THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
We Have Never Been Here Before
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/25/opinion/putin-russia-ukraine.html
The seven most dangerous words in journalism are: “The world will never be the same.” In over four decades of reporting, I have rarely dared use that phrase. But I’m going there now in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Our world is not going to be the same again because this war has no historical parallel. It is a raw, 18th-century-style land grab by a superpower — but in a 21st-century globalized world.
。。。You have never seen this play before.
。。。In acting this way today, though, Putin is not only aiming to unilaterally rewrite the rules of the international system that have been in place since World War II — that no nation can just devour the nation next door — he is also out to alter that balance of power that he feels was imposed on Russia after the Cold War.
。。。Welcome to World War Wired — the first war in a totally interconnected world. This will be the Cossacks meet the World Wide Web. Like I said, you haven’t been here before.
。。。The outcome of this war will depend in large part on the will of the rest of the world to deter and roll back Putin’s blitzkrieg by primarily using economic sanctions and by arming the Ukrainians with antiaircraft and anti-tank weaponry to try to slow his advance. Putin may also be forced to consider the death toll of his own comrades.
。。。But in this modern era we have never seen an unfree country, Russia, try to rewrite the rules of the international system and take over a free country that is as big as Ukraine — especially when the unfree country, Russia, has an economy that is smaller than that of Texas.
。。。This war with no historical parallel won’t be a stress test just for America and its European allies. It’ll also be one for China. Putin has basically thrown down the gauntlet to Beijing: “Are you going to stand with those who want to overturn the American-led order or join the U.S. sheriff’s posse?”
。。。That should not be — but is — a wrenching question for Beijing. “The interests of China and Russia today are not identical,” Nader Mousavizadeh, founder and C.E.O. of the global consulting firm Macro Advisory Partners, told me. “China wants to compete with America in the Super Bowl of economics, innovation and technology — and thinks it can win. Putin is ready to burn down the stadium and kill everyone in it to satisfy his grievances.”
。。。The dilemma for the Chinese, added Mousavizadeh, “is that their preference for the kind of order, stability and globalization that has enabled their economic miracle is in stark tension with their resurgent authoritarianism at home and their ambition to supplant America — either by China’s strength or America’s weakness — as the world’s dominant superpower and rules setter.”
。。。
Indeed, if you ask me what is the most dangerous aspect of today’s world, I’d say it is the fact that Putin has more unchecked power than any other Russian leader since Stalin. And Xi has more unchecked power than any other Chinese leader since Mao. But in Stalin’s day, his excesses were largely confined to Russia and the borderlands he controlled. And in Mao’s day, China was so isolated, his excesses touched only the Chinese people.
Not anymore — today’s world is resting on two simultaneous extremes: Never have the leaders of two of the three most powerful nuclear nations — Putin and Xi — had more unchecked power and never have more people from one end of the world to the other been wired together with fewer and fewer buffers. So, what those two leaders decide to do with their unchecked power will touch virtually all of us directly or indirectly.
Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is our first real taste of how crazy and unstable this kind of wired world can get. It will not be our last.
人類兩種命運決戰，烏克蘭將名垂青史
對民主國家來說，最壞的結果是俄軍速戰速決，佔領烏克蘭，扶植偽政權，收服烏克蘭人心，再圖東歐。普京聲勢大振，習近平野心複熾，那時世界民主全麵退潮，時局無望。
對民主國家最好的結果是，烏克蘭人民撐住了，與俄軍打消耗戰，拖普京入戰爭泥沼，以時間換空間。另一邊廂，經濟打擊發揮實質作用，俄國金融係統崩潰，盧布大貶值，俄國民不聊生引發民變，那時普京將無生路。
普京倒台，影響習近平，中共國在內外困境夾擊之下岌岌可危，兩種價值觀之決戰可能到達一個臨界點，雙方以烏克蘭戰爭的結果為起點決一生死，最終普京垮台，習近平加速跟上，人類的命運將徹底改變，那就真正是曆史的終結。
自古以來哀兵必勝，烏克蘭人民被欺負被欺騙，不屈服不渙散，小小民族激發巨大政治能量，也得到全世界愛好和平與正義人民的支持。人類命運將因俄烏戰爭而改變，是福是禍，在此一舉，中俄勝則專製勝，美歐勝則普世勝，烏克蘭人民舉足輕重，將名垂青史。
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