their best efforts, traditional European Great Powers like France and Austria-Hungary, and a recently united one like Italy, were falling out of the race. By contrast, the enormous, continent-wide states of the United States and Russia were moving to the forefront, and this despite the inefficiencies of the czarist state. Among the western European nations only Germany, possibly, had the muscle to force its way into the select league of the future world Powers. Japan, on the other hand, was intent upon being dominant in East Asia, but not farther afield. Inevitably, then, all these changes posed considerable, and ultimately insuperable, problems for a British Empire which now found it much more difficult to defend its global interests than it had a half-century earlier.
因此，进入20世纪后，由于科学技术的进步和各国国力的增长速度快慢不同，国际系统与50年前相比变得更加动荡，更为复杂。其主要表现是：第一，1880年后，世界列强为了在非洲、亚洲和太平洋地区建立更多的殖民地，展开了疯狂的竞争，它们这样做一方面是为了掠夺财富，另一方面是怕相形见绌；第二，各国在陆地和海洋竞相加强军备；第三，各国政府为了寻求盟友，准备战争，在和平时期便纷纷建立固定的军事同盟。然而，在1914年之前的一个时期内，除了各国为殖民地问题争吵不休和发生了多次国际危机外，每十年统计一次的经济力量增长指数表明：世界力量对比发生了根本变化，这一变化不利于已持续三个世纪的以欧洲为中心的世界体系。法国、奥匈帝国和刚刚统一的意大利等传统欧洲强国尽管做出了巨大努力，在竞赛中却逐渐落伍。相比之下，地大物博、横跨大陆的美国和俄国（这个沙皇国家的生产效率较低）则脱颖而出。在西欧各国中，可能只有德国有足够的力量跻身于未来世界强国之列。另一方面，日本不想把手伸得太长，只想称霸东亚。毫无疑问，所有这些变化将给大英帝国带来难以克服的巨大困难。现在，英国确实已经感到比半个世纪之前更难保卫其全球利益了。
Although the major development of the fifty years after 1900 can thus be seen as the coming of a bipolar world, with its consequent crisis for the “middle” Powers (as referred in the titles of?Chapters 5?and?6), this metamorphosis of the entire system was by no means a smooth one. On the contrary, the grinding, bloody mass battles of the First World War, by placing a premium upon industrial organization and national efficiency, gave imperial Germany certain advantages over the swiftly modernizing but still backward czarist Russia. Within a few months of Germany's victory on the eastern front, however, it found itself facing defeat in the west, while its allies were similarly collapsing in the Italian, Balkan, and Near Eastern theaters of the war. Because of the late addition of American military and especially economic aid, the western alliance finally had the resources to prevail over its rival coalition. But it had been an exhausting struggle for all the original belligerents. Austria-Hungary was gone, Russia in revolution, Germany defeated; yet France, Italy, and even Britain itself had also suffered heavily in their victory. The only exceptions were Japan, which further augmented its position in the Pacific; and, of course, the United States, which by 1918 was indisputably the strongest Power in the world.
虽然1900年以后的50年的主要发展可视为两极世界的形成时期，但一些“中等”国家（在第五、六章中将谈到）却多次陷入危机，整个体制的变动也绝非一帆风顺。相反，第一次世界大战中目不忍睹、血淋淋的大规模战役，却显示出德意志帝国比沙皇俄国具有某些优势，因为德国的工业生产组织有序，全国上下工作效率很高；而俄国虽然加快了现代化步伐，但仍很落后。可是，在战争的头几个月，德国尽管在东线取得了胜利，在西线却遭到失败，且其盟国在意大利、巴尔干和近东战区也连连败北。由于后来美国出兵，特别是提供经济援助，西方盟国终于拥有战胜其敌对联盟的资源。但是，对所有参战国来说，这都是一场使人精疲力竭的战争。奥匈帝国从地球上消失，俄国发生了革命，德国战败，法国、意大利和英国也为争取胜利遭受惨重的牺牲。仅有的例外是日本和美国，前者进一步加强了在太平洋地区的地位，后者到1918年已成为无可争辩的世界头等强国。
The swift post-1919 American withdrawal from foreign engagements, and the parallel Russian isolationism under the Bolshevik regime, left an international system which was more out of joint with the fundamental economic realities than perhaps at any time in the five centuries covered in this book. Britain and France, although weakened, were still at the center of the diplomatic stage, but by the 1930s their position was being challenged by the militarized, revisionist states of Italy, Japan, and Germany—the last intent upon a much more deliberate bid for European hegemony than even in 1914. In the background, however, the United States remained by far the mightiest manufacturing nation in the world, and Stalin's Russia was quickly?transforming itself into an industrial superpower. Consequently, the dilemma for the?revisionist?“middle” Powers was that they had to expand soon if they were not to be overshadowed by the two continental giants. The dilemma for the status quo middle Powers was that in fighting off the German and Japanese challenges, they would most likely weaken themselves as well. The Second World War, for all its ups and downs, essentially confirmed those apprehensions of decline. Despite spectacular early victories, the Axis nations could not in the end succeed against an imbalance of productive resources which was far greater than that of the 1914–1918 war. What they did achieve was the eclipse of France and the irretrievable weakening of Britain—before they themselves were overwhelmed by superior force. By 1943, the bipolar world forecast decades earlier had finally arrived, and the military balance had once again caught up with the global distribution of economic resources.
1919年后，美国迅速从国外撤军，布尔什维克掌权后俄国奉行孤立主义政策，使国际体制与基本的经济现实之间变得很不协调，其程度甚于本书论及的五个世纪的任何时候。战后，英国和法国的实力虽已削弱，但仍然是国际外交活动的中心。但是，它们的地位到20世纪30年代遇到了意大利、日本和德国等军国主义化了的“修正主义”（revisionist）国家的挑战。德国在欧洲称霸的野心远甚于1914年。从本质上看，美国仍然是世界上最强大的工业国家，而斯大林的俄国也正在迅速发展成为工业超级大国。所以，“修正主义”的“中等”强国遇到的难题是，如果它们不想被美苏两个大陆强国超过，就必须迅速对外扩张。对原有的中等强国来说，它们的难处在于，如应付德国和日本的挑战，它们自己的力量很可能也要受到削弱。第二次世界大战尽管跌宕起伏，却肯定了人们对国力衰微的担心。轴心国在战争初期取得了辉煌胜利，但最终无法克服生产资源比1914—1918年战争时更为不足的弱点。它们确实做到的一点是，占领了法国，削弱了英国，尔后即被同盟国的优势兵力所打败。1943年，人们在数十年前预测的两极世界终于来临，军事力量对比再次变得与全球经济资源布局相一致。
The last two chapters of this book examine the years in which a bipolar world did indeed seem to exist, economically, militarily, and ideologically—and was reflected at the political level by the many crises of the Cold War. The position of the United States and the USSR as Powers in a class of their own also appeared to be reinforced by the arrival of nuclear weapons and long-distance delivery systems, which suggested that the strategic as well as the diplomatic landscape was now entirely different from that of 1900, let alone 1800.
本书最后两章涉及的时代是两极世界时期。这一时期，在经济上、军事上和意识形态上，世界的确分为两极。两极世界在政治上的表现是多次出现冷战危机。美国和苏联这两个属于独特类型国家的地位，由于出现了核武器及其远程投射系统而似乎又得到了加强。这说明，目前的战略格局和外交格局已完全不同于20世纪初期，更不用说19世纪初了。
And yet the process of rise and fall among the Great Powers—of differentials in growth rates and technological change, leading to shifts in the global economic balances, which in turn gradually impinge upon the political and military balances—had not ceased. Militarily, the United States and the USSR stayed in the forefront as the 1960s gave way to the 1970s and 1980s. Indeed, because they both interpreted international problems in bipolar, and often Manichean, terms, their rivalry has driven them into an ever-escalating arms race which no other Powers feel capable of matching.
尽管如此，大国兴衰的进程仍未停止。当然，各大国力量增长和技术进步的速度各不相同。这不仅使全球经济力量对比发生了变化，也逐渐影响到政治和军事力量对比。从军事上看，美国和苏联从60年代至80年代始终是一流强国。由于两国领导人都像摩尼教徒那样站在极端的立场解释国际问题，它们之间的对抗必然导致不断升级的军备竞赛，这是其他国家望尘莫及的。
Over the same few decades, however, the global productive balances have been altering faster than ever before. The Third World's share of total manufacturing output and GNP, depressed to an all-time low in the decade after 1945, has steadily expanded since that time. Europe has recovered from its wartime batterings and, in the form of the European Economic Community, has become the world's largest trading unit. The People's Republic of China is leaping forward at an impressive rate. Japan's postwar economic growth has been so phenomenal that, according to some measures, it recently overtook Russia in total GNP. By contrast, both the American and Russian growth rates have become more sluggish, and their shares of global production and wealth have shrunk dramatically since the 1960s. Leaving aside all the smaller nations,?therefore, it is plain that there already exists a?multipolar?world once more, if one measures the economic indices alone. Given this book's concern with the interaction between strategy and economics, it seemed appropriate to offer a final (if necessarily speculative) chapter to explore the present disjuncture between the military balances and the productive balances among the Great Powers; and to point to the problems and opportunities facing today's five large politico-economic “power centers”—China, Japan, the EEC, the Soviet Union, and the United States itself—as they grapple with the age-old task of relating national means to national ends. The history of the rise and fall of the Great Powers has in no way come to a full stop.
然而，在上述30年间，世界生产能力对比的变化比以前的任何时期都快。在1945年后的10年中，第三世界的工业产值和国民生产总值在世界上所占的比例很小，此后却不断增大。欧洲各国也治愈了战争创伤，成立了欧洲共同体，成为世界最大的贸易集团。目前，中华人民共和国也在以惊人的速度前进。战后，日本的经济发展非常之快，据测算，它的国民生产总值已超过苏联。相比之下，美国和苏联经济增长速度却慢得多，它们的国民生产总值和财富在世界上所占的比例自60年代以来便急剧下降。因此，撇开所有的小国不算，只从经济指数上看，多极世界已经再次变为现实，这是不言而喻的。鉴于本书主要探讨战略与经济的相互影响，用最后一章既论述目前各大国军事力量对比与生产能力对比之间的不协调性，又指出中国、日本、欧洲共同体、苏联、美国这当代五大政治经济“力量中心”所面临的问题和机会，看来是适宜的。这五大“力量中心”都想处理好国家拥有的手段与国家目标的关系这一自古有之的难题。大国兴衰的历史绝不会到此结束。
Since the scope of this book is so large, it is clear that it will be read by different people for different purposes. Some readers will find here what they had hoped for: a broad and yet reasonably detailed survey of Great Power politics over the past five centuries, of the way in which the relative position of each of the leading states has been affected by economic and technological change, and of the constant interaction between strategy and economics, both in periods of peace and in the tests of war. By definition, it does not deal with?small?Powers, nor (usually) with small, bilateral wars. By definition also, the book is heavily Eurocentric, especially in its middle chapters. But that is only natural with such a topic.
由于本书涉及的内容极广，不同的读者将出于不同的目的阅读此书，这是显而易见的。一些读者将得到他们希望得到的内容：既概括又相当详细地评述过去五个世纪的大国政治、经济和技术的变化对各大国地位的影响，以及平时与战时战略和经济的相互作用。鉴于本书书名所限，笔者既不论及小国，也不谈小国之间的战争。同样由于书名所限，本书论述欧洲的笔墨颇多，特别是在中间几章。但是，对于这一课题的专著来说，这是很自然的。
To other readers, perhaps especially those political scientists who are now so interested in drawing general rules about “world systems” or the recurrent pattern of wars, this study may offer less than what they desire. To avoid misunderstanding, it ought to be made clear at this point that the book is not dealing with, for example, the theory that major (or “systemic”) wars can be related to Kondratieff cycles of economic upturn and downturn. In addition, it is not centrally concerned with general theories about the?causes?of war, and whether they are likely to be brought about by “rising” or “falling” Great Powers. It is also not a book about theories of empire, and about how imperial control is effected (as is dealt with in Michael Doyle's recent book?Empires), or whether empires contribute to national strength. Finally, it does not propose any general theory about which sorts of society and social/governmental organizations are the most efficient in extracting resources in time of war.
对其他读者来说，特别是对目前对总结“世界体系”发展的一般规律和战争发生规律十分感兴趣的政治社会学家来说，本书可能不尽如人意。为避免误解，在此必须澄清一点，即本书未述及康德拉季也夫经济发展周期与大规模（或全面）战争之间的关系的理论。此外，本书也未详细探讨战争起因的一般理论，以及是否由于大国的盛衰才爆发战争。同时，这也不是一部阐述帝国理论、帝国统治的影响（如迈克尔·多伊尔在其最近出版的《帝国》一书中阐述的那样）或帝国统治是否有助于加强国力的专著。最后，本书也不打算提出关于哪种社会形态和政府组成形式在战时能最有效地利用资源的任何一般性理论。
On the other hand, there obviously is a wealth of material in this book for those scholars who wish to make such generalizations (and one of the reasons why there is such an extensive array of notes is to indicate more detailed sources for those readers interested in, say, the financing of wars). But the problem which historians—as opposed to political scientists—have in grappling with general theories is that the evidence of the past is almost always too varied to allow for “hard”?scientific conclusions. Thus, while it is true that some wars (e.g., 1939) can be linked to decision-makers' fears about shifts taking place in the overall power balances, that would not be so useful in explaining the struggles which began in 1776 (American Revolutionary War) or 1792 (French Revolutionary) or 1854 (Crimean War). In the same way, while one could point to Austria-Hungary in 1914 as a good example of a “falling” Great Power helping to trigger off a major war, that still leaves the theorist to deal with the equally critical roles played then by those “rising” Great Powers Germany and Russia. Similarly, any general theory about whether empires pay, or whether imperial control is affected by a measurable “power-distance” ratio, is likely—from the conflicting evidence available—to produce the banal answer sometimes yes, sometimes no.
另一方面，本书汇集的大量资料无疑可供有关学者用来进行上述归纳与概括。但是，历史学家（而不是政治社会学家）在总结一般性理论时遇到的问题是，过去的史料浩如烟海，它们无法据此得出“确实”科学的结论。因此，虽然我们可将某些战争（如1939年发生的第二次世界大战）发生的原因归结于决策者害怕世界力量对比发生变化，但这一结论无助于解释始于1776年的美国革命战争、1792年的法国革命战争和1854年的克里米亚战争。同样，尽管我们可以指出，1914年的奥匈帝国是一个“衰落”大国引发大规模战争的良好范例，但“兴起的”大国德国和俄国在致使战争爆发方面也同样起了关键作用。对此，战争理论家们又如何解释呢?所以，各种有关帝国好坏、帝国控制是否受可测量的“力量/距离”比值制约的一般性理论，由于所依据的史料不同，对同一问题可能做出时而肯定、时而否定这样毫无意义的回答。
Nevertheless, if one sets aside?a priori?theories and simply looks at the historical record of “the rise and fall of the Great Powers” over the past five hundred years, it is clear that some generally valid conclusions can be drawn—while admitting all the time that there may be individual exceptions. For example, there is detectable a causal relationship between the shifts which have occurred over time in the general economic and productive balances and the position occupied by individual Powers in the international system. The move in trade flows from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic and northwestern Europe from the sixteenth century onward, or the redistribution in the shares of world manufacturing output away from western Europe in the decades after 1890, are good examples here. In both cases, the economic shifts heralded the rise of new Great Powers which would one day have a decisive impact upon the military/territorial order. This is why the move in the global productive balances toward the “Pacific rim” which has taken place over the past few decades cannot be of interest merely to economists alone.
尽管如此，如果我们不管上述理论，只是观察一下过去500年的“大国兴衰史”，便可清楚地看到，在承认任何时候都可能有个别例外的情况下，可以作出一些有价值的结论。例如，我们发现在综合经济力量和生产能力对比的变化与国际系统中各大国的地位之间有一种因果关系。两个最好的例证是：16世纪以后世界贸易集中地由地中海逐渐移向大西洋和西北欧，1890年后的几十年中世界工业品集中产地又由西欧慢慢移向其他地区。这两个例子都说明，经济力量的转移预示着新大国的崛起。这些新大国总有一天会对世界军事形势和各国领土状况施加决定性影响。过去几十年发生的全球生产的重要力量向“环太平洋地区”转移，不只是引起经济学家的关注，原因就在这里。
Similarly, the historical record suggests that there is a very clear connection?in the long run?between an individual Great Power's economic rise and fall and its growth and decline as an important military power (or world empire). This, too, is hardly surprising, since it flows from two related facts. The first is that economic resources are necessary to support a large-scale military establishment. The second is that, so far as the international system is concerned, both wealth and power are always?relative?and should be seen as such. Three hundred years ago, the German mercantilist writer von Hornigk observed that whether a nation be today mighty and rich or not depends not on the abundance or security of its power and riches, but principally on whether its neighbors possess more or less of it.
同样，历史事实还表明，从长远看，在每个大国经济的兴衰与其作为一个军事大国（或世界性帝国）的兴衰之间，有一种显而易见的联系。其原因有二：第一，支持庞大的军队离不开经济资源；第二，在国际体系中，财富与力量总是联系在一起的。300年前，德国商业理论家冯·霍尼希写道：“一个国家当前富强与否不取决于它本身拥有的力量和财富，而主要取决于邻国力量的大小与财富的多寡。”
In the chapters which follow, this observation will be borne out time and again. The Netherlands in the mid-eighteenth century was richer in?absolute?terms than a hundred years earlier, but by that stage was much less of a Great Power because neighbors like France and Britain had “more?…?of it” (that is, more power and riches). The France of 1914 was, absolutely, more powerful than that of 1850—but this was little consolation when France was being eclipsed by a much stronger Germany. Britain today has far greater wealth, and its armed forces possess far more powerful weapons, than in its mid-Victorian prime; that avails it little when its share of world product has shrunk from about 25 percent to about 3 percent. If a nation has “more?…?of it,” things are fine; if “less of it,” there are problems.
在本书各章中，这种观点将多次被证实。18世纪中叶的荷兰肯定比100年前要富有，但那时它已不再是一个强国，因为邻国法国和英国比它拥有更多的力量和财富。1914年的法国无疑比1850年的法国强大，但与强大得多的德国比较，法国就显得逊色，因此，它决不会由于自己比过去强大而感到慰藉。与鼎盛时期（维多利亚时代中期）相比，英国现在拥有的财富要多得多，其武装力量的武器装备的威力也大得多。但这些已毫无意义，因为它的产品产量已由占世界总产量的25%下降到约3%。如果一个国家比邻国强大，它的日子就好过；如果一个国家比邻国弱小，它就会遇到麻烦。
This does not mean, however, that a nation's relative economic and military power will rise and fall?in parallel. Most of the historical examples covered here suggest that there is a noticeable “lag time” between the trajectory of a state's relative economic strength and the trajectory of its military/territorial influence. Once again, the reason for this is not difficult to grasp. An economically expanding Power—Britain in the 1860s, the United States in the 1890s, Japan today—may well prefer to become rich rather than to spend heavily on armaments. A half-century later, priorities may well have altered. The earlier economic expansion has brought with it overseas obligations (dependence upon foreign markets and raw materials, military alliances, perhaps bases and colonies). Other, rival Powers are now economically expanding at a faster rate, and wish in their turn to extend their influence abroad. The world has become a more competitive place, and market shares are being eroded. Pessimistic observers talk of decline; patriotic statesmen call for “renewal.”
但这并不是说，一个国家经济力量和军事力量的增减将同步进行。从本书提供的大部分历史事例中可以看出，在一个国家的经济力量升降曲线与军事影响升降曲线之间，有一个引人注目的“时间滞差”。同样，这一点也是不难理解的。一个经济正在迅速发展的国家（如19世纪60年代的英国、90年代的美国和今天的日本）总希望自己越来越富，而不希望将巨资用于军备。半个世纪之后，国家的投资重点就可能发生变化。以前的经济发展造成的后果之一是，海外义务增多（因为要依赖国外市场、原料、军事联盟，可能还有基地和殖民地）。现在，其他或敌对国家在经济方面则以更快的速度发展，并同样希望扩大在国外的影响。因此，世界上的竞争愈演愈烈，市场股票的价值不断下跌；悲观主义的观察家谈论衰退，爱国的政治家号召“复兴”。
In these more troubled circumstances, the Great Power is likely to find itself spending much?more?on defense than it did two generations earlier, and yet still discover that the world is a less secure environment—simply because other Powers have grown faster, and are becoming stronger. Imperial Spain spent much more on its army in the troubled 1630s and 1640s than it did in the 1580s, when the Castilian economy was healthier. Edwardian Britain's defense expenditures were far greater in 1910 than they were at, say, the time of Palmerston's death in 1865, when the British economy was relatively at its peak; but which Britons by the later date felt more secure? The same problem, it will be argued below, appears to be facing both the United States and the USSR today. Great Powers in relative decline instinctively respond by spending more on “security,” and thereby divert potential resources from “investment” and compound their long-term dilemma.
在这种令人担忧的环境中，大国往往会自觉不自觉地以比两代人之前多得多的费用用于国防，但仍然感到国际环境不够安全，这仅仅是因为其他国家发展得更快，正变得更加强大。西班牙帝国在纷乱的17世纪30年代和40年代所花的军费，要比16世纪80年代卡斯蒂利亚经济繁荣时期多得多。爱德华统治时，英国在1910年的国防开支，也比1865年帕麦斯顿去世时英国经济处于鼎盛期时多得多。难道1910年的英国人感到更安全吗?目前，美国和苏联似乎面临同样的问题，这在以后还要论述。大国走下坡路时的本能反应是，将更多的钱用于“安全”，因而必然减少经济“投资”，从长远看，使自己的处境更为困难。
Another general conclusion which can be drawn from the five-hundred-year record presented here is that there is a very strong correlation between the eventual outcome of the?major coalition wars?for?European or global mastery, and the amount of productive resources mobilized by each side. This was true of the struggles waged against the Spanish-Austrian Habsburgs; of the great eighteenth-century contests like the War of Spanish Succession, the Seven Years War, and the Napoleonic War; and of the two world wars of this century. A lengthy, grinding war eventually turns into a test of the relative capacities of each coalition. Whether one side has “more?…?of it” or “less of it” becomes increasingly significant as the struggle lengthens.
从本书论及的500年历史中，还可以得出另一个普遍适用的结论，即为争夺欧洲或世界霸权而进行的大规模联盟战争的最终结局，与双方动员的生产资源之间有着非常密切的联系。反对西班牙-奥地利哈布斯堡王朝的战争、西班牙王位继承战争、七年战争、拿破仑战争等18世纪大规模冲突，以及20世纪的两次世界大战，都证明了这一点。一场令人烦恼的长期战争是检验双方力量的试金石。随着战争的进行，交战各方资源的多少将起越来越大的作用。
One can make these generalizations, however, without falling into the trap of crude economic determinism. Despite this book's abiding interest in tracing the “larger tendencies” in world affairs over the past five centuries, it is?not?arguing that economics determines every event, or is the sole reason for the success and failure of each nation. There simply is too much evidence pointing to other things: geography, military organization, national morale, the alliance system, and many other factors can all affect the relative power of the members of the states system. In the eighteenth century, for example, the United Provinces were the richest parts of Europe, and Russia the poorest—yet the Dutch fell, and the Russians rose. Individual folly (like Hitler's) and extremely high battlefield competence (whether of the Spanish regiments in the sixteenth century or of the German infantry in this century) also go a long way to explain individual victories and defeats. What does seem incontestable, however, is that in a long-drawn-out Great Power (and usually coalition) war, victory has repeatedly gone to the side with the more flourishing productive base—or, as the Spanish captains used to say, to him who has the last escudo. Much of what follows will confirm that cynical but essentially correct judgment. And it is precisely because the power position of the leading nations has closely paralleled their relative economic position over the past five centuries that it seems worthwhile asking what the implications of today's economic and technological trends might be for the current balance of power. This does not deny that men make their own history, but they do make it within a historical circumstance which can restrict (as well as open up) possibilities.
不过，我们应该既做出上述概括，而又不陷入错误的经济决定论的罗网。尽管本书作者对追溯500年世界事务的“主要发展趋势”兴趣颇浓，但并不是说，经济决定一切，各国的成功与失败都出于经济原因。大量事实证明，还有其他多种原因，譬如地理位置、军事组织、民族士气、联盟体系等许多因素都可以对各国的国力起制约作用。例如，在18世纪，荷兰“联合省”是欧洲最富裕的地区，而俄国则最穷。可是，荷兰却衰败了，俄国却兴起了。个人的愚行（如希特勒的）和高超的作战技能（16世纪的西班牙步兵团和20世纪的德国步兵都很善战），都是决定战斗、战役胜负的重要因素。然而，毋庸置疑的是，在一场大国间（通常是联盟间）的长期战争中，胜利往往属于有坚实的经济基础的一方，或属于最后仍有财源的一方，就像西班牙舰长们过去常说的那样。本书述及的许多事实都将证明，这个重要意见虽然具有讽刺意味，却是正确的。正因为五个世纪以来大国的国力与经济力量相辅相成，弄清目前经济与技术发展趋势对当前力量对比可能产生的影响才有意义。这并不否认人们创造自己的历史。但是，人必须在既可提供机遇又可限制机遇的历史环境中创造历史。
An early model for the present book was the 1833 essay of the famous Prussian historian Leopold von Ranke upon?die grossen M?chte?(“the great powers”), in which he surveyed the ups and downs of the international power balances since the decline of Spain, and tried to show why certain countries had risen to prominence and then fallen away. Ranke concluded his essay with an analysis of his contemporary world, and what was happening in it following the defeat of the French bid for supremacy in the Napoleonic War. In examining the “prospects” of each of the Great Powers, he, too, was tempted from the?historian's profession into the uncertain world of speculating upon the future.
一篇较早论述本书探讨的问题的论文，是普鲁士著名历史学家利奥波德·冯·兰克1833年发表的评论“诸大国”的文章。在这篇文章中，兰克考察了西班牙衰落以后国际力量对比的变化情况，并试图说明为什么一些国家崛起后又逐渐衰微下去。在文章的结尾，他分析了当时的世界形势，以及法国发动拿破仑战争想称霸欧洲的企图失败后发生的国际事件。在审视各大国的“前途”时，出于历史学家的职业习惯，他也踏入了预测未来这一无法确知的领域。
To write an essay upon “the Great Powers” is one thing; to tell the story in book form is quite another. My original intention was to produce a brief, “essayistic” book, presuming that the readers knew (however vaguely) the background details about the changing growth rates, or the particular geostrategical problems facing this or that Great Power. As I began sending out the early chapters of this book for comments, or giving trial-run talks about some of its themes, it became increasingly clear to me that that was a false presumption: what most readers and listeners wanted was?more?detail,?more?coverage of the background, simply because there was no study available which told the story of the shifts that occurred in the economic and strategical power balances. Precisely because neither economic historians nor military historians had entered this field, the story itself had simply suffered from neglect. If the abundant detail in both the text and notes which follow has any justification, it is to fill that critical gap in the history of the rise and fall of the Great Powers.
写一篇论述“诸大国”的文章是一回事，而写一本关于“诸大国”的书则是另一回事。我原来的打算是，写一本薄薄的“文章式”的书，因为我认为，让读者了解（可能只了解一些）有关各大国不断变化的发展速度的背景知识，或各大国面临的地缘战略问题就够了。当我开始寄出本书的前几章征求意见，或与有关学者谈论本书的主题时，有一点变得越来越清楚，那就是我的推测错了。读者需要更多的、更详细的背景知识，因为他们得不到有关各大国经济和军事力量对比不断变化的参考材料。正是由于经济历史学家和军事历史学家都尚未涉足这一领域，这方面的资料才较少。如果说在书中加进详细的背景知识材料有道理的话，那么这样做就是填补了大国兴衰史中一个重要空白。