Carlos Pascual 在萊文沃斯堡陸軍指揮和參謀學院的畢業典禮上作了一次演講。Pascual 激勵畢業生努力使美國在全球化世界中的領導地位的遠景成為現實。
Caldwell 中將，謝謝你今天邀請我來到這裏，也謝謝你的領導才能和剛才對我的介紹。請容許我向 Arter 中將、Johndrow 參謀軍士長、Cardon 準將，以及最重要的，陸軍指揮和參謀學院的諸位畢業生及家屬致以誠摯的謝意。
感謝你們讓我今天參加你們的典禮，並且向本屆畢業班來自美國和其他各國的 960 位學子發表致詞。
我來到這裏是因為我相信這是一所致力於創造和平的學院。當然你們的根本使命還是保衛我們的國家：真正說來是保衛你們所有人來自的 60 多個國家，然而在我們所處的世界，保護國家利益同融入全球共同體是密不可分的。
70 多年前，溫斯頓•邱吉爾這樣勸告美國：
“如果一個國家不能夠麵對世界所麵臨的問題，不能夠深切體味世界所經曆的痛苦，不能夠為這樣偉大的事業所激勵，那麽這個國家就無法在各個方麵真正成為文明世界的領袖。如果這些在過去已經被證實，勿庸置疑，將來也同樣會是真理。美國人民無法逃避對於世界的責任。”
如果說 70 年前這段話是對的，那麽現在更加正確無疑。我給你們讀一段巴拉克•奧巴馬的《無畏的希望》中的話，寫這本書的時候他的總統誌向還隻是一個遙遠的夢想。
“當杜魯門、艾奇遜、凱南和馬歇爾坐在一起設計二戰後的秩序體係時，他們參考的框架是曾經在 19 和 20 世紀初占主導地位的大國間的競爭…美國最大的威脅來自納粹德國或者蘇俄這樣的擴張主義國家…而這樣的世界已經不複存在了。”
“[今天]不斷增加的威脅…主要來自全球經濟版圖中還沒有承認國際‘規則’的空白地帶…絕大多數人貧窮、無法接受教育並且與全球信息網絡脫離的地方；統治當局害怕全球化會弱化他們對該地區的統治力…世界各地越發緊密的互相聯係為那些想毀滅這種世界的人賦予了力量。”
我提出這些觀點並不是為了造成各位對全球化的恐懼，而是為了灌輸對全球化力量的重視，對如何參與全球化的了解，以及對於我們獨力改變世界的能力局限性的一種卑微感。
在我們身處的這個世界，資本、技術、思想和人都沒有國界。正是這一種超越國界、利用國際技能、進入各國市場的能力幫助中國和印度數億人擺脫貧窮，同時也為美國創造了空前的財富，甚至促進了全球推動和平的能力。許多人忘記了這樣一個事實：自從冷戰結束後，通過聯合國這類組織而達成的合作已經將各國的衝突數量降低了一半。
不過，全球化也有著我們未能掌握的黑暗一麵，而作為一個國家，作為一個全球共同體，我們尚未成功。所以，我們的世界才會這樣：
- 美國的房地產危機轉變成為經濟危機，進而發展成為全球經濟衰退，美國失業率超過 9%，中國下崗 2000 萬職工，像馬裏、乍得和秘魯山區這樣的地方，最窮的窮人已經被推到了生死邊緣。
- 工業革命曾為數十億人帶來過汽車、電視和冰箱，但同時也確立了使用化石燃料的模式，而我們都知道正是這一模式使得大氣中的碳濃度威脅了生命。
- 核技術為無碳發電的未來創造了空間，但是不受控製的核擴散也使得北韓和伊朗等國家成為世界和平穩定的威脅。
在這樣一個超越國界的世界，任何一個國家都無法獨力獲得成功，同樣，任何一個國家也無法脫離全球問題。
這就是為什麽奧巴馬總統表示，美國的安全同全球安全不可分離的原因。我們的未來交織在一起。
不過，我們的挑戰，也是你們的挑戰，在於了解如何實現這些關全球環境的長遠目標。我給你們提供一些意見：
首先，國際挑戰的規模比我們已知的任何挑戰都要大：
- 我們現在正麵臨危機。你們都很清楚，尤其是某些危機，比如阿富汗/巴基斯坦、伊拉克、伊朗北韓、中東；
- 對全球穩定的地理政治挑戰：有成效地應對中國和印度的崛起；強硬好勇的俄羅斯；在拉美地區，一股改變的動力有時使美國退到次要地位；
- 存在性或全球性挑戰：經濟危機、氣候變化、恐怖主義、核擴散，以及國家內部和國家間的衝突。
這份日程表上有哪些挑戰能夠延後？我們可以把哪些擱置一邊？幾乎沒有。所以，我們的國家以及在座的每個人都要了解這樣一個重要的知識：
這個世界的領導地位意味著同其他國家建立合作，為了和平繁榮的世界共同分擔這個重擔。這需要培養對我們國家的尊重，而這又意味著樹立我們維護法製的光輝典範，這樣我們才能利用這些合作和關係促進我們的國家利益。如果這一點對於美國是正確的，那麽對於今天在座各位代表的各個國家同樣也是正確的。
這些不是唯心的幻想。目前，建立和保持有效合作與世界尊重的能力已經成為了新的美國現實主義。
我還要給你們提供一個意見。我們麵臨的問題是互相聯係的，它們之間的聯係決定了我們的未來，但同時，如果我們不能了解這些決定我們現實的互相關聯的力量，我們就無法找到解決的辦法。
經濟危機不僅僅是裁員，它還影響每個國家的碳排放標價，這是一項至關重要的舉措，它能夠鼓勵節約和創新，從而阻止現在已成為洪水、幹旱、疾病和遷移原因的環境變化。
氣候變化正在加劇對稀有資源的競爭，尤其是土地和水源，這些都可能導致未來的衝突。我們可以確定的是，如果不解決土地和水源的根本稀缺，就永遠無法解決達爾福爾這類的衝突。
至於那些好奇我們為什麽要關注這些遙遠衝突的人，請不要忘記，我們在美國領土上經曆過的最大衝突正是來自世界上最貧窮的國家之一，阿富汗。
我們要從中學到什麽？
如果要了解未來威脅來自何方，我們就不能按照麵前靜止的事實去評估現在的世界，而要衡量全球力量的相互作用。
在我們對未來作好準備和尋找目前問題的解決辦法同時，我們必須了解目前威脅的軍事規模與安全環境的其他社會、經濟、文化和宗教因素有何關聯。不過我要提醒一點：我們的軍隊並不是用來解決所有這些問題的，而是作為促進民政當局投資和建設這些功能的道德和推動作用。
可以這樣簡單測試我們是不是走向正確的方向，也可以測試我們是否對自己誠實，那就是關注當地現實。比如，詢問實現阿富汗南部社會安定團結需要怎樣做，再比如保持這樣的安定團結需要怎樣做，對於在座的各位，我想你們都能看到這樣的現實：
- 如果不建立當地配套力量，無論是軍隊、警察、政府官員、企業，我們無法維持成功。
- 建立這樣的力量意味著將我們的人力投入到他們的人之中，這就是為什麽我們派遣 4000 名軍人培訓和指導阿富汗警察和軍隊的原因
- 不過，我知道對於我們政府的民政投入能力你們會非常失望，也許已經失望了——不是因為不希望在那裏投入，而是因為我們沒有足夠的人力。看看這個鮮明的對比：4000 名派遣到阿富汗的軍事教官，已相等於被派到全球各地6500名外交人員的三分之二。
作為一個國家，我們已經開始著手一些重要的改革。奧巴馬總統要求在 2010 財年增加 11% 的海外事務預算。這隻是一個溫和的開始。還需要在座各位對國家安全的支持，從美國的心髒地帶實現這一點，並且繼續發展這一能力。
在我們的心中，我相信我們必須謙遜但並不悲觀。我們正處於一個空前的時刻。
我曾經遊曆過世界各地，在任何一個地方我都沒有看到對美國領導地位的抵製。相反，我看到了對基於合作和分擔投資的領導方式的改變渴望。這符合我們的利益。
在美國，一輪又一輪的民調顯示，美國人希望國際合作與協作。作為一個國家，我們直覺意識到了同其他國家合作以及分擔非常時刻重擔的重要性。
堅守法治是實現可持續合作關係的核心方法。堅守法治是發揮我們的優勢而不是缺點，這正是我們在國內變得強大的原因，而我們在國際上也應樂於看到對法治的遵從。
是的，我們會遇到困難，全球環境也意味著全球競爭。有人要傷害我們及世界上其他好人。我們在倫敦、馬德裏、孟買、巴基斯坦和中東許多城市各地已經看過了恐怖分子製造的慘劇。
但是這不能阻止我們轉變關於這個跨國界世界的觀點，使我們的能力現代化，培養我們協同合作的能力。我們的優勢在於我們的人民，我們的創造力、誠實、正義、辛勤工作投入，以及我們願意與全球共同努力的道德信念，那就是為了我們的家庭和下一代。我們的希望在於你們這樣的人，這才是我們信心的來源。
陸軍指揮和參謀學院 09-1 班，祝賀你們。祝你們，也祝你們的家人成功。我們的國家，今天在座各位所代表的國家，感謝你們。
American Leadership in a Global Century
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/american-leadership-in-a-global-century/
Carlos Pascual June 12, 2009 @CarlosEPascual
Lieutenant General Caldwell, thank you for inviting me here today, for your leadership, and for your kind introduction. Let me extend my thanks as well to Lieutenant General Arter, Command Sergeant Major Johndrow, Brigadier General Cardon, and most importantly to the families and graduates of the Command and General Staff College.
Thank you for allowing me to join you today and to pay tribute to this graduating class – all 960 of you – from the United States and abroad.
I wanted to come here because I believe this is an institution dedicated to building peace. Of course your fundamental mission is to protect our nation: indeed to protect the more than 60 nations from which all of you hail, but we live in a world where protecting our national interests cannot be separated from engaging in our global community.
Seven decades ago, Winston Churchill exhorted the United States this way:
“One cannot rise to be in many ways the leading community in the civilized world without being involved in its problems, without being convulsed by its agonies and inspired by its causes. If this has been proved in the past, as it has been, it will become indisputable in the future. The people of the United States cannot escape world responsibility.”
And if that was true seven decades ago, it is even truer today. Let me read to you from Barack Obama’s Audacity of Hope – written when his presidential aspirations were still a distant vision.
“When Truman , Acheson, Kennan, and Marshall sat down to design the architecture of the post-World War II order, their frame of reference was the competition between the great powers that had dominated the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries….America’s greatest threats came from expansionist states like Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia….That world no longer exists.
“[Today] the growing threat…comes primarily from those parts of the world on the margins of the global economy where the international “rules of the road” have not taken hold ….lands in which an overwhelming majority of the population is poor, uneducated, and cut off from the global information grid; places where the rulers fear globalization will loosen their hold on power….The very interconnectivity that increasingly binds the world together has empowered those who would tear that world down.”
I raise these perspectives not to engender a fear of globalization, but to instill a respect for its power, an understanding of how to engage it, and a sense of humility about the limits of our capacity to act alone in shaping it.
We live in a world where capital, technology, ideas and people know no boundaries. It is this very capacity to transcend borders, to tap world capabilities, and to have access to world markets that has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty in China and India. It has created unprecedented wealth here in the United States. It has even contributed to a global capacity to advance peace. Forgotten by many is this reality: that cooperation through bodies like the United Nations has cut in half the number of conflicts within states since the end of the Cold War.
But globalization has its dark side when we fail to govern it, and here we have yet to succeed – as a nation, or as a global community. Hence, we have:
- A world where a housing crisis in the U.S. turned into a financial crisis and then a global recession with unemployment over 9 percent in the U.S., with 20 million displaced in China, with the poorest of the poor pushed to the margins of survival in places like Mali, Chad, or the mountains of Peru.
- A world where the industrial revolution has brought cars, televisions and refrigerators to billions, but it has entrenched a pattern of fossil fuel use that is causing carbon concentrations in our atmosphere that threatens life as we know it.
- A world where nuclear technology has created capacity for a carbon-free future in producing electricity, but the uncontrolled proliferation of this technology has made countries, such as North Korea and Iran a menace to world peace and stability.
In this world that transcends borders, no one nation can succeed along, yet no nation can isolate itself from global problems.
This is why President Obama says American security is inseparable from global security. Our futures are intertwined.
But our challenge, your challenge, is to understand how to make operational these perspectives on our global environment. Let me leave you with a few observations:
First, the scale of international challenges is greater than any we have ever known:
- We face today crises. You know them well – in some cases too well: Afghanistan/Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, the Middle East;
- Geopolitical challenges to global stability: managing productively the rise of China and India; an aggressively assertive Russia; and throughout Latin America, a dynamic of change where the United States has become at times a secondary player; and
- Existential or global challenges: the financial crisis, climate change, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and conflict within and between states.
What on this agenda can we put off? What can we place aside? Very little. Thus, an important lesson for our country and for everyone one of us: leadership in this world means to build partnerships with other nations to share this burden for the sake of a peaceful and prosperous world. It requires building respect for our nation – and that means setting a shining example in our adherence to the rule of law – so that we can leverage these partnerships and relationships to succeed in advancing our national interests. If this is true for the United States, it is equally true for every nation represented here today.
These are not idealistic fantasies. Today, the ability to develop and sustain effective partnerships and the respect of the world has become the new American realism.
I leave you with this observation as well. The problems that we face are interconnected – their interaction defines our future – but at the same time we cannot find solutions unless we understand the interlinked forces that are defining our reality.
The economic crisis is not only shedding jobs, it affects the capacity of every nation to put a price on carbon, a measure seen as critical to encouraging conservation and innovation, and thus deterring the environmental changes that even now are a cause of floods, draughts, disease and migration.
Climate change is exacerbating competition for scarce resources – especially land and water – that could drive future conflicts. One thing we know for sure is that without addressing the underlying scarcities of land and water there are no permanent solutions to conflict in places like Darfur.
And for those who wonder why we should care about distant conflict, let us not forget that the most significant strife we have ever had on American territory was orchestrated from one of the poorest countries in the world – Afghanistan.
What do we learn from this?
Let’s not assess the world based on the static realities before us – but seek instead to gauge the interactive effects of global forces if we are to understand where future threats may emerge.
As we prepare for the future and search for solutions to today’s problems, we must understand how the military dimensions of today’s threats intersect with the other social, economic, cultural and religious factors driving the security environment. But I also caution this: it is not for our militaries to solve all of these problems, but to be a conscience and driver to our civilian authorities to invest and build these capabilities.
As a basic test of whether we are headed in the right direction – to test whether we are honest with ourselves – focus on local realities. Ask what it will take to deliver security and prosperity in a community in Southern Afghanistan, for example, and then ask what will make it sustainable – and here I suspect you’ll find these realities:
- We can’t sustain success without building the capacity of local counterparts – whether they be military, police, government officials, entrepreneurs.
- Building that capacity means an investment of our people in their people – that is why we are sending 4,000 troops to train and mentor Afghan police and military
- But I know you will be sorely disappointed, and perhaps have already been, in our nation’s capacity to invest from the civilian side of our government – not because the will is not there, but because we don’t have the people. Look at this stark contrast: the 4,000 military trainers we are sending to Afghanistan constitute two-thirds of 6,500 foreign service officers across the world.
As a nation, we have begun to make some critical changes. President Obama requested an 11 percent increase in his FY 2010 Foreign Affairs budget. It is a modest beginning. It will take the support of those of you with a stake in the nation’s security, and from America’s heartland, to achieve this and to continue to grow this capacity.
In our hearts, I believe we must be humble, but not bleak. We have a unique moment.
I have traveled the world – nowhere have I seen a rejection of American leadership. Instead, there is a thirst for a change in the style of leadership based on partnerships and shared investments. That is in our interest.
In the United States, poll after poll shows that the American people want international partnerships and cooperation. Intuitively, we as a nation understand the wisdom of working with others and sharing the burden of extraordinary times.
A core means to achieving sustainable partnerships is adherence to the rule of law. That plays to our strength – not our weakness – it is what makes us strong at home and we should welcome this internationally as well.
Yes, we will encounter problems – a global environment also means global competition. There are those who mean to hurt us and good people throughout the world. We have seen tragic acts of terror in London, Madrid, Mumbai and many cities in Pakistan and throughout the Middle East.
But we cannot be deterred in transforming our perspectives on this transnational world, modernizing our capabilities, and building our capacity to act together. Our strength is in our people – our creativity, honesty, decency, commitment to hard work, and a moral belief that we are in these global endeavors together – for the sake of our families and the generations that come behind us. Our hope is in people like you, and that is a source of confidence.
Command and Staff College Class of 09-1, congratulations. Good speed to you, and to your families. You have the gratitude of our nation, and every nation represented here today.
