After four years of Donald Trump, Joe Biden was supposed to restore the United States to a position of global leadership. By many conventional standards of Washington, he has delivered. He anticipated Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and adroitly rallied NATO to stand up to it. In Asia, he shored up old alliances, built new ones and fanned China’s economic headwinds. After Israel was attacked, he managed to support it while avoiding all-out regional war.

特朗普执政四年后，拜登理应恢复美国的全球领导地位。按照华盛顿的许多传统标准来看，他的确做到了。他预料到了俄罗斯入侵乌克兰，并巧妙地召集北约抗俄。在亚洲，他巩固了旧联盟，建立了新联盟，并削弱了中国的经济势头。在以色列遭受攻击后，他设法在支持它的同时避免了全面的地区战争。

Yet there is more to global leadership than backing friends and beating back foes. Leaders, in the full sense, don’t just remain on top; they solve problems and inspire confidence. Mr. Trump barely pretends to offer that kind of leadership on the world stage. But precisely because most U.S. officials do, it is all the more striking where American power stands today. Never in the decades since the Cold War has the United States looked less like a leader of the world and more like the head of a faction — reduced to defending its preferred side against increasingly aligned adversaries, as much of the world looks on and wonders why the Americans think they’re in charge.

然而，全球领导力不仅仅在于支持朋友和击退敌人。真正的领导者不仅能保持领先地位，还能解决问题、激发信心。向世界展示这样的领导力，特朗普连装都懒得装。然而恰恰因为大多数美国官员也是这样做的，美国今日的国力处境才格外令人震惊。在冷战后的几十年里，美国从来没有像现在这样不像一个世界领袖，更像是一个派系的头目——沦落到捍卫自己偏爱的一方，对抗日益团结起来的对手，而世界大多数国家都在观望，不明白为什么美国人还认为自己是老大。

When Russia invaded Ukraine, a familiar frisson shot through Washington. After decades of dubious warmaking, the United States would become the global good guy again, uniting the world to resist the Kremlin’s blatant affront to law and order. In the opening months, the White House scored brilliant tactical successes, enabling Ukraine’s defense, organizing aid from allies and smoothing Finland’s and Sweden’s entry into NATO. Yet if Russia is paying a steep price for its invasion, the conflict is also dealing a strategic setback to the United States.

当俄罗斯入侵乌克兰时，华盛顿上上下下洋溢着一种久违的兴奋。经过几十年可疑的战争撺掇行为，美国将再次成为全球好人，联合世界抵制克里姆林宫对法律和秩序的公然侮辱。在最初的几个月里，白宫在战术上取得了辉煌的成功，促成了乌克兰的防御，组织盟国的援助，并为芬兰和瑞典加入北约铺平了道路。然而，如果说俄罗斯为其入侵付出了巨大的代价，那么这场冲突也给美国带来了战略方面的挫折。

The United States now must contend with an aggrieved and unpredictable nuclear peer in Moscow. Worse, China, Iran and North Korea have come closer together to supply Russia’s war effort and resist what they call U.S. global hegemony. This anti-American entente has already proved strong enough to mitigate the effects of Western aid to Ukraine, and it is raising the price of U.S. military dominance. Russia directly borders six countries that the United States is treaty-bound to defend. The Pentagon, meanwhile, is preparing for a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. The United States is not outmatched, exactly. But it is badly overstretched.

美国现在必须与莫斯科这个愤愤不平、不可预测的核对手抗衡。更糟糕的是，中国、伊朗和朝鲜已经开始抱团，为俄罗斯的战争努力提供补给，抵制它们所谓的美国全球霸权。事实证明，这种反美同盟已经强大到足以减缓西方对乌克兰援助的效力，而且也正在增加美国维持军事主导地位的成本。俄罗斯直接与六个美国有条约保卫义务的国家接壤。与此同时，五角大楼正在为中国入侵台湾做准备。说美国处于劣势倒还不至于。但的确是捉襟见肘了。

Nor is the rest of the world flocking to America’s side. Most countries are casting a plague on both houses, finding fault in Russian aggression but also in the West’s response. Mr. Biden hasn’t helped matters. By couching the conflict as a “battle between democracy and autocracy” and making few visible efforts to seek peace through diplomacy, he has appeared to ask other countries to sign up for an endless struggle. Hardly any nations besides U.S. allies have imposed sanctions on Russia. Isolating China, if it attacked Taiwan, would be an even taller task. In Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, perceptions of Russia and China have actually improved since 2022.

而其他国家也没有纷纷涌向美国一边。大多数国家对俄罗斯的侵略和西方的反应都提出了批评，各打五十大板。对此拜登也没起到什么好作用。他将这场冲突形容为“民主与专制之间的战争”，几乎看不到他有努力通过外交手段寻求和平，他似乎是在要求其他国家加入一场没完没了的斗争。除了美国的盟友之外，几乎没有国家对俄罗斯实施制裁。如果中国攻击台湾，孤立中国将是一项更加艰巨的任务。在非洲、亚洲、拉丁美洲和中东，自2022年以来，对俄罗斯和中国的看法实际上有所改善。

The Gaza war came at the worst possible time, and Mr. Biden responded to this calamity by plunging in. He immediately pledged support for Israel’s merciless military campaign rather than condition U.S. aid on Israel finding a strategy that would protect civilians. Having chosen to follow, not lead, Mr. Biden was left to tut-tut about Israel’s behavior from the self-imposed sidelines. In a defining conflict, the United States has managed to be weak and oppressive at once. The costs to America’s reputation and security are only beginning to appear.

加沙战争来得非常不是时候，拜登对这场灾难的回应是全力投入。他迅即承诺支持以色列无情的军事行动，而不是把以色列找到一个保护平民的战略作为美国提供援助的条件。拜登选择跟随而不是引领，只能在自我设定的旁观者位置上对以色列的行为表达不满。在一场决定性的冲突中，美国居然做到了既软弱又专横。美国在声誉和安全方面付出的代价才刚刚开始显现。

Not long ago, the United States tried to mediate between Israelis and Palestinians on terms both parties might accept. It used diplomacy to keep Iran from going nuclear and encouraged the Saudis to “share the neighborhood,” in Barack Obama’s words, with their Iranian rivals. As of now, the Biden administration apparently aspires to do little more than consolidate an anti-Iran bloc. In return for Saudi Arabia normalizing relations with Israel, it seeks to commit, by treaty, to defend the Saudi kingdom with U.S. military force. This deal, if it happens, has a tiny chance of bringing peace and stability to the Middle East — and a large chance of further entangling the United States in regional violence.

不久前，美国还曾试图在以色列人和巴勒斯坦人之间进行斡旋，提出双方都可能接受的条件。它利用外交手段阻止伊朗发展核武器，并鼓励沙特人与伊朗对手“比邻而居”（奥巴马语）。现在，拜登政府显然只想巩固一个反伊朗集团。作为沙特与以色列关系正常化的回报，拜登政府试图通过条约承诺用美国的军事力量保卫沙特王国。如果这项协议得以实现，给中东带来和平与稳定的可能性微乎其微，而使美国进一步卷入地区暴力的可能性却大增。

Part of the problem is the president’s inclination to overidentify with U.S. partners. He has deferred to Ukraine on whether to pursue peace negotiations and has avoided contradicting its maximalist war aims. He fast-tracked aid to Israel even while publicly doubting its war plans. Mr. Biden also vowed four times to defend Taiwan, exceeding the official U.S. commitment to arm the island but not necessarily fight for it. His predecessors were not always so one-sided, maintaining “strategic ambiguity,” for example, over whether the United States would go to war over Taiwan.

问题的一部分在于总统倾向于过度认同美国的合作伙伴。在是否寻求和平谈判的问题上，他听从了乌克兰的意见，并避免与乌克兰不可妥协的战争目标相抵触。他在公开怀疑以色列的战争计划的同时，又加快对以色列的援助。拜登还四次放话要保卫台湾，超过了美国官方为该岛提供武器支持但不一定为其而战的承诺。他的前任们并非总是如此一边倒，在美国是否会为台湾而战问题上一直奉行“战略模糊”。

Yet Mr. Biden’s instincts reflect a deeper error, decades in the making. Coming out of the Cold War, American policymakers conflated global leadership with military dominance. The United States had sure possession of both. It could safely widen its military reach without encountering deadly pushback from major nations. “The world is no longer divided into two hostile camps,” Bill Clinton declared in 1997, the year he championed NATO’s eastward enlargement. “Instead, now we are building bonds with nations that once were our adversaries.”

然而，拜登的直觉反映出一个更深层次的、已经酝酿了几十年的错误。冷战结束后，美国决策者将全球领导地位与军事优势混为一谈。美国当时确实牢牢掌握这两个方面的优势。它可以放心地扩大军事影响力，而不会遭到主要国家的致命反击。“世界不再分为两个敌对的阵营，”克林顿在1997年宣称，那一年他在大张旗鼓地支持北约东扩。“相反，现在我们正在与曾经的对手国家建立联系。”

But bond-building never overcame mutual suspicion, in part because the United States continued to prize its own global dominance. Successive administrations expanded U.S. alliances, started frequent wars and aimed to spread liberal democracy, expecting potential rivals to accept their lot in the American order. Today that naïve expectation is gone, but the dominance reflex remains. The United States keeps extending itself further and finding formidable resistance — which in turn tempts Washington to double down, as much of the world recoils. This is a losing game, and Americans will have to risk and spend more to keep playing it.

但建立关系从未消除对彼此的怀疑，这在一定程度上是因为美国继续高度重视自己的全球主导地位。历届政府扩大了美国的联盟，频繁发动战争，旨在传播自由民主，希望潜在的竞争对手能够接受他们在美国秩序中的命运。如今，这种天真的期待已经不复存在，但主导地位的条件反射依然存在。美国继续扩张到更远的地方，却遇到了强大的阻力——这反过来又引诱华盛顿加倍努力，而世界许多国家都在后退。这是一场失败的游戏，美国人将不得不冒更大的风险，花更多的钱来继续玩下去。

A better approach is available. To reclaim global leadership, the United States should show a suspicious world that it wants to make peace and build resilience, not merely bleed an enemy or back up an ally. That would mean supporting Ukraine but working just as hard to end the war at the negotiating table — along with gradually shifting to a smaller role in NATO and insisting that Europe lead its own defense. Mr. Biden’s recent proposal for a cease-fire in Gaza was laudable, except that it lacked a threat to stop sending arms to Israel if Israel refused.

还有一种更好的方法。为了重新获得全球领导地位，美国应向一个疑虑重重的世界表明，它希望实现和平，建立复原力，而不仅仅是让敌人失血或支持盟友。这意味着支持乌克兰，但也要同样努力地在谈判桌上结束战争——并逐渐减小自己在北约中的角色，坚持让欧洲领导自己的防务。拜登总统最近就加沙停火提出的提议值得赞赏，但该提议没有威胁说如果以色列拒绝停火，将停止向以色列提供武器。

Pulling back from Europe and the Middle East would improve American engagement where it matters most — in Asia. It would clarify that America’s purpose is not to pursue hegemony, as Beijing’s propaganda alleges, but rather to keep China from establishing an Asian hegemony of its own. From this standpoint, the United States could be a confident leader in the Indo-Pacific even if China continues to rise. China is today far from capable of imposing its will throughout the region, nor would seizing Taiwan, risky in the extreme, enable it to do so.

从欧洲和中东撤退将改善美国在亚洲的参与，而美国在该地区的参与是最为重要的。这将澄清美国的目的不是如北京宣传的那样追求霸权，而是阻止中国建立自己的亚洲霸权。从这个角度来看，即使中国继续崛起，美国也可以在印太地区成为自信的领导者。今天的中国还远没有能力将自己的意志强加于整个地区，即使冒极端风险夺取台湾也不能让它做到这一点。

None of this would be easy, of course. But compare it with the alternative. Leading only a faction of the world turns the United States into a fretful follower. It puts Americans perpetually on the cusp of war in the Middle East, Europe and Asia alike, afraid that losing ground anywhere will set off catastrophe everywhere. The real danger, though, is to stake so much of global security on one country’s willingness to overcommit itself. True leaders know when to make room for others.

当然，这一切都不会容易。但比较一下其他的选项。只领导世界的一个派系会让美国成为一个焦虑的跟随者。这让美国人在中东、欧洲和亚洲永远处于战争的边缘，担心任何一个地方的失利都将在所有地方引发连锁反应。然而，把如此多的全球安全押在一个国家过度承诺的意愿上，才是真正危险的事情。真正的领导者知道何时为他人腾出空间。