来自档案：我们真的是地理的囚徒吗？

这是《卫报》。

This is The Guardian.

《卫报》档案长文。

The Guardian archive long read.

你好。

Hi.

我是丹尼尔·因默瓦尔。

I'm Daniel Immerwahr.

我是《我们真的是地理的囚徒吗？》的作者。

I'm the author of Are We Really Prisoners of Geography?

这本书于2022年出版。

Which was published in 2022.

这篇文章试图理清最近涌现的一批关于地缘政治、山脉和地下水位解释国际事务的书籍。

This article is an attempt to make sense of a rash of books that have been coming out about geopolitics and mountain ranges and water tables explaining international affairs.

我很好奇为什么这些书突然如此流行，于是我逐渐意识到，它们反映的是一种保守主义——不仅是政治上的保守，更是对地球本身不变性的保守信念，即地球不会改变。

And I got really curious about why these were so popular all of a sudden, and I came to feel that they were expressive of a kind of conservatism, not just a political conservatism, but also a conservatism about the earth itself, that it won't change.

所以我最终写了一篇对这些观点持怀疑态度的文章。

So I ended up writing a skeptical take on these.

我之所以对这个话题感兴趣，是因为国际政治通常有两种走向。

One reason I got interested in this is that there's always two kinds of ways that international politics can go.

一种是理念、贸易商品等一切都能轻松跨越国界。

It can be a affair of ideas and trade goods and everything sort of effortlessly crossing borders.

另一种则是依靠防御边界，掌控边界内的资源。

Or it can be an affair of defended borders and, you know, locking down the resources you have within them.

这两种情况总是来回交替出现。

And it's always kind of ping pongs between the two.

但似乎我们现在正处于一个边界和地理变得更为重要的时代——一方面，我们看到大量边境墙的修建，以及对领土归属的诸多新主张；另一方面，随着气候变化的加剧，地球本身的重要性也在上升。

But it seems like we're in the age where borders, where grounds matters more, both because we're seeing a lot of border walls being built, and we're seeing a lot of new claims about, you know, whose territory is this, But also because the Earth is mattering more as we experience climate change.

因此，我对这两者如何共同作用，使地球的物理属性变得更加影响我们的政治，感到非常感兴趣。

And so I was interested in how those two things, which are both making, you know, the actual physical stuff of the planet more relevant to our politics, how they were playing with each other.

此后发生的一件事是，我们现在有一位美国总统公开使用殖民主义的语言。

One thing that's happened since is that we now have a US president who is openly speaking the language of colonization.

这听起来像是一种更古老的语言，地缘政治理论家们对此非常熟悉。

And that feels like an older language, the kind of language that geopolitical theorists would be very familiar with.

这让你更加意识到，相较于2022年我原本的想法，我们正步入一个领土在纯粹物理意义上变得更重要的时代。

And it makes you think even more than I thought in 2022 that we are heading toward an age when territory, just in a purely physical sense, matters more.

欢迎来到《卫报》深度阅读，呈现涵盖文化、政治与新思想的顶尖深度报道。

Welcome to the Guardian long read, showcasing the best long form journalism covering culture, politics, and new thinking.

如需阅读本文及其他所有深度报道的文本版，请访问guardian.com/longread。

For the text version of this and all our long reads, go to the guardian.com/longread.

我们真的是地理的囚徒吗？

Are We Really Prisoners of Geography?

作者：丹尼尔·艾默瓦尔。俄罗斯对乌克兰的战争带来了许多意外。

By Daniel Immerwahr Russia's war in Ukraine has involved many surprises.

然而，最大的意外是，这场战争竟然真的发生了。

The largest, however, is that it happened at all.

去年，俄罗斯还处于和平状态，并深度融入了复杂的全球经济。

Last year, Russia was at peace and enmeshed in a complex global economy.

为了扩张本已辽阔的领土，真的会切断贸易联系并威胁核战争吗？

Would it really sever trade ties and threaten nuclear war just to expand its already vast territory?

尽管有诸多警告，包括弗拉基米尔·普京本人的警告，这次入侵仍令人震惊。

Despite the many warnings, including from Vladimir Putin himself, the invasion still came as a shock.

但对记者蒂姆·马歇尔来说，这并不意外。

But it wasn't a shock to the journalist Tim Marshall.

在他2015年出版的畅销书《地理的囚徒》第一页，马歇尔就邀请读者思考俄罗斯的地形。

On the first page of his twenty fifteen blockbuster book Prisoners of Geography, Marshall invited readers to contemplate Russia's topography.

一圈山脉和冰原环绕着它。

A ring of mountains and ice surrounds it.

它与中国接壤的边界由山脉保护，与伊朗和土耳其则被高加索地区隔开。

Its border with China is protected by mountain ranges, and it is separated from Iran and Turkey by the Caucasus.

在俄罗斯与西欧之间，有巴尔干山脉、喀尔巴阡山脉和阿尔卑斯山，构成了另一道屏障。

Between Russia and Western Europe stand the Balkans, Carpathians, and Alps, which form another wall.

或者说，几乎构成了这样一道屏障。

Or, they nearly do.

在这些山脉以北，一条平坦的走廊通过乌克兰和波兰将俄罗斯与其武装强大的西方邻国连接起来。

To the north of those mountains, a flat corridor connects Russia to its well armed Western neighbors via Ukraine and Poland.

你可以骑自行车从巴黎一路到达莫斯科。

On it, you can ride a bicycle from Paris to Moscow.

你也可以开坦克通过。

You can also drive a tank.

马歇尔指出，俄罗斯这一天然屏障的缺口曾多次使其暴露在攻击之下。

Marshall noted how this gap in Russia's natural fortifications has repeatedly exposed it to attacks.

马歇尔得出结论，普京别无选择。

Putin has no choice, Marshall concluded.

他至少必须试图控制西部的平原地区。

He must at least attempt to control the flatlands to the West.

当普京确实采取了这一行动——入侵乌克兰，而他已无法通过更温和的手段继续控制该国时，马歇尔以一种疲惫的理解态度看待此事，虽然谴责战争，却认为这并不意外。

When Putin did precisely that invading a Ukraine he could no longer control by quieter means, Marshall greeted it with wearied understanding, deploring the war yet finding it unsurprising.

他曾写道：地图囚禁了领导者，使他们拥有的选择比你想象的更少，腾挪空间也更小。

The map imprisons leaders, he had written, giving them fewer choices and less room to maneuver than you might think.

马歇尔的这种思维方式有一个名称：地缘政治。

There is a name for Marshall's line of thinking: geopolitics.

尽管这个术语常被宽松地用来指代国际关系，但它更准确地指一种认为地理决定世界事务的观点。

Although the term is often used loosely to mean international relations, it refers more precisely to the view that geography governs world affairs.

地缘政治学家认为，思想、法律和文化固然有趣，但要真正理解政治，你必须仔细研究地图。

Ideas, laws, and culture are interesting, geopoliticians argue, but to truly understand politics, you must look hard at maps.

当你这么做的时候，世界就会呈现出一种零和博弈的面貌——每个邻国都是潜在的对手，成功取决于对领土的控制，就像棋盘游戏《风险》一样。

And when you do, the world reveals itself to be a zero sum contest in which every neighbor is a potential rival, and success depends on controlling territory, as in the board game Risk.

在对人类动机的愤世嫉俗看法上，地缘政治类似于马克思主义，只不过地形取代了阶级斗争，成为历史的驱动力。

In its cynical view of human motives, geopolitics resembles Marxism, just with topography replacing class struggle as the engine of history.

地缘政治也和马克思主义相似，许多人在1990年代冷战结束时预言了它的死亡。

Geopolitics also resembles Marxism in that many predicted its death in the 1990s with the Cold War's end.

市场的扩张和新技术的涌现曾承诺使地理变得无关紧要。

The expansion of markets and eruption of new technologies promised to make geography obsolete.

当海洋上满是集装箱船、信息在卫星间反弹时，谁还在乎控制马六甲海峡或敖德萨港呢？

Who cares about controlling the Strait Of Malacca or the Port Of Odessa when the seas brim with container ships and information rebounds off satellites.

2005年，记者托马斯·弗里德曼宣称世界是平的。

The world is flat, the journalist Thomas Friedman declared in 2005.

这是一个对全球化中商品、思想和人员顺畅跨越国界现象的恰当隐喻。

It was an apt metaphor for globalization goods, ideas, and people sliding smoothly across borders.

然而，今天的世界感觉不再那么平坦了。

Yet the world feels less flat today.

随着供应链断裂和全球贸易停滞，地球的地形似乎更加崎岖而非光滑无阻。

As supply chains snap and global trade falters, the terrain of the planet seems more craggy than frictionless.

对全球化的敌意，由唐纳德·特朗普和奈杰尔·法拉奇等人推动，早在疫情前就已上升，而疫情进一步加剧了这一趋势。

Hostility toward globalization, channeled by figures such as Donald Trump and Nigel Farage, was already rising before the pandemic, which boosted it.

边境墙的数量（冷战结束时约为10道）如今已增至74道，并且仍在增加，过去十年是建墙的高峰期。

The number of border walls (about 10 at the Cold War's end) is now 74 and climbing, with the past decade as the high point of wall building.

政治学家伊丽莎白·瓦莱特写道，后冷战时代对全球化的希望是一种幻觉，我们现在正目睹世界的再领土化。

The post Cold War hope for globalization was a delusion, writes political scientist Elisabeth Valet, and we're now seeing the re territorialization of the world.

面对日益敌对的环境，各国领导人正重新翻出旧的战略指南。

Facing a newly hostile environment, leaders are pulling old strategy guides off the shelf.

地缘政治回来了，而且带着报复性的回归，结束了我们在所谓后冷战时期所享受的这段历史休眠期，美国国家安全事务助理H。

Geopolitics are back, and back with a vengeance, after this holiday from history we took in the so called post Cold War period, US National Security Adviser H.

R。

R.

麦克马斯特在2017年警告说。

McMaster warned in 2017.

这种观点明确地指导着俄罗斯的思维，普京在解释其对乌克兰的入侵时援引了地缘政治现实。

This outlook openly guides Russian thinking, with Putin citing geopolitical realities in explaining his Ukraine invasion.

在其他地方，随着人们对开放的、以贸易为基础的国际体系的信心减弱，像马歇尔、罗伯特·卡普兰、伊恩·莫里斯、乔治·弗里德曼和彼得·扎汉这样的地图派评论家正登上畅销书榜单。

Elsewhere, as faith in an open, trade based international system falters, map reading pundits such as Marshall, Robert Kaplan, Ian Morris, George Friedman, and Peter Zahan are advancing onto bestseller lists.

这些地图派人士兜售他们的观点，你不禁怀疑，自成吉思汗十三世纪的世界以来，是否真的有什么改变——那时的战略不过是开阔的行军与山脉屏障的问题。

The mapmongers ply their trade, you wonder if anything has changed since the thirteenth century world of Genghis Khan, where strategy was a matter of open steps and mountain barriers.

地缘政治思维毫不掩饰地悲观，对和平、正义与权利的希望持怀疑态度。

Geopolitical thinking is unabashedly grim, and it regards hopes for peace, justice, and rights with skepticism.

然而，问题不在于它是否悲观，而在于它是否正确。

The question, however, is not whether it's bleak, but whether it's right.

过去几十年带来了重大的技术、智力和制度变革。

Past decades have brought major technological, intellectual, and institutional changes.

但我们是否仍如马歇尔所言，是地理的囚徒？

But are we still, as Marshall contends, prisoners of geography?

从长远来看，我们几乎到了令人尴尬的程度，受制于环境：环境允许时繁荣，环境不允许时则消亡。

In the long run, we are creatures of our environments to an almost embarrassing degree, flourishing where circumstances permit and dying where they don't.

如果你查看一幅板块边界相互摩擦的地图，并叠加世界主要古代文明的分布位置，就会发现一种惊人的密切关系，刘易斯·达特内尔在他的杰出著作《起源》中写道。

If you look at a map of the tectonic plate boundaries grinding against each other and superimpose the locations of the world's major ancient civilizations, an astonishingly close relationship reveals itself, writes Lewis Dartnell in his splendid book Origins.

这种关系绝非偶然。

The relationship is no accident.

板块碰撞形成了山脉和将沉积物输送到低地的大河，从而肥沃了土壤。

Plate collisions create mountain ranges and the great rivers that carry their sediment down to the lowlands, enriching the soil.

古希腊、埃及、波斯、亚述、印度河流域、中美洲和罗马都位于板块边缘附近。

Ancient Greece, Egypt, Persia, Assyria, the Indus Valley, Mesoamerica, and Rome were all near plate edges.

肥沃新月地带——从埃及延伸至伊朗的富饶农业区，农业、骑乘和车轮最早在此出现——正好位于三大板块的交汇处。

The Fertile Crescent, the rich agricultural zone stretching from Egypt to Iran, where farming, riding, and the wheel first emerged lies over the intersection of three plates.

地理的影响可以非常持久，正如美国南部的投票模式所显示的那样。

Geography's effects can be impressively enduring, as voting patterns in the Southern U.

美国。

S.

显示。

Show.

深南部地区共和党势力强大，但有一条民主党的选区弧线贯穿其中。

The Deep South is heavily Republican, but an arc of Democratic counties curves through it.

这条下降的带状区域对地质学家来说一眼就能认出，科学家史蒂芬·达奇写道。

That descending band makes a shape instantly recognizable to a geologist, writes scientist Stephen Dutch.

它与数千万年前白垩纪高温时期沉积的沉积物露头完全吻合，当时如今的美国大部分地区还处于水下。

It matches an outcrop of sediment from tens of millions of years ago, deposited during the Hot Cretaceous Period when much of the present day US was underwater.

随着时间推移，这些沉积物被压缩成页岩，再经过更长时间，海水退去后，它们因侵蚀而暴露出来。

With time, the deposits were compressed into shale, and with more time, after the waters had receded, they were exposed by erosion.

十九世纪，达奇解释说，种植园主们发现了这一露头，因其肥沃的黑色土壤而称之为‘黑带’，并认为它非常适合种植棉花。

In the nineteenth century, Dutch explains, planters recognized the outcropping, called the Black Belt for its rich, dark soil, as ideal for cotton.

为了种植，种植园主带来了奴隶，他们的后代至今仍居住在该地区，并经常反对保守派政治家。

To picket, planters brought enslaved people, whose descendants still live in the area and regularly oppose conservative politicians.

阿拉巴马州的蒙哥马利市正好位于白垩纪带的中心，达特内尔指出，这里也是民权运动的中心，马丁·路德·金曾在此布道，罗莎·帕克斯由此发起了公交车抵制运动。

The city of Montgomery, Alabama, smack in the middle of the Cretaceous ban Dartnell notes, was also a center of the civil rights movement, where Martin Luther King Jr.

preached and Rosa Parks sparked the bus boycott.

Preached and Rosa Parks sparked the bus boycott.

地缘政治学家当然更关注国际战争，而非地方选举。

Geopoliticians, of course, care more about international wars than local elections.

在这方面，他们回溯到英国战略家哈尔福德·麦金德，他基本上奠定了这种思维方式。

In this, they hark back to Halford Mackinder, an English strategist who essentially founded their way of thinking.

在1904年的论文《历史的地理枢纽》中，麦金德凝视着世界地形图，提出历史可以被视为欧亚平原的游牧民族与沿海航海民族之间持续数世纪的斗争。

In a 1904 paper, The Geographical Pivot of History, Mackinder gazed at a relief map of the world and posited that history could be seen as a centuries long struggle between the nomadic peoples of Eurasia's plains and the seafaring ones of its coasts.

英国及其盟友曾作为海洋强国繁荣发展，但如今所有可行的殖民地都已被占据，这条路径已被封闭，未来的扩张将涉及陆地冲突。

Britain and its peers had thrived as oceanic powers, but now that all viable colonies were claimed, that route was closed, and future expansion would involve land conflicts.

麦金德认为，欧亚大陆腹地的广袤平原将成为世界战争的中心。

The vast plain in the heartland of Eurasia, Mackinder felt, would be the center of the world's wars.

麦金德并非完全正确，但他的预测准确地描绘了东欧的争夺、英国海上力量的衰落，以及陆权国家德国和俄罗斯的崛起。

Mackinder wasn't wholly correct, but his predictions brought contours clashes over Eastern Europe, the waning of British sea power, the rise of the land powers Germany and Russia were right enough.

抛开细节不谈，麦金德关于帝国主义者在无殖民地可占后彼此反目的愿景具有先见之明。

Beyond the details, Mackinder's vision of imperialists running out of colonies to claim and turning on one another was prophetic.

当他们真的这么做的时候，他预见到，欧亚大陆的内陆将成为争夺的焦点。

When they did, he foresaw, Eurasia's interior would be the prize.

他后来写道，心脏地带具备了主宰世界的全部先决条件。

The heartland offers all the prerequisites of ultimate dominance of the world, he later wrote.

谁统治心脏地带，谁就控制世界岛；谁统治世界岛，谁就控制世界。

Who rules the heartland commands the world island who rules the world island commands the world.

麦金德提出这句话是作为一种警告。

Mackinder meant that as a warning.

但德国陆军将军卡尔·豪斯霍弗尔却认为麦金德拥有最伟大的地缘世界观，并将其视为建议。

But the German Army General, Karl Haushofer, believing Mackinder to possess the greatest of all geographical worldviews, took it as advice.

豪斯霍弗尔将麦金德的见解融入新兴的地缘政治学领域，并在20世纪20年代将这些思想传递给了阿道夫·希特勒和鲁道夫·赫斯。

Haushofer incorporated Mackinder's insights into the emerging field of geopolitik and passed his ideas on to Adolf Hitler and Rudolf Hess in the 1920s.

希特勒得出结论：德国人民被囚禁在一个不可能的领土区域内。

The German people are imprisoned within an impossible territorial area, Hitler concluded.

为了生存，他们必须成为世界强国，而要做到这一点，就必须向东转向麦金德所说的腹地。

To survive, they must become a world power, And to do that, they must turn east to Mackinder's heartland.

阿道夫·希特勒认为德国的命运在东方，这与斯蒂芬·达奇观察到的白垩纪岩石预测投票的观点相去甚远。

Adolf Hitler's conviction that Germany's fate lay in the East was a far cry from Stephen Dutch's observation that Cretaceous rocks predict votes.

然而，两者都受到同一理论的启发：我们脚下的土地塑造了我们头脑中的观念。

Yet informing both is the theory that what's beneath our feet shapes what's in our heads.

到了第二次世界大战，当军队为争夺战略要地而交战，几乎将整个欧亚大陆翻了个底朝天，这一点似乎难以否认。

By the second world war, when armies clashing over strategically valuable territory had ripped up much of Eurasia that seemed hard to deny.

亲历了那场战争的麦金德，几乎没有理由相信地理的顽固事实会有所改变。

Mackinder, who lived through that war, saw little reason to believe geography's obstinate facts would ever give way.

哈尔福德·麦金德坚持认为地形图依然重要，但并非所有人都同意。

Halford Mackinder insisted that the relief map still mattered, but not everyone agreed.

整个二十世纪，理想主义者都在寻找方法，试图让国际关系不再像英国经济学家约翰·梅纳德·凯恩斯所说的那样，成为一场永无止境的拳击赛。

Throughout the twentieth century, idealists searched for ways to make international relations something other than a perpetual prize fight, as the British economist John Maynard Keynes put it.

对于凯恩斯及其追随者来说，贸易或许能实现这一目标。

For Keynes and his followers, trade might accomplish this.

如果各国能够依赖开放的贸易，就不再需要通过占领领土来获取资源。

If countries could rely on open commerce, they'd no longer have to seize territory to secure resources.

对于其他理想主义者而言，新兴的航空技术才是关键。

For other idealists, new air age technologies were the key.

由于所有地方都通过天空相互连接，他们希望各国能停止争夺地图上的战略要地。

With all places linked to all others via the skies, they hoped countries would stop squabbling over strategic spots on the map.

然而，这些只是希望，尚未成为现实。

These were hopes, though, not yet realities.

冷战将全球划分为贸易集团和军事联盟，使领导人的眼光始终聚焦于地图上。

The Cold War, which divided the planet into trade blocs and military alliances, kept leaders' eyes fixed on maps.

孩子们也学会了读地图，这得益于1957年法国桌游《世界征服》，美国公司帕克兄弟以《风险》之名广泛销售。

Children learned to read maps too, thanks to the 1957 French board game La Conquette du Monde that The US firm Parker Brothers sold widely under the name Risk.

这款游戏带有十九世纪的氛围，配有骑兵和过时的火炮，但鉴于超级大国仍在瓜分地图，它显得异常切中时弊。

It had a nineteenth century ambiance, with cavalries and antiquated artillery pieces, but given that superpowers were still carving up the map, it was also uncomfortably relevant.

尽管地缘政治思想因与纳粹的关联而趋于沉寂，但它仍对冷战留下了深刻影响。

Geopolitical thought, though muted since its association with the Nazis, nevertheless left its marks on the Cold War.

美

The U.

国

S.

关键战略家乔治·F.

Key strategist, George F.

凯南淡化了这场冲突的意识形态成分。

Kennan, downplayed the conflict's ideological component.

他坚持认为，马克思主义只是一层遮羞布。

Marxism was a fig leaf, he insisted.

苏联行为的真正原因，是俄罗斯数百年来生活在广袤暴露平原上、毗邻凶猛游牧民族所形成的传统而本能的不安全感。

The true explanation for Soviet conduct was the traditional and instinctive Russian sense of insecurity engendered by centuries trying to live on a vast exposed plain in the neighborhood of fierce nomadic peoples.

针对这一带有麦金德色彩的问题，凯南提出了一个同样带有麦金德色彩的解决方案——遏制，其目标并非消灭共产主义，而是将其围堵。

To this McKinder tinged problem, Kennan proposed a Mackinder tinged solution containment which sought not to eradicate communism, but to hem it in.

这场运动最终涉及美国

This campaign ultimately entailed U.

S.

S.

在全球范围内进行干预，包括派遣270万名军人参加越南战争。

Intervention all over the world, including sending 2,700,000 service members to fight the Vietnam War.

对许多参战者来说，那场失败的战争是一个泥潭——一片会把你吸进去的土地。

For many who served, that unsuccessful war was a quagmire a ground that sucks you in.

直到1989年柏林墙倒塌，地理因素似乎才终于有可能失去它的掌控力。

Not until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 did it seem like geography might finally lose its grip.

冷战曾在经济上割裂了整个世界，而冷战的终结推倒了各国之间的贸易壁垒。

The Cold War had divided the world economically, and its end brought trade walls tumbling down.

90年代涌现出了一大批贸易协定，各类机构的建设也如火如荼地展开。

The '90s saw a frenzy of trade agreements and institution building.

这其中包括欧盟、北美自由贸易协定（NAFTA）、拉丁美洲的南方共同市场，而地位凌驾于所有这些组织之上的，是世界贸易组织。

The European Union, the North American Free Trade Agreement NAFTA, Mercosur in Latin America, and, towering above all, the World Trade Organization.

1988年至2008年间，区域贸易协定的数量增加了四倍以上，并且内容也更加深入，涉及更全面的协调。

The number of regional trade agreements more than quadrupled between 1988 and 2008, and they deepened as well, involving more thoroughgoing coordination.

在这一时期，贸易量增长了三倍，从不到全球GDP的六分之一上升到超过四分之一。

In that period, trade tripled, rising from less than a sixth of global GDP to more than a quarter.

国家通过贸易获得关键资源的能力越强，就越没有理由去侵占领土。

The more countries could secure vital resources by trade, the less reason they'd have to seize land.

像托马斯·弗里德曼这样的乐观主义者认为，那些深度融入经济网络的国家会避免发动战争，因为担心失去对这个活跃网络的接入。

Optimists like Thomas Friedman believed countries that were tightly woven into an economic network would forgo starting wars, for fear of losing access to the humming network.

弗里德曼在1996年轻松地将这一观点称为‘金拱门冲突预防理论’。

Friedman lightheartedly expressed this in 1996 as the golden arches theory of conflict prevention.

两个拥有麦当劳的国家不会彼此开战。

No two countries with McDonald's will go to war with each other.

他的观点并没有太大偏差。

And he wasn't far off.

尽管出现过少数几场涉及拥有麦当劳国家的冲突，但自冷战以来，个人死于国家间战争的概率已显著下降。

Although there have been a handful of conflicts between McDonald's having an individual's chance of dying in a war between states has diminished remarkably since the Cold War.

与此同时，贸易在降低战争可能性的同时，军事技术也改变了战争的形态。

At the same time as trade was diminishing the likelihood of war, military technologies changed its shape.

柏林墙倒塌后仅数月，萨达姆·侯赛因领导伊拉克入侵科威特。

Just months after the Berlin Wall fell, Saddam Hussein led an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

这是一场典型的地缘政治事件。

This was an old school geopolitical affair.

伊拉克集结了世界第四大军队，通过占领科威特，它将控制全球五分之二的石油储备。

Iraq had amassed the world's fourth largest army, and by seizing Kuwait, it would control two fifths of the world's oil reserves.

更重要的是，其强大的地面部队受到一片广阔无垠沙漠的掩护，几乎无法穿越。

What is more, its formidable ground forces were shielded by a large, trackless desert that was nearly impossible to navigate.

麦金德会欣赏这种战略。

Mackinder would have appreciated the strategy.

但20世纪90年代已不再是麦金德的时代。

But the '90s were no longer the age of Mackinder.

萨达姆在美军发动进攻时才意识到这一点。

Saddam discovered this when a U.

由美国领导的联军从路易斯安那州、英国、西班牙、沙特阿拉伯和迪戈加西亚岛派出轰炸机，对伊拉克进行空袭，数小时内便摧毁了其大部分基础设施。

S.-led coalition sent bombers from Louisiana, England, Spain, Saudi Arabia, and the island of Diego Garcia to drop their payloads over Iraq, disabling much of its infrastructure within hours.

随后进行了一个多月的空袭，接着联军利用新型卫星GPS技术，迅速穿越了伊拉克人误以为不可逾越的沙漠。

More than a month of airstrikes followed, and then coalition forces used the new satellite technology of GPS to swiftly cross the desert that Iraqis had mistaken for an impenetrable barrier.

仅用一百小时的地面战斗，就足以击败伊拉克疲惫的军队，尽管高级伊拉克军官事后指出，甚至这一步都非必要。

A hundred hours of ground fighting were enough to defeat Iraq's battered army, though high ranking Iraqi officers observed afterward even this hadn't been necessary.

再持续几周的猛烈空袭，伊拉克就会在从未与敌军正面交战的情况下，主动从科威特撤军。

A few more weeks of the punishing airstrikes, and Iraq would have withdrawn its troops from Kuwait without having ever faced an adversary on the battlefield.

到了90年代，战场到底是什么样子？

What even was the battlefield by the '90s?

海湾战争预示着一场备受讨论的军事革命，这场革命旨在用精确空袭取代装甲师、重炮和大规模步兵部队。

The Gulf War portended a much discussed revolution in military affairs, one that promised to replace armored divisions, heavy artillery, and large infantries with precision airstrikes.

俄罗斯军事理论家弗拉基米尔·斯利普琴科指出，战略家们熟悉的地理概念，如战场、前线、后方和侧翼，正逐渐失去意义。

The Russian military theorist Vladimir Slipchenko noted that strategists' familiar spatial concepts such as fields, fronts, rears, and flanks were losing relevance.

借助卫星、飞机、GPS，以及如今的无人机，战略家们今天所称的‘作战空间’，已不再是地球起伏的表面，而是一张平坦的坐标纸。

With satellites, planes, GPS, and now drones, battlespace, as strategists today call it, isn't the wrinkled surface of the Earth, but a flat sheet of graph paper.

天空中遍布无人机并未带来世界和平，但这些新技术的倡导者至少承诺了更干净的作战方式，减少平民伤亡、俘虏和士兵部署。

A sky full of drones hasn't meant world peace, But champions of the new technologies have at least promised cleaner fighting, with fewer civilians killed, captives taken, and troops dispatched.

军事事务的革命使强国——主要是美国及其盟友——能够针对个人和网络，而非整个国家。

The revolution in military affairs allows powerful countries, mainly The US and its allies, to target individuals and networks rather than whole countries.

这似乎标志着从国际战争转向全球警务，从血腥的地缘政治动荡转向更顺畅、尽管仍时有致命性的全球化运作。

This seemed to mark a shift from international war toward global policing, and from blood soaked disruptions of geopolitics toward the smoother, though still sometimes lethal, operation of globalization.

感谢收听《卫报》长篇阅读。

Thanks for listening to the Guardian Long Read.

我们稍后回来。

We'll be back after this.

芝加哥，2011年。

Chicago, 2011.

一名警察被谋杀。

A cop is murdered.

警察和检察官发誓他们抓到了开枪的人。

Police and prosecutors swear they have the trigger man.

他发誓他没干过。

He swears he didn't do it.

双方会走多远来证明自己是对的？

How far will each side go to prove they're right?

简直是一个重磅消息接一个重磅消息。

Like, it's just one bombshell after another.

你知道那种感觉吗？你心里想：什么？

You know, where you're like, I what?

什么？

What?

关于PlayStation、一种会吞噬大脑的变形虫，以及对正义的无情追求的故事。

The story of PlayStation, a brain eating amoeba, and the relentless pursuit of justice.

下班时间。

Off duty.

现已上线。

Out now.

在您收听播客的任何平台收听。

Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

欢迎回到《卫报》长篇阅读。

Welcome back to the Guardian Long Read.

但全球化是否真的取代了地缘政治？

But has globalization actually replaced geopolitics?

地缘战略家罗伯特·卡普兰承认，90年代由于空中力量的发展，地图被简化为二维。

The '90s saw the map reduced to two dimensions because of airpower, concedes geostrategist Robert Kaplan.

但他写道，三维地图在阿富汗的山区和伊拉克危险的巷道中得以恢复。

Yet the three-dimensional map was restored in the mountains of Afghanistan and in the treacherous alleyways of Iraq, he writes.

1991年海湾战争与伊拉克战争之间的对比耐人寻味。

The contrast between the nineteen ninety one Gulf War and the Iraq War is telling.

在这两场战争中，全球超级大国都领导了一个联盟对抗萨达姆的伊拉克。

In both, the global superpower led a coalition against Saddam's Iraq.

然而，第一次战争中空中力量迅速取得了胜利，而第二次战争在普通人看来，却像是另一场由美国制造的泥潭。

Yet the first saw air power used to achieve a brisk victory, whereas the second looked, to the untrained eye, like another US made quagmire.

自20世纪90年代以来快速增长的全球出口，大约在2008年趋于平稳。

Global exports, which had been growing rapidly since the 90s, plateaued around 2,008.

如今，去全球化——即贸易的大幅退缩——在未来几年内是可能的，而欧洲一体化因英国脱欧遭受了巨大挫折。

Today, deglobalization, a substantial retreat of trade, is plausible in the near future, and European integration has faced an enormous setback with Brexit.

仿佛是应验了某种预兆，欧洲如今也爆发了陆地战争。

As if on cue, there is now also a land war in Europe.

事实上，这是一场麦当劳战争。

Indeed, it is a McDonald's war.

这家快餐连锁品牌在俄罗斯和乌克兰拥有数百家门店。

The fast food chain has hundreds of locations in Russia and Ukraine.

俄罗斯从和平贸易中获得的任何经济利益， presumably 都被乌克兰的不冻港、自然资源以及作为其西部脆弱地带的战略缓冲所超越。

Whatever economic benefits Russia reaped from peaceful commerce were presumably outweighed by Ukraine's warm water ports, natural resources, and strategic buffer to Russia's vulnerable West.

正如卡普兰曾生动地指出的那样，这是地理的复仇。

This is, as Kaplan has memorably put it, the revenge of geography.

随着地理的复仇，地缘政治理论家也重新回归，他们常与自称的私人全球情报公司Stratfor有关联。

With the revenge of geography has come the return of geopolitical theorists, often associated with the self described private global intelligence firm Stratfor.

《巴伦》杂志称之为影子中情局的机构，一直从后冷战理想主义的失败中汲取养分。

The shadow CIA, as the magazine Barons called it, has fed off the failures of post Cold War idealism.

近年来许多畅销的《地图解释历史》类书籍都出自这一圈子，罗伯特·卡普兰曾一度担任其首席地缘政治分析师。

Many of the recent Maps Explain History bestsellers have emerged from its milieu Robert Kaplan was for a time its chief geopolitical analyst.

今年出版《地理决定命运》的作者伊恩·莫里斯曾担任该机构的撰稿人委员会成员。

Ian Morris, author of this year's Geography is Destiny, has served on its board of contributors.

地缘政治作家乔治·弗里德曼和彼得·扎汉分别是该公司的创始人和副总裁。

And geopolitical authors George Friedman and Peter Zahan were the firm's founder and vice president, respectively.

英国作家蒂姆·马歇尔拥有不同的网络，他的著作《地理的囚徒》由一位前军情六处负责人撰写序言。

The British writer Tim Marshall has a different network his prisoners of geography boasts a foreword by a former MI6 chief.

2014年，公众通过黑客发布到维基解密的500万封该公司邮件，首次窥见了斯特拉特福的运作。

In 2014, the public gained some insight into Stratfor's work via 5,000,000 of the firm's emails that hackers posted to WikiLeaks.

事实证明，这家公司并不仅限于地图上的空谈，它已深度介入现实政治，并与权力阶层保持着极为密切的关系。

This firm, it turned out, hadn't limited itself to cartographic pontification it had entered the fray, and seemed to have a decidedly cozy relationship to power.

黑客揭露，斯特拉特福曾代表某些机构监控活动人士，甚至一度提议为美国银行调查记者格伦·格林沃尔德。

Stratfor, hackers revealed, had been monitoring activists on behalf of at one point proposing to investigate journalist Glenn Greenwald for the Bank of America.

该公司的订阅者和客户包括陶氏化学、雷神公司、高盛、美林证券、贝克特尔、可口可乐和美国。

Among the company's subscribers and clients were Dow Chemical, Raytheon, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Bechtel, Coca Cola, and the U.

美。

S.

海军陆战队。

Marine Corps.

目前尚不清楚，被另一家情报公司在2020年收购的Stratfor，是否只是美国庞大安全体系中的一条普通小鱼。

It's unclear if Stratfor, which was bought out by another intelligence firm in 2020, amounts to anything more than mid sized fish in the vast sea of The U.

美。

S.

安全体系。

Security apparatus.

但泄露的邮件中确实包含来自以色列总理本雅明·内塔尼亚胡的直接情报，涉及伊朗核计划、以色列愿意暗杀真主党领导人，以及其总理对华盛顿同僚的看法。

But the leaked emails did include intelligence sourced directly from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the Iranian nuclear program, Israel's willingness to assassinate a Hezbollah leader, and its prime minister's feelings about his counterpart in Washington.

内塔尼亚胡非常讨厌奥巴马。

BB dislikes Obama immensely.

它出售秘密，但最终，Stratfor的客户依赖它来做预测。

It sold secrets, but ultimately, Strat Force clientele depended on it for predictions.

地缘政治学家们从不回避做出这些预测。

Geopoliticians haven't been shy about making these.

事实上，近来他们提出了如此多的跨领域预测，以至于人们开始怀疑这些预测所宣称的绝对自信。

Indeed, of late they have offered so many cross cutting forecasts that one starts to doubt the cast iron confidence with which they are issued.

土耳其是否会成为欧洲、亚洲和非洲的枢纽，正如Stratfor创始人乔治·弗里德曼所主张的那样？

Will Turkey become the pivot point for Europe, Asia, and Africa, as Stratford founder George Friedman contends?

或者，也许印度将成为全球枢纽国家，正如卡普兰所认为的那样，他还补充说，伊朗是中东最关键的地区，台湾是海洋亚洲的关键，朝鲜才是东亚真正的枢纽。

Or perhaps India will become the global pivot state as Kaplan believes, adding that Iran is the most pivotal geography of the Middle East, Taiwan is pivotal to Maritime Asia, and North Korea is the true pivot of East Asia.

如果地缘政治学家们拥有经过验证的记录，人们会更容易认真对待这些言论。

It would be easier to take such talks seriously if the geopoliticians had a proven record.

但我们仍在等待弗里德曼在1991年写书预言的那场与日本的战争，而对卡普兰预测能力的任何评估都必须提到他支持伊拉克战争，包括加入一个秘密委员会向白宫倡导开战。

But we are still waiting for the coming war with Japan that George Friedman wrote a book about in 1991, and any assessment of Kaplan's forecasting must note his support of the Iraq War, including joining a secret committee advocating the war to the White House.

值得肯定的是，卡普兰已经承认了自己的错误。

To his credit, Kaplan has admitted his errors.

当我和其他人支持推翻伊拉克的战争时，他写道，我们从未充分或准确地考虑过其代价。

When I and others supported a war to liberate Iraq, he has written, we never fully or accurately contemplated the price.

现代的麦金德主义者是否充分且准确地考量了所有相关因素，这需要数十年才能揭晓。

Whether the modern McKinders are fully or accurately contemplating all relevant factors now will take decades to discover.

但他们对当前局势的看法已经足够清晰。

But their outlook on the present is legible enough.

这在很大程度上是一种嘲讽式的保守主义，怀疑太阳底下是否真有什么新鲜事。

It's largely a scoffing conservatism, one that doubts whether much is new under the sun.

对马歇尔而言，巴尔干地区的部落始终受制于古老的猜疑。

For Marshall, the tribes of the Balkans are perpetually in the thrall of ancient suspicions.

刚果民主共和国依然是一个被战争阴霾笼罩的地方，希腊人和土耳其人自特洛伊战争以来就陷入相互敌对。

The Democratic Republic Of The Congo remains a place shrouded in the darkness of war, and the Greeks and Turks have been locked in a mutual antagonism since the Trojan War.

卡普兰的看法与此类似。

Kaplan sees things similarly.

他写道，俄罗斯一直是一个不安全且广袤的陆地强国，其人民在历史上始终对高加索山脉心怀恐惧与敬畏。

Russia has always been an insecure and sprawling land power, he writes, its people held throughout history in fear and awe of the Caucasus Mountains.

他欣然引用了一位退休历史学家的理论，认为俄罗斯人因面临寒冷的冬季，具备更强的忍耐能力。

He approvingly quotes a retired historian's theory that Russians, facing cold winters, possess an enhanced capacity for suffering.

学术地理学家哈姆·德·布莱在评论卡普兰的《地理的复仇》时，认为这本书有时令人痛苦，并写道，学者们会惊讶地发现，早已被弃之尘埃的粗浅环境决定论竟被重新赋予了生命。

The academic geographer, Harm de Blay, reviewing Kaplan's The Revenge of Geography, found the book at times excruciating, and wrote that scholars would be surprised to see crude environmental determinism, long consigned to the dustbin, given new life.

卡普兰承认，从地缘政治角度思考，需要重新拾起像麦金德这样明显过时的思想家，他们因与帝国主义和纳粹主义的关联而声名受损。

Kaplan concedes that thinking geopolitically requires reclaiming decidedly unfashionable thinkers such as Mackinder, who have been tainted by their connections to imperialism and Nazism.

然而，卡普兰坚持认为，他的思想被滥用，并不意味着麦金德是错的。

The misuse of his ideas, however, doesn't mean Mackinder was wrong, Kaplan insists.

于是，我们又回到了那些永远不安的俄罗斯人，他们蜷缩在对一座山脉的恐惧与敬畏之中。

And so we're back to the endlessly insecure Russians, cowering in fear and awe of a mountain range.

根据地缘政治学家的观点，即使是强大的领导人，也很难违背地图的制约。

Even powerful leaders, according to the geopoliticians, can do little to defy the map.

2014年，抗议活动推翻了亲俄的乌克兰总统亚努科维奇后，马歇尔写道，普京不得不吞并克里米亚。

After protests ousted the Russia friendly Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014, Putin had to annex Crimea, Marshall writes.

尽管马歇尔谴责俄罗斯的侵略行为，但他的语气却与普京为这种侵略辩护时所用的口吻相似。

Though Marshall condemns Russian aggression, his tone is similar to the one Putin uses to justify it.

他们一直在试图把我们逼入角落，普京在2014年如此评价俄罗斯的对手。

They are constantly trying to sweep us into a corner, Putin said of Russia's rivals in 2014.

如果你把弹簧完全压缩到极限，它会猛烈地弹回来。

If you compress the spring all the way to its limit, it will snap back hard.

有人可能会反对说，推动俄罗斯好战行为的是普京的思想和态度，而非他的地图，但地缘政治学很少考虑这类因素。

One might object that Putin's ideas and attitudes, not his map, are driving Russian belligerence, yet geopolitics makes little room for such factors.

马歇尔在另一个语境中写道，我们所能做的只是对自然的现实做出反应。

All that can be done, writes Marshall in another context, is to react to the realities of nature.

地缘政治世界观的核心在于认识到地理固有特性所带来的限制，正如前斯特拉特福副总裁扎尔所写。

At the heart of the geopolitical worldview is an appreciation of the constraints posed by geography's immutable nature, as former Stratford Vice President Zahr writes.

马歇尔解释说，即使重新绘制几条边界线，伊凡雷帝所面对的地图，至今仍是弗拉基米尔·普京所面对的同一张地图。

Redraw a few border lines and the map that Ivan the Terrible confronted is the same one Vladimir Putin is faced with to this day, Marshall explains.

由于地图及其相关计算变化甚微，明智的行动主要在于接受那些顽固不变的事实。

As neither the map nor the calculations around it change much, wise action mainly involves accepting intransigent facts.

新疆一直有麻烦，现在有麻烦，将来也永远会有麻烦——一位无奈的军方人士如此表示，这或许可以成为整个地缘政治观的口号：地理是不公平的，伊恩·莫里斯写道；如果地理决定命运，正如他所主张的，那么这便是打造一个强者恒强、弱者恒弱的世界的配方。

There was, is, and always will be trouble in Xinjiang, a resigned martial rights, in what could be the catchphrase of the entire Geography is unfair, Ian Morris writes, and if geography is destiny, as he also contends, then this is a recipe for a world in which the strong remain strong and the weak remain weak.

地缘政治学家擅长解释为什么事物不会改变。

Geopoliticians excel at explaining why things won't change.

但他们不太擅长解释事物是如何改变的。

They're less adept at explaining how things do.

这或许可以解释地缘政治学家对历史表现出的显著轻率态度。

That may explain geopoliticians' notable blitheness concerning history.

正如马歇尔所写，德国统一是因为德意志各邦终于厌倦了彼此争斗吗？

Did German unification come because the Germanic states finally became tired of fighting each other, as Marshall writes?

越南战争和伊拉克战争是否只是美国历史中微不足道的孤立事件，正如斯特拉特福创始人弗里德曼所假设的？

Were the Vietnam and Iraq wars merely isolated episodes in U.

美国

S.

历史中微不足道的孤立事件，正如斯特拉特福创始人弗里德曼所假设的？

History of little lasting importance, as Stratfor founder Friedman posits?

正如扎汉所主张的，与欧洲其他所有人不同，英国人从未需要担心一支军队无所事事、悠闲地穿越国境吗？

Is it true, as Zahan contends, that, unlike everyone else in Europe, the English never needed to worry about an army getting bored and leisurely passing through?

或者像卡普兰坚持的那样，美国注定要领导世界？

Or as Kaplan insists, that America is fated to lead?

地缘政治学家的历史叙述，介于轻松闲适和赶着一群小学生赶在下一拨旅游巴士到来前匆匆参观城堡之间。

The geopoliticians' historical accounts fall somewhere between pleasantly breezy and harried guide rushing the schoolchildren through the castle before the next tour bus arrives.

值得注意的是，这并非真正地理学家——那些绘制地图并发表同行评审研究的人——的写作方式。

It is important to note that this isn't how actual geographers, the ones who produce maps and peer reviewed research, write.

与地缘政治理论家一样，地理学家也相信地点的力量，但他们长期以来一直认为，地点是历史塑造的。

Like geopolitical theorists, geographers believe in the power of place, but they have long insisted that places are historically shaped.

法律、文化和经济与板块构造一样，共同塑造了地貌，而这些地貌会随时间变化。

Law, culture, and economics produce landscapes as much as tectonic plates do, and those landscapes change with time.

地理学家指出，甚至地形也并非如地缘政治学家所认为的那样恒定不变。

Even topography, geographers note, isn't as immutable as geopoliticians suppose.

扎汉曾担任斯特拉特福副总裁十二年，你只能在兰利发言这么多次，他在最近的一本书中叹息道，长期以来一直认为美国的超大影响力。

Zahan, a vice president at Stratford for twelve years you can only speak at Langley so many times, he sighs in a recent book has long insisted that the outsized power of The U.

S.

S.

这可以归因于其得天独厚的地理优势。

Can be attributed to its perfect geography of success.

定居者抵达新英格兰，发现当地的农业条件不佳，小麦根本无法种植，幸运的是，他们被激励向西寻找更好的土地。

Settlers arrived in New England, encountered substandard agricultural conditions where wheat was a hard no, and were fortunately spurred on to claim better lands to the West.

随着这些肥沃的农田，真正重要的是一个广泛的河流系统，使得内部贸易成本低得可笑。

With those abundant farmlands came the real deal an extensive river system allowing internal trade at a laughably low cost.

萨欣写道，这些特征使美国成为历史上最强大的国家，并将在未来数代持续保持这一地位。

These features, Sahin writes, have made The US the most powerful country in history and will keep it so for generations.

美国人不可能搞砸这一切。

Americans cannot mess this up.

但这些因素并非恒定不变。

But such factors aren't constants.

尽管扎汉坚称新英格兰地区小麦根本无法种植，但历史上这里曾广泛种植小麦。

Wheat was once commonly grown in New England, despite Zahan's insistence that it was a hard no there.

是历史事件——比如害虫（如赫西蝇）的入侵，据信它们随参加独立战争的德军传入，以及破坏性耕作方式导致的土壤枯竭——才使得该地区的粮食产量下降。

It was historical events the arrival of pests such as the Hessian fly, believed to have traveled with German troops fighting in the Revolutionary War, and the exhaustion of the soil by destructive farming practices that decreased its grain outputs.

扎汉大书特书的那些天然河流，其实也并非一成不变的因素。

The natural rivers that Zahan makes so much of were also variables.

要发挥作用，这些河流还得依托造价高昂的人工运河系统作为补充，而短短几十年后，它们就被新技术取代了。

To work, they had to be supplemented with an expensive, artificial canal system, and then within decades they were superseded by new technologies.

如今，更多的美

Today, more U.

国

S.

按总价值计算，如今通过铁路、航空甚至管道运输的货物，都比通过水运的要多。

Freight, by value, travels via rail, air, and even pipeline than via water.

卡车运输的货物价值是船舶的45倍。

Trucks haul 45 times as much value as boats or ships do.

换句话说，我们并非只能被动接受先天的地理条件。

Which is another way of saying that we don't always accept the topographies we inherit.

世界最高的摩天大楼哈利法塔就矗立在迪拜，而这座城市在过去数百年里，只是个被沙漠和盐滩环绕的、发展前景渺茫的渔村。

The world's tallest skyscraper, the Burj Khalifa, sprouts from Dubai, which was for centuries an unpromising fishing village surrounded by desert and salt flats.

它的地形图几乎看不出有任何成为伟大的潜质。

Little about its relief map destined it for greatness.

这里的气候闷热难耐，尽管石油销售曾经至关重要，如今却仅占该酋长国经济的不到1%。

Its climate is sweltering, and oil sales, though once substantial, now account for less than 1% of The Emirate's economy.

如果迪拜有什么独特之处，那在于它的法律环境，而非其自然地理。

If there's something distinctive about Dubai, it is its legal landscape, not its physical one.

该酋长国并非由单一法典治理，而是被划分为多个自由区，例如迪拜互联网城、迪拜知识园区和国际人道主义城等，旨在吸引各类外国投资。

The Emirate isn't governed by a single law book, but is chopped up into free zones Dubai Internet City, Dubai Knowledge Park, and International Humanitarian City among them, designed to attract various foreign interests.

城市理论家迈克·戴维斯曾写道，迪拜沙漠本质上就像一块巨大的电路板，全球资本可以轻松接入。

The Dubai Desert is essentially a huge circuit board, the urban theorist Mike Davis once wrote, to which global capital can easily connect.

将迪拜打造成商业中心，意味着以物理方式彻底重塑它，完全颠覆了‘地理决定命运’的观念。

Turning Dubai into a business hub has meant physically remaking it in ways that defy any notion that the map is destiny.

迪拜大部分繁忙的商业活动都通过杰贝阿里港进行，这是中东最大的港口。

Much of Dubai's bustling commerce passes through the Port Of Jebel Ali, the largest in The Middle East.

拥有一个巨大的深水港似乎是一种重要的地理优势，但当你意识到迪拜是耗费巨资从沙漠中开凿出这个港口时，这种优势就不再那么显而易见了。

Having an enormous deep port would seem to be an important piece of geographic luck, until you realize that Dubai carved it, at great expense, out of the desert.

通过疏浚的沙子，迪拜工程师还建造了岛屿，包括一个由100多个岛屿组成的群岛，排列成世界地图的形状。

With dredged sand, Dubai engineers have also manufactured islands, including an archipelago of more than 100 arranged as a world map.

绿色公园和室内滑雪场共同构成了对自然的惊人挑战。

Green parks and indoor ski slopes complete the nature defying spectacle.

不幸的是，改造迪拜的地形只是我们能做的最微不足道的事。

Terraforming Dubai is, unfortunately, the least of what we can do.

全球变暖正在扰乱地貌，威胁着淹没岛屿、将草原变为沙漠，并使河流化为尘土。

Global warming is scrambling the landscape, threatening to drown islands, make deserts of grasslands, and turn rivers to dust.

地缘政治文献对这一点的关注如此之少，真是怪异。

It's bizarre how little geopolitical treatises make of this.

弗里德曼在《未来一百年》的结尾承认，读者会注意到我并未探讨这个问题。

Any reader will have noticed that I do not deal with the question, admits Friedman at the end of his book, The Next One Hundred Years.

除了零星的评论和插话之外，莫里斯的《地理决定命运》、马歇尔的《地理的囚徒》、卡普兰的《地理的复仇》和扎汉的《偶然的超级大国》也都如此。

Save for minor comments and asides, the same could be said of Morris's Geography is Destiny, Marshall's Prisoners of Geography, Kaplan's The Revenge of Geography, and Zahan's The Accidental Superpower.

地缘政治学家不愿正视气候危机，是因为他们认为只有两种选择：超越地形，或与之共存。

Geopoliticians' reluctance to reckon with the climate crisis comes from their sense that there are only two options: transcend the landscape, or live with it.

要么全球化将让我们摆脱物理限制，要么我们将继续被这些限制所困。

Either globalization will release us from physical constraints, or we'll remain trapped by them.

既然新技术和制度显然并未消除地域的重要性，我们就必须回归地缘政治。

And since new technologies and institutions clearly haven't eradicated the importance of place, we must revert to geopolitics.

但这些真的是仅有的选择吗？

But are these the only options?

全球化解体更可能不是让我们倒退回十九世纪，而是进入一个充满前所未有风险的未来。

It seems much more likely that the unraveling of globalization won't pitch us backward into the nineteenth century, but into a future full of unprecedented hazards.

在那个未来中，我们将深刻地感受到环境的制约，但并非地缘政治学家所预测的那种方式。

We'll experience environmental constraints profoundly in that future, just not in the way geopoliticians predict.

相反，塑造我们行为的将是人为的景观，而非自然景观，包括我们如何重塑物理环境的方式。

Rather, it's the human made landscape, not the natural one, that will shape our actions, including the ways that we've remade the physical environment.

地理并非像卡普兰所写的那样‘不变’，而是动荡不安的。

Geography isn't 'unchanging', as Kaplan writes, but volatile.

而我们即将前往的地方，旧地图将不再有用。

And where we're going, the old maps won't help.

再次感谢您收听《卫报》长篇阅读。

Thanks again for listening to the Guardian Long Read.

以上是《我们真的是地理的囚徒吗？》

That was Are We Really Prisoners of Geography?

作者：丹尼尔·艾默瓦尔，朗读：克里斯托弗·拉格兰，制作：杰西卡·贝克。

By Daniel Immerwahr, Read by Christopher Ragland and produced by Jessica Beck.

如需阅读更多《卫报》长篇文章文本，或收听精选音频版，请访问theguardian.com/longread。

For more Guardian long reads in text and a selection in audio, go to theguardian.com/longread.