The state is back. The post-1945 multilateral order is falling into disrepair. Everywhere you look, nationalism is on the march. States, established and rising, are disinterring traditional notions of national sovereignty. They want to reclaim the international system created by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. They are chasing a chimera.

国家正在回归。1945年之后建立的多极秩序正陷入“年久失修”的境地。不管在哪个角落，民族主义都在卷土重来。不管是老牌国家还是正在崛起的国家，都在挖出国家主权的传统观念。它们想要重启1648年《威斯特伐利亚和约》(Peace of Westphalia)创建的国际体系。它们正在追逐不切实际的幻想。

For a moment, after the collapse of communism, the future belonged to a postmodern state. This state would remain the essential building block of political organisation, but would recognise shared interests. Governments would discard narrow concepts of national interest in favour of co-operative security and prosperity. Strange though it seems to say after the tumult of recent years, but the EU was seen as a model for the new international order.

共产主义阵营倒台后，有一阵未来看似属于某种后现代国家。这种国家依然是构成政治组织的必要基石，但也将认识到共同利益。各国政府将摒弃狭隘的国家利益观念，转而追求彼此合作的安全与繁荣。经历了近年的混乱以后这么说有些不合时宜，但欧盟(EU)曾被视为新型国际秩序的模范。

There was more to this than utopian daydreaming. Globalisation has tightened the ties of economic interdependence. Threats to nations are recognisably international in character – from climate change to pandemics, from terrorism and the proliferation of unconventional weapons to mass migration. Mobile capital, cross-border supply chains and the connections of the digital age leach power from individual states. The way to recapture lost authority is to act in concert.

这其中的意义超出乌托邦式的白日做梦。全球化加强了经济上的相互依赖关系。各国面临的威胁明显具有国际特征：从气候变化到流行病，从恐怖主义和非常规武器扩散到大规模移民。流动资本、跨境供应链以及数字时代的连接，抽走了单个国家的权力。要重获失去的权威，就要合作采取行动。

The mood has changed. As the rising have become risen powers they are reluctant to embrace a rules-based system – the more so since the rules were largely written by the established powers. For its part, the US is stepping back from the role of global policeman. Even postmodern Europe, where rescuing the euro demands another leap towards integration, is wrestling with tensions between the national and supranational.

氛围已发生变化。崛起中的国家成为强国后，不愿意接受一套基于规则的体系，尤其是在这些规则基本上由老牌大国制定的情况下。美国正在卸去全球警察的角色。即便是后现代的欧洲也在艰难应对国家与超国家之间的紧张，尽管拯救欧元要求进一步一体化。

The new powers – China, India, Brazil, South Africa and the rest – prefer the absolute sovereignty of Thomas Hobbes to the co-operative world of John Rawls. They imagine a landscape more like that of the 19th century, where power belonged to the states with the biggest economies and militaries, and balance was provided by competing alliances. Russia, where Vladimir Putin is reinventing the tsarist state, takes much the same view. Sovereignty is inviolable. The Westphalian principle of non-interference demands the world leave in place Bashar al-Assad’s murderous regime in Syria.

中国、印度、巴西、南非等新兴大国更愿意奉行托马斯•霍布斯(Thomas Hobbes)的绝对主权原则，而不是约翰•罗尔斯(John Rawls)的全球合作原则。它们设想的世界格局更像19世纪的世界，在这个世界里，权力属于经济和军事实力最强大的国家，而平衡来自不同联盟之间的竞争。弗拉基米尔•普京(Vladimir Putin)在重新打造沙皇帝国的俄罗斯，很大程度上抱有相同的观点。主权不可侵犯。威斯特伐利亚的不干预原则要求世界对叙利亚巴沙尔•阿萨德(Bashar al-Assad)的血腥政权袖手旁观。

For all that it is the architect of the present system, the US has always been ambivalent about compromising its national freedom of action. Until quite recently, however, the US could have it both ways by setting global rules to its own taste. Now, Congress refuses to sign even the most innocuous of international treaties on the grounds they might impinge on sovereignty.

尽管美国是现有体系的设计师，但美国对放弃自己的国家行动自由一贯态度模糊。然而，直到不久以前，美国可以按照自己的胃口来设定全球规则，两头受益。如今，即便是最为无害的国际条约，美国国会也会以可能侵犯主权为由，拒绝批准。

Barack Obama’s administration pays lip service to the new international order briefly imagined by George HW Bush after the fall of the Berlin Wall. But a US challenged by a rising China and obstructed by a morose Russia has tired of internationalism.

巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)政府表面上认同乔治•H•W•布什(George HW Bush)在柏林墙倒塌后一度设想的新型国际秩序。但在受到中国崛起的挑战和阴郁的俄罗斯阻挠之下，美国已经厌倦了国际主义。

The unipolar moment has made way for the age of the self-sufficient superpower. More than anyone else, the US has the geography, natural resources and economy to stand back. It now prefers coalitions of the willing to grand multilateral designs.

单极时代已经让位于自给自足的超级大国时代。要说置身事外，美国的地理、自然资源与经济条件优于其它任何国家。如今的美国更喜欢志同道合的联盟，而不是好高骛远的多边设计。

In Europe, things are more complex. The 17 nations of the eurozone are committed to the pooling of more sovereignty, yet the euro crisis has awoken nationalist ghosts. In one breath François Hollande, the French president, speaks eloquently of the need for a European political union; in the next he is heard to rail against any interference in France’s economic affairs by the European Commission.

欧洲的情况比较复杂。17个成员国的欧元区承诺共享更多主权，可欧元危机唤醒了民族主义的幽灵。法国总统弗朗索瓦•奥朗德(François Hollande)一会儿雄辩滔滔地讲着建立欧洲政治联盟的必要性，一会儿又指责欧盟委员会干预法国的经济事务。

Britain’s Conservatives are not alone in their antipathy towards the EU. At a time of economic stress and insecurity, nationalists across the continent are humming a seductive tune. There is nothing easier than to blame “outsiders” – whether they be immigrants or Brussels bureaucrats – for a nation’s domestic woes.

对欧盟反感的人不只是英国保守党人士。在经济紧张与不安全之际，欧洲大陆的民族主义者正在发出诱人的声音。把一国的国内困境归咎于“外面的人”（不管是移民还是布鲁塞尔的官僚）是最容易的事。

There are countervailing views. I heard them in Dublin the other day at a conference on sovereignty and globalisation hosted by the Institute of International and Economic Affairs, the Irish foreign policy think-tank. Ireland has endured immense hardships in the aftermath of the global financial crash. But its commitment to the EU, and to the eurozone, is undimmed. Most Irish citizens still agree with John O’Hagan, a scholar at Trinity College Dublin, who told the conference that by sharing notional sovereignty, Ireland had enhanced its capacity to advance its own interests.

也有与此相反的观点。某天我在爱尔兰外交智囊团——国际经济事务研究所(Institute of International and Economic Affairs)在都柏林举办的一场主权与全球化会议上，听到了这样的观点。全球金融危机爆发后，爱尔兰遭受了巨大的困难。但爱尔兰始终不渝地支持欧盟，支持欧元区。多数爱尔兰公民依然认同都柏林大学三一学院(Trinity College, Dublin)学者约翰•奥黑根(John O’Hagan)的观点。奥黑根在会上表示，通过分享国家主权，爱尔兰增强了促进本国利益的能力。

This interdependence is an inescapable reality for large as well as small states. National moods may have changed but the facts of globalisation have not. If anything, the diffusion of state power to non-state actors has accelerated.

国家不论大小，这种相互依赖都是不可逃避的现实。民族情绪或许变了，但全球化的事实没有变化。如果说有任何变化，国家权力向非国家主体的转移加速了。

As an ageing continent with a fast-declining share of global output, Europe has to act as one to uphold its values and interests. China is acutely vulnerable to the depredations of climate change, and to any threats to open markets and global supply routes. For all its relative self-sufficiency, the US cannot avoid distant threats to its prosperity and security.

欧洲大陆日益老去，在全球产出中的份额迅速下滑，因此必须团结起来，以维护其价值与利益。气候变化的肆虐，公开市场和全球供应路线面临的威胁，尤其容易冲击中国。美国尽管相对自给自足，但也避不开对其繁荣与安全构成的遥远的威胁。

The paradox we are left with is a world in which state sovereignty is at once greatly prized and, when properly defined as the ability to act, increasingly ineffective. States share an unavoidable interest in replacing the old order with new arrangements to recognise mutual as well as national goals.

我们面临的悖论是，在当今世界，国家主权一方面受到高度重视，另一方面若用行动能力这个恰当尺度衡量，国家主权却日益无效。各国都有一个不可回避的共同利益，那就是用新安排来取代旧秩序，承认各国的共同目标与国家目标。

This is not to say they will do so. History is littered with unhappy examples in which politicians have preferred the pursuit of illusions. Next year Europe will commemorate the centenary of the bloody close of an earlier age of globalisation.

这并不是说各国会这么做。历史充斥着政客更喜欢追求幻想的不愉快例子。明年欧洲将纪念上一个全球化时代血腥收场的100周年。