意见领袖：普京比特朗普更显优势

What was Vladimir Putin thinking? In a similar way, the power struggles of the 21st century — between the US and Russia, as well as China and the EU — are more likely to be determined by domestic resilience than by external strength.

弗拉基米尔普京在想什么？同样，在21世纪，美国与俄罗斯、与中国以及与欧盟之间的角力，更有可能由内部韧性、而非外部实力来决定。

Until recently, this would have been a contest that the US was supremely confident of winning. After all, the great strength of the west is meant to be the legitimacy and stability created by democracy as well as the superior economic performance. “Freedom works” was the confident boast of former US president Ronald Reagan.

直到最近，这都是一场美国自认为胜利在握的竞赛。毕竟，西方的巨大优势在于民主带来的合法性和稳定性，以及优越的经济表现。“自由是管用的”，美国前总统罗纳德里根(Ronald Reagan)信心满满地夸耀道。

But in the Trump era, the idea that the US system is inherently more stable than its rivals can no longer be taken for granted. The hatreds on both sides of the US political divide are so strong that even mainstream journals such as the New Yorker and Foreign Policy have run articles on the possibility of a second American civil war. (The experts polled by Foreign Policy came to a consensus of approximately 35 per cent.)

但在特朗普时代，我们已经不能再理所当然地认为美国的制度从本质上就比其竞争对手的制度更稳定。美国政治分歧的双方都怀有如此强烈的仇恨，以至于像《纽约客》(New Yorker)和《外交政策》(Foreign Policy)等主流刊物都刊登了有关美国可能爆发第二次内战的文章。（在接受《外交政策》调查的专家中，大约有35%的人认同这一点。）

The Russian response to accusations that they deliberately sought to widen these divisions inside America — when it goes beyond simple denial — is twofold. First, they argue that Russia is simply responding in kind to decades of US-led efforts to destabilise foreign governments that it dislikes. Second, they point out that American democracy must be in a pretty parlous state if it can be seriously undermined by a Russian operation with a supposed budget of a mere $1.25m a month.

对于指责俄罗斯为扩大美国内部分歧刻意煽风点火的说法，俄罗斯在情势已不允许其简单地否认之后，给出了两方面的回应。首先，俄方认为，他们只不过是以其人之道还治其人之身——几十年来，美国一直在领导各种行动颠覆其不喜欢的外国政府。其次，他们指出，美国的民主制度肯定本身就存在严重的问题——如果俄罗斯一项每月预算据信仅125万美元的行动就能严重破坏它的话。

Mr Putin knows that Russia has grave internal weaknesses. But he also can see that the US has serious problems of its own. That is why he has adopted a strategy that some analysts call “last man standing”. Its bleak aim is to play up the weaknesses of the west, before Russia’s own weaknesses overwhelm Mr Putin.

普京知道俄罗斯有严重的内在弱点。但他也能看到，美国自身也存在严峻问题。所以，他采取了一些分析师所称的“站到最后”的策略。这一策略的阴暗目的是，在俄罗斯自身的弱点压垮普京之前，尽量把西方的弱点搞大。