I'm going to talk about a threat that most people don't want to think about. It's too frightening and it doesn't seem real. That threat is civil war.
我想讲述一个威胁, 大部分人甚至都不愿去想它。 它太可怕了,感觉并非真实存在。 这个威胁就是内战。
Since 1946, over 250 civil wars have broken out and that number continues to increase. There are now almost 50 percent more civil wars than there were in 2001.
从 1946 年以来, 爆发了超过 250 场内战, 这个数字还在继续上升。 与 2001 年相比, 目前内战数量增加近 50%。
I've been studying civil wars for over 30 years. I've interviewed members of Hamas in the West Bank, ex-Sinn Féin members in Northern Ireland, former members of the FARC in Colombia. I've stood on top of the Golan Heights and stared into Syria at the top of the Syrian civil war. I've driven across Zimbabwe as the military was planning its coup against Robert Mugabe. I've been followed and interrogated by members of Myanmar's junta. In 2017, I was asked to serve on a task force run by the CIA called the Political Instability Task Force. One of the goals of that task force was to come up with a model to help the US government predict what countries around the world were likely to experience ethnic conflict and civil war. It turns out that predicting civil war is possible. Solid data exists on where and when these conflicts are likely to break out. It's just that most people don't know that.
我研究内战已经超过 30 年了。 我采访过约旦河西岸的哈马斯成员, 北爱尔兰前新芬党成员, 前“哥伦比亚革命武装力量”成员。 我曾站在戈兰高地眺望叙利亚, 那时叙利亚内战最为激烈。 我曾驾车横穿津巴布韦, 那时军方正策划政变 推翻罗伯特·穆加贝统治。 我被缅甸军政府成员跟踪和审讯过。 2017 年,中央情报局(CIA)邀请我 加入他们主导的一个调查组, 名叫“政治不稳定特别调查组”。 调查组有个目标就是建立一个模型 帮助美国政府预测 哪些国家 有可能会面临种族冲突和内战。 原来内战是可以被预测的。 有可信数据显示这些冲突 可能爆发的地点时间, 只不过大部分人都不知道而已。
The task force was comprised of two types of people, experts on civil war like myself and data analysts. The experts came up with 38 different factors that they thought could potentially lead a country towards civil war. And some of those factors seemed obvious, like whether a country was poor, had lots of income inequality or had a government that heavily discriminated against one particular group. It turns out that only two factors were highly predictive and they weren't the ones the experts expected.
调查组由两类人员组成, 像我这种内战专家和数据分析师。 专家们总结出 38 种不同的因素, 可能导致一个国家走向内战。 有些因素显而易见, 比如这个国家是否贫穷, 是否收入极端不平等, 或者政府是否极端歧视 某一个特定的群体。 结果只有两个因素具高度预见性, 而它们与专家们以为的大相径庭。
The first was whether a country was an anocracy. Anocracy is just a fancy term for partial democracy. It's a government that's neither fully democratic nor fully autocratic. It's something in between. So think about Hungary today. Hungary holds elections. Hungarians eagerly go out and vote. It's just that whoever wins those elections can basically do whatever they want.
第一个是该国是否半民主半威权政体。 半民主半威权政体只是一个花哨术语, 意指该政府即非完全民主也非完全独裁, 而是处于两者之间。 看看今天的匈牙利, 匈牙利是有选举的, 匈牙利人也热衷于参与投票。 只不过当选的人 基本上可以为所欲为。
The second factor was whether citizens in these anocracies had formed political parties around identity rather than ideology. So rather than joining a party because you were liberal or conservative, capitalist or communist, you joined a party because you were Black or white, Christian or Muslim, Serb or Croat. If a country had these two features, the task force considered it at high risk of political violence and put it on a watchlist. It was actually called The Watchlist and it was sent to the White House.
第二个因素是 这些半民主半威权政体的人民 是否在组建政党时 基于身份认同而不是意识形态。 加入政党不是因为 你是自由派或保守派, 资本主义者或是共产主义者, 而是因为你是黑人或者白人, 信仰基督教或者伊斯兰教, 是塞尔维亚人或者克罗地亚人。 如果一个国家有以上这两种特征, 调查组会认为它极易发生政治暴力 而将它列入观察名单。 它真的就叫做“观察名单”, 直接被送进白宫。
So here I was, sitting in a hotel conference room in suburban Virginia four times a year with a room full of really smart people. And we talked about countries in Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, but we never, ever talked about the United States. That's because the CIA is legally not allowed to monitor the United States or its citizens. And that's exactly the way it should be. But I was a private citizen and I had this information and I could see that both of these factors were emerging in my own country and they were emerging at a surprisingly fast rate.
一年 4 次, 我都会坐在维吉尼亚州郊区 一家酒店的会议室 跟一屋子非常聪明的人在一起。 我们会讨论非洲、中东、中亚的国家, 但我们从来没有讨论过美国。 因为法律不允许中情局 监控美国或者美国公民。 本就该如此。 但我是一个普通公民, 又有这些信息, 于是我能看到这两个因素 正在我们国家出现, 而且出现的速度快得惊人。
The US's democracy has been downgraded three times since 2016. 2016, it was downgraded because international election monitors had considered the 2016 election free, but not entirely fair. America's own intelligence agencies had found that the Russians had, in fact, meddled in that election. It was downgraded again in 2019 when the White House refused to comply with requests by Congress for information. And it was downgraded a final time at the end of 2020 when President Trump refused to accept his loss in the 2020 election, and actively attempted to overturn the results.
自 2016 年以来, 美国民主已三次降级。 2016 年降级是因为 国际选举监督员认为, 那年的选举虽是自由的, 但不完全公平。 美国的情报机构发现 俄罗斯干涉了那次选举。 2019 年再次降级, 当时白宫拒绝向国会提供信息。 最后一次降级 是在 2020 年底, 当时特朗普总统拒绝接受 2020 年大选的失败, 积极地试图推翻选举结果。
Between December of 2020 and early 2021, the United States was officially classified as an anocracy. If the task force had been allowed to monitor and study the United States, it likely would have considered it at high risk of political instability and political violence in December of 2020, just a few weeks before the January 6 insurrection. And it likely would have put the United States on the watchlist.
从 2020 年 12月到 2021 年初, 美国正式被归类为半民主半威权政体。 如果调查组能监控和研究美国, 那它很可能认为美国处于政局动荡 和政治暴力的高风险中, 尤其是在 2020 年 12 月, 就是 1 月 6 号骚乱发生几周前。 它很可能将美国列入“观察名单”。
We also know who tends to start civil wars. And again, it's not the people most of us think. It is not the poorest people in society. It is not the people who are most oppressed by their government. The people who tend to start civil wars, especially ethnically-based civil wars, are the groups that had once been politically dominant but are in decline.
我们也知道谁往往会发动内战。 并不是大家认为的那些人。 不是社会中最穷的那群人, 不是被政府压迫最厉害的那群人。 倾向于发动内战的, 尤其是基于种族的内战, 是那些掌过政权, 如今却在衰落的群体。
If you think back to the former Yugoslavia. Serbs had enjoyed most of the positions in government and the military throughout the Cold War for decades, for decades. But they were the ones who stood to lose the most as Yugoslavia democratized. The Serbs started that war. Iraq's Sunnis similarly enjoyed most of the key positions in the military and in government under Saddam Hussein. But when the United States toppled Saddam Hussein, they also threw the Sunnis out of their positions. It was the Sunnis who started that war. In the United States, the rise of militias has been driven primarily by white men who see America's identity changing in ways that directly threatens their status. They were the ones who marched on the capital on January 6.
大家回想一下前南斯拉夫。 塞族人享有政府和军队中大多数职位, 在冷战几十年中一直如此。 但他们也是失去最多的人, 随着南斯拉夫的民主化。 于是塞族人挑起了战争。 同样,伊拉克逊尼派 在萨达姆·侯赛因治下, 占据了军队和政府中众多关键岗位。 但是当美国推翻萨达姆·侯赛因时, 他们也将那些逊尼派赶下了台。 于是逊尼派挑起了战争。 在美国,民兵组织的崛起, 主要是由白人男性推动的, 他们看到美国身份认同的变化, 朝着威胁他们地位的方向发展。 他们在 1 月 6 日发动了国会山骚乱。
So why is this happening now? It's happening now because of demographic change. The United States is in the midst of a major transition from a country whose population is majority white to a country whose population will be majority non-white. The United States will be the first country to go through this, but others are going to follow. Canada is likely to be next, followed by New Zealand and then the UK, and eventually all the English-speaking countries of the world. This is likely to be especially true if climate change causes citizens from the global South to increasingly move north.
为什么这些会在现在发生? 是因为人口结构发生了变化。 美国正处在一个巨大转型中, 从一个白人占多数的国家 变成一个非白人占多数的国家。 美国将是第一个 完成这种转型的国家, 其他国家也会紧随其后。 加拿大可能是下一个, 接下来是新西兰和英国, 最终是所有讲英语的国家。 这种情况尤其有可能发生, 如果气候变化导致南半球公民 越来越多地向北迁移。
These countries are going to be looking to the United States to see how we manage this demographic shift. Americans can allow this transition to tear us apart. Or we could use it to come together to show the world how to manage this change and in the process create a truly multiethnic, multi-religious democracy.
这些国家会把目光投向美国, 看我们如何应对人口构成的变化。 美国人可以任由这种转型 将国家搞得四分五裂, 或者我们可以借此团结起来, 向世界展示如何应对这种转变, 并在这过程中创建真正的 多民族、多宗教的民主国家。
So how do you do this? The first thing we have to do is address the two big risk factors of civil war. Anocracy and identity politics.
那如何做到这一点呢? 我们首先要做的, 是解决导致内战的 两个主要风险因素。 半民主半威权政体和身份政治。
To address anocracy, we have to improve the rule of law. We have to ensure equal access to every citizen to the vote. We have to reduce corruption and we have to improve the quality of government services. But reforming a government takes time. Those are not easy things to do and it often seems impossible. That's exactly where the United States is today, almost paralyzed.
要解决半民主半威权政体, 我们必须改善法治, 保证每一个公民 都有平等的投票权, 减少腐败, 并提高政府服务质量。 但是重塑政府需要时间。 这些要实现都不容易, 甚至似乎不可能。 这就是美国如今的处境, 几近瘫痪。
This is where business can come in. Thirty years ago, most of us thought that South Africa was barreling towards civil war. Black South Africans were increasingly protesting the brutality of the white apartheid regime, and the government responded with more brutality. But then something happened. The business community stepped in and demanded real democracy. They did this because they had been suffering under years of crushing economic sanctions and eventually they had to choose between apartheid and profits, and they chose profits. And when they went to the government and said, "We will no longer support you," the apartheid regime knew it could not survive and reform happened quickly.
这也是企业可以介入的地方。 30 年前, 多数人都认为 南非正滑向内战深渊。 南非黑人的抗议日益增多, 以反对白人种族隔离政权的暴行, 政府则以更残暴的方式回应。 然而意想不到的事发生了, 商界介入进来, 要求真正的民主。 他们之所以这么做, 是因为遭受了多年的 严厉经济制裁, 最终不得不在种族隔离 和利润中选择, 他们选择了利润。 他们对政府说: “我们不再支持你了。” 种族隔离政权知道自己岌岌可危, 于是改革很快就发生了。
The business community can also help address identity politics by investing in those communities that have been left behind by globalization and by free-trade agreements like NAFTA. In the United States, it was the working class that disproportionately suffered. Those are the communities that are the most angry and the most resentful today. Businesses can invest in better health care, better education and a higher minimum wage so that they create a group of people who are hopeful about the future and less vulnerable to the calls by extremists to burn the system down.
商界还可以帮助 解决身份政治问题, 通过投资给落后社群, 支持全球化和自由贸易协定, 例如《北美自由贸易协定》。 在美国, 受伤害最严重的是工薪阶层。 他们是如今最愤怒、 最怨恨的社群。 商界可以投资提供更好的医疗, 更好的教育, 提高最低工资, 这样就能让这个群体 对未来充满希望, 不再轻易被极端分子 煽动去推翻政权。
But there's perhaps an easier solution, at least in the short term. At least in the short term. And that is to regulate social media, especially the algorithms that push out the most incendiary and divisive material. I'm not saying that we should censor free speech. Let people put whatever they want on social media, but do not allow the algorithms to amplify the messages by bullies and hatemongers and conspiracy theorists and enemies of democracy. If we take away their bullhorn, their influence will decline.
但也许还有更容易的解决方案, 至少从短期来看。 那就是规范社交媒体, 尤其要规范那些算法, 它们推送着最具煽动性和分裂性内容。 我不是说要审查自由言论。 大家可以在社交媒体上畅所欲言, 但是不应该允许算法 去扩散那些恃强凌弱者、 仇恨煽动者、 阴谋论者和民主的敌人发布的信息。 如果我们夺走他们的扩音器, 他们的影响将会降低。
I've interviewed a lot of people who have lived through a civil war and they all say the same thing. "I didn't see it coming." "I didn't see it coming." Berina Kovac was a young mother living in Sarajevo at the beginning of the Bosnian civil war. She told me that in the months and weeks leading up to that war, life seemed normal. She went to work. She took weekend holidays with her husband. They went to the weddings of their friends. But then one night in March of 1992, when she was at home with her newborn son, the lights suddenly went out. And then she said, you started to hear machine guns.
我采访过许多经历过内战的人, 他们都说了同样的话。 “我根本没觉得它会发生。” “我根本没觉得它会发生。” 贝里纳·科瓦奇是一位年轻的母亲, 波斯尼亚内战初期, 她生活在萨拉热窝。 她说在战争爆发前的 几个月甚至几周, 生活看起来很正常。 她每天上班, 跟丈夫周末度假, 去参加朋友的婚礼。 但 1992 年 3 月的一个晚上, 当她和刚出生的儿子在家里时, 灯突然全灭了。 她接着说, 她开始听到机枪的声音。
It doesn't have to be this way. We know an enormous amount about why these terrible wars start. We know that the people intent on violence have a playbook. We know what that playbook is. But there's no reason why we, the democracy-loving people of this world, can't create our own playbook to prevent civil war. But to do that, we have to be brave enough to fight for real democracy, strong democracy, because only by fighting for democracy can we ensure that we will truly get peace.
本来不必走到这一步的。 我们对这些可怕战争的起因 有大量了解。 我们知道这些想诉诸暴力的人 都有一本行动手册, 我们知道这本行动手册的内容。 所以,没有任何理由, 我们这些热爱民主的人, 不创作一本自己的 行动手册来防止内战。 但是要做到这一点, 我们必须勇敢地 为了真正的、强大的 民主而战, 因为只有为民主而战, 我们才能确保真正实现和平。
Thank you.
谢谢大家。
(Applause)
(掌声)