Can an infant affect the global power of a nation in the 21st century? He can if he is a Windsor born in Britain this week. Not perhaps the way a male Tudor heir would have affected Britain’s balance with Spain five centuries ago, but Prince George affects Britain’s soft power in the world.

在21世纪，一个婴儿能否影响到一国的全球影响力？如果他是那位上周在英国出生的温莎(Windsor)王室后代，他便可以。乔治王子(Prince George)或许已经不像5个世纪前都铎(Tudor)王室男性继承人那样影响英国与西班牙的力量平衡，但他可以影响英国在世界上的软实力。

For better or worse, the monarchy still matters in global politics.

无论好坏，英国王室仍然在全球政治中发挥作用。

The British monarch, of course, is the head of the 54-nation Commonwealth, and even where she is no longer head of state, the royal brand still stirs some hearts and sells some products. And in the US, the land of revolting colonials where George III is still a villain in the schoolbooks and many pundits have (mistakenly) pronounced the end the special relationship, people arose early to watch the royal wedding and now celebrate the birth of the new prince. Television anchors gush with enthusiasm. Even before this week’s event, a CBS/New York Times poll reported in 2011 that 71 per cent of Americans thought the royal family “a good thing,” and only 15 per cent were against it. This is remarkably similar to the monarchy’s 77 per cent approval rating at home.

英国君主当然是54国组成的英联邦的元首。即便女王已不再是某些英联邦国家的国鲜花首，但王室“品牌”仍能拨动一些人的心弦，能够卖掉一些产品。美国是殖民地反叛的地方，乔治三世(George III)在美国的教科书上仍被形容为坏人，同时不少评论者（错误地）声称英美特殊关系已经终结。但在这里，人们曾经早早起床收看王室婚礼，如今则欢呼新王子的诞生。电视主持人激动地说个不停。早在上周王子出生前，哥伦比亚广播公司(CBS)和纽约时报(New York Times)在2011年的联合调查就显示，71%的美国人认为英国王室“是件好事”，只有15%的人反对。这与英国王室在本国得到的77%的支持率出奇相似。

We live in a celebrity era and the monarchy has managed to hold its own in competition with rock stars and athletes. In an information age, where power is not only a function of whose army wins but also whose story wins, the monarchy has provided a compelling narrative with more durability than the 15 minutes of fame enjoyed by celebrities who lack its institutional trappings.

我们生活在名人的时代，面对着摇滚明星和运动员的竞争，英国王室成功地维持住自己的影响力。在信息时代，力量不只是取决于战场胜负，还在于谁的故事更能打动人。英国王室提供动人心弦的叙述，并且比缺乏它那种机构派头的名人所享受的短暂人气更为持久。

Britain has recently been enjoying a good innings in the soft-power league. Not only have the BBC and the British Council kept their international reputations for credibility but the successful London Olympics and Paralympics provided a beneficial burst of public relations. In its 2012 rankings of countries’ soft power, Monocle Magazine argued that Britain had displaced the US in the top slot.

英国近年在软实力方面表现出色。不只是BBC和英国文化协会(British Council)誉满世界，伦敦奥运会和残奥会的成功举办也大大促进了公共关系。在2012年《Monocle》杂志国家软实力排行榜上，英国已经取代美国跻身榜首。

The British government is beginning to pay more attention. The 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review and National Security Strategy stressed the value of soft power in response to the problems involving defence cuts, and William Hague, foreign secretary, has argued for the importance of soft power as a “vital component” of the UK’s international role. A House of Lords committee on soft power and the UK’s influence is holding hearings. Certainly, the monarchy should be one of the instruments they examine.

英国政府也开始在这方面投入更多精力。2010年英国《战略防御与安全评估》(Strategic Defence and Security Review, SDSR)和《国家安全战略报告》(National Security Strategy)针对削减防务支出所涉及的问题强调了软实力的价值，而外交大臣威廉•黑格(William Hague)辩称，软实力是英国国际角色的“关键组成部分”。议会上院“软实力与英国影响力委员会”(Committee on Soft Power and the UK's Influence)正在举行听证会。毫无疑问，王室应当是他们研究的工具之一。

What are the costs and benefits of the monarchy as an instrument of soft power? Next year’s Sovereign Grant for the royal family will be about £36m. Critics complain that this does not fully account for security and travel costs but even if the estimate were doubled, it would be a mere pittance compared with other expenditures in the defence budget. Britain’s relatively few republicans complain that the social costs of anchoring a vestigial aristocratic class system is much more important, but this raises constitutional and political issues that go far beyond soft power.

以王室作为软实力的工具，有何成本和益处？供王室使用的“君主拨款”(Sovereign Grant)明年将达到约3600万英镑。批评人士抱怨称，这不完全包括安保和出行开支，但即便估算的成本翻番，比起防务预算的其他开支也只是九牛一毛。英国势力相对薄弱的共和派抱怨，延续残存贵族阶级制度的社会成本要大得多，但这带出了各种宪法和政治问题，远超软实力的范畴。

Soft power – the ability to produce outcomes through attraction rather than coercion or payment – is not a panacea. But neither is hard power, as we discovered in Iraq. If one wishes to depose a regime or roll back an invasion, hard power is necessary. But if one’s objective is to foster democracy or human rights, soft power may be more effective. And in most cases, a smart power strategy depends upon the mutually reinforcing combination of hard and soft-power resources. The cultivation of soft-power resources of legitimacy and goodwill can create a favourable environment.

软实力——即通过吸引而非强迫或付款来取得成果——并非万灵药。但硬实力也解决不了所有问题，伊拉克战争便是明证。如果希望推翻一个政权或是击退一场侵略，那么硬实力是必要的。但如果目标是培养民主或促进人权，软实力或许更有效。大多数情况下，明智的实力战略取决于硬实力和软实力资源的互补结合。利用正统性和善意等软实力资源，能够营造出有利的环境。

Promoting attractive images of one’s country is not new but the conditions for trying to create soft power have changed dramatically in recent decades. For one thing, nearly half the countries in the world are now democracies. In such circumstances, diplomacy aimed at public opinion can become as important to outcomes as the traditional classified diplomatic communications among leaders. Information creates power, and today a much larger part of the world’s population has access to that power. Technological advances have led to dramatic reduction in the cost of processing and transmitting information.

推广一国的美好形象并不是什么新鲜事，但创造软实力的环境在近几十年来发生了显著的变化。首先，目前世界将近一半的国家拥有民主政体。在此背景下，旨在影响公众舆论的外交活动，在影响成果方面可能与传统的领导人高层交流一样重要。信息创造出力量，当今能够获取这种力量的人比之前多得多。技术进步也大大降低了处理和传播信息的成本。

The result is an explosion of information, and that has produced a “paradox of plenty”. Plentiful information leads to scarcity of attention. One of the great ironies of this century is that the democratic remains of a once hierarchical monarchy are still a very cost-effective way of attracting attention for Britain today.

结果就是信息的爆发式增长，并引发“充裕的悖论”(paradox of plenty)。充足的信息导致人们的关注度不足。本世纪的一大讽刺是，一个昔日等级君主制的民主残余，仍能以成本高效的方式，为当今的英国吸引世界关注。