为什么普京比西方棋高一着？

redchina

https://www.wsj.com/articles/put ... 7?mod=djemalertNEWS
Why Putin Is Outfoxing the WestRussia’s president is willing to take risks his opponents would never consider.

《华尔街日报》文章：为什么普京比西方棋高一着？


Why Putin Is Outfoxing the West
字面的意思是：为什么普京比西方是更加狡猾的狐狸？

副标题：俄罗斯总统愿意冒险，包括那些他的对手想都不敢想的风险

（下面是部分原文和中文摘要）

redchina

As Western leaders struggle to respond to Vladimir Putin’s unexpectedly dramatic challenge to the post-Cold War order in Europe, the record so far is mixed. The West has assembled something approaching a united stance on the limits of the concessions it is prepared to make and on the nature of the sanctions it is willing to impose should Mr. Putin choose war. Neither hyperactive grandstanding in Paris nor phlegmatic passivity from Berlin has prevented the emergence of a common Western position. This is an accomplishment for which the Biden administration deserves credit. Yet this is a defensive accomplishment, not a decisive one.

无论是巴黎的高贵姿态还是柏林的拖拖拉拉到最后都没有阻止西方以一个统一的姿态出现。拜登政府对此可以引以为荣。不过，这不过是防御性的成就。

redchina

As Mr. Putin demonstrated in his speech Monday, the Russian president is still in the driver’s seat, and it is his decisions, not ours, that will shape the next stage of the confrontation. Russia, a power that Western leaders mocked and derided for decades (“a gas station masquerading as a country,” as Sen. John McCain once put it), has seized the diplomatic and military initiative in Europe, and the West is, so far, powerless to do anything about it. We wring our hands, offer Mr. Putin off-ramps, and hope that our carefully hedged descriptions of the sanctions we are prepared to impose will change his mind.

坐在主驾驶位置的是普京。普京的而不是西方的决定，将决定这一对抗在未来的进程。西方领导人在过去几十年中一直嘲笑和讥讽这个国家，然而，俄罗斯现在夺取了欧洲外交和军事的主动权。到目前为止，西方完全无能为力。

redchina

The West has two problems in countering Mr. Putin. The first is a problem of will. The West does not want a confrontation with Russia and in any crisis the goal remains to calm things down. That basic approach not only makes appeasement an attractive option whenever difficulties appear; it prevents us from thinking proactively. When Russia stops bothering us, we stop thinking about Russia.

西方在面对普京时，有两方面的问题。首先是意志的问题。西方不想与俄罗斯对抗，在任何危机中，目标都是大事化小小事化了。这样，绥靖（讨好）就始终是一个有吸引力的选择，这使得我们无法考虑先发制人。只要俄罗斯不给我们捣乱，我们就可以不去想俄罗斯。

redchina

The second is a problem of imagination. Western leaders still do not understand Mr. Putin. Most of them see that he is not just another colorless timeserver who thinks that appointing a record number of female economists to the board of his central bank constitutes a historic accomplishment. They are beginning to see that he is in quest of bigger game and that he means what he says about reassembling the Soviet Union and reviving Russian power. But they have not yet really fathomed the gulf between Mr. Putin’s world and their own—and until they do, he will continue to confound their expectations and disrupt their agendas.

其次是想象力的问题。西方领导人们无法理解普京，他们才刚刚意识到原来普京是说到做到的。

redchina

Mr. Putin is, first and foremost, a gambler who is accustomed to taking large risks against long odds with a cool head. He is not infallible by any means, but he has years of experience in taking calculated risks, defying the odds, and imposing his will on stronger opponents. Like Napoleon Bonaparte, he can surprise and outmaneuver his opponents because he is willing to assume risks they would never consider, and so to attack in times and ways they can neither imagine nor plan for.

普京首先是一位赌博家，他习惯于用冷静的头脑、为了看似机会不大的目标而冒巨大的风险。普京当然不是永远正确的，但是他有多年的经验，可以冒着经过精心计算的风险，凭借着不多的胜算，迫使更加强大的对手屈服于自己的意志。就像拿破仑∙波拿巴那样，他愿意承担那些他的对手连想都不敢想的风险，从而做到出其不意、攻其不备。

redchina

https://cepa.org/buckle-up-this-is-just-the-first-step/

欧洲政策分析中心的文章：“系好安全带，这只是第一步”

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to recognize the so-called Luhansk and Donetsk Peoples Republics as independent states is not an end but a beginning.