对俄罗斯的制裁标志着全球化倒退的开始

目前国外有种态度认为，历史将会记录，对俄罗斯的制裁标志着全球化倒退的开始，具有划时代意义。有一天我听到一位德国高官在德国马歇尔基金会(German Marshall Fund)的斯德哥尔摩中国论坛(Stockholm China forum)上谈到这种想法。这是一个有意思的观点，但它错过了一个更加关键的问题。这些制裁只是症状，而非原因。全球化倒退在俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔•普京(Vladimir Putin)与乌克兰开战之前早就开始了。
对于那些认为国际安全要求任何国家都不能侵犯邻国的人来说，停止与莫斯科开展经贸往来的理由是显而易见的。对西方的批评有一条是成立的，那就是它的反应过于迟缓。普京在每一步都无情地利用了美国的犹豫和欧洲的分歧。
普京将会继续这么做，直至北约(Nato)将威慑重新置于欧洲安全的核心。对付普京的民族统一主义，需要硬实力支持的强硬外交。只有当他明白侵略将招致不可接受的报复的时候，他才会收手。为了让威慑可信，北约必须在其东部前线部署地面部队。波罗的海已经取代柏林，成为西方决心的试金石。
一些国家（尤其是在新兴世界，但也有其它国家）透过不同的棱镜看待制裁。通过在经济上惩罚俄罗斯，美国和欧洲正在破坏开放的国际体系。持这种想法的人表示，必须把经济与变幻莫测的政治纠纷分开。如果美国和欧洲为了狭隘的利益而大肆破坏公平的国际竞争环境，新兴大国为何要接受这种环境？
这些批评人士说的没错，全球经济一体化需要一个合作的政治架构。然而，对俄罗斯的制裁符合一个更大的格局，那就是2008年爆发金融危机以来全球化的解体。它们证明了美国态度的深远转变。华盛顿逐步退出全球参与，并不局限于美国总统巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)的原则，即美国不再做“蠢事”。
当今全球化时代的设计师不愿再做全球化的保障者。对于维护一个将实力重新分配给竞争对手的秩序，美国看不到关键的国家利益。无论中国、印度以及其他国家对此可能有什么怨言，但它们不愿站出来做多边主义的捍卫者。如果没人捍卫全球化，全球化必然会“年久失修”。
不那么久以前，金融和互联网是紧密相连世界的最强大渠道，也是其明显象征。自由流动的资本和数字通信不受国界的束缚。通过金融创新（以及彻头彻尾的欺骗），新兴世界的巨额盈余回流到手头拮据的美国中产阶层购房者和西班牙阳光海岸有问题的投机者。银行界的巨头们以所谓 “华盛顿共识”(Washington Consensus)的名义转动他们的轮盘赌。
随后爆发了金融危机。金融业重新国有化。银行由于面临新的监管控制而收缩。欧洲金融一体化发生了逆转。全球资本流动如今仍只有危机前最高水平的一半左右。
就数字化世界来说，任何人在任何地方都能获得相同信息的观念，与威权政治和人们对隐私的关切发生抵触。中国、俄罗斯、土耳其以及其他国家在数字高速公路上设置“路障”以遏制异议。欧洲人希望不受美国情报机构的监视和数字巨头垄断资本主义的影响。互联网正走向“巴尔干化”。
开放的贸易体系正趋向割裂。多哈回合谈判失败意味着全球自由贸易协定的解体。发达经济体正转而考虑地区联盟和协定——《跨太平洋战略经济伙伴关系协定》(TPP)和《跨大西洋贸易和投资伙伴关系协定》(TTIP)。新兴经济体正在构建南南关系。对于未能成功推动国际货币基金组织(IMF)调整权重感到失望的金砖国家(Brics)，正在建立它们自己的金融机构。
南北双方的国内政治强化了这些趋势。如果说西方领导人对全球化产生戒心，那么他们的许多选民已变得对全球化有敌意。在美国和欧洲，全球化被兜售为一种开明的自利行为——在一个无国界的世界，大家都将是赢家。在最高层的1%人群拿走经济一体化好处之际，对受到挤压的中产阶层来说，情况似乎并非如此。
虽然南方在旧秩序下蓬勃发展——中国加入世界贸易组织(WTO)是本世纪以来最大的地缘政治事件——但新兴大国对多边主义没表现出什么兴趣。旧秩序被普遍视为是美国霸权的工具。印度破坏了重振WTO的最新努力。
全球化需要足以保证公平适用规则的执法者（或称霸主）、大国合作或全球治理安排。如果没有共同努力定位国家利益的政治架构，经济框架注定会支离破碎。
狭隘的民族主义排挤了全球承诺。制裁是这个故事的一个情节，但俄罗斯对国际秩序的蔑视是更大的情节。遗憾的是，我们在1914年就知道，经济上的相互依存不足以阻止大国对抗。
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The world is marching back from globalisation
There is a mood abroad that says history will record that sanctions against Russia marked the start of an epochal retreat from globalisation. I heard a high-ranking German official broach the thought the other day at the German Marshall Fund’s Stockholm China Forum. It was an interesting point, but it missed a bigger one. The sanctions are more symptom than cause. The rollback began long before Russia’s Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine.
The case for calling a halt to business as usual with Moscow is self-evident to anyone who considers that international security demands nations do not invade their neighbours. The valid criticism of the west is that it has been too slow to react. At every step, the Russian president has ruthlessly exploited US hesitation and European divisions.
He will do so until Nato restores deterrence to the core of European security. Mr Putin’s irredentism demands tough diplomacy stiffened by hard power. He will stop when he understands that aggression will invite unacceptable retaliation. To make deterrence credible, the alliance must put boots on the ground on its eastern flank. The Baltics have replaced Berlin as the litmus test of western resolve.
Some, particularly though not exclusively in the rising world, have seen sanctions through a different prism. By punishing Russia economically, the US and Europe are undermining the open international system. Economics, this cast of mind says, must be held apart from the vicissitudes of political quarrels. Why should new powers sign up to a level international playing field if the US and Europe scatter it with rocks in pursuit of narrow interests?
These critics are right to say an integrated global economy needs a co-operative political architecture. Sanctions against Ukraine, though, fit a bigger picture of the unravelling of globalisation since the financial crash of 2008. They testify to a profound reversal in US attitudes. Washington’s steady retreat from global engagement reaches beyond Barack Obama’s ordinance that the US stop doing “stupid stuff”.
The architect of the present era of globalisation is no longer willing to be its guarantor. The US does not see a vital national interest in upholding an order that redistributes power to rivals. Much as they might cavil at this, China, India and the rest are unwilling to step up as guardians of multilaterism. Without a champion, globalisation cannot but fall into disrepair.
Not so long ago, finance and the internet were at once the most powerful channels, and visible symbols, of the interconnected world. Footloose capital and digital communications had no respect for national borders. Financial innovation (and downright chicanery) recycled the huge surpluses of the rising world to penurious homebuyers in Middle America and dodgy speculators on the Costa del Sol. The masters of the banking universe spun their roulette wheels in the name of something called the Washington consensus.
Then came the crash. Finance has been renationalised. Banks have retreated in the face of new regulatory controls. European financial integration has gone into reverse. Global capital flows are still only about half their pre-crisis peak.
As for the digitalised world, the idea that everyone, everywher should have access to the same information has fallen foul of authoritarian politics and concerns about privacy. China, Russia, Turkey and others have thrown roadblocks across the digital highway to stifle dissent. Europeans want to protect themselves from US intelligence agencies and the monopoly capitalism of the digital giants The web is heading for Balkanisation.
The open trading system is fragmenting. The collapse of the Doha round spoke to the demise of global free trade agreements. The advanced economies are looking instead to regional coalitions and deals – the Trans Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Pact. The emerging economies are building south-south relationships. Frustrated by a failure to rebalance the International Monetary Fund, the Brics nations are setting up their own financial institutions.
Domestic politics, north and south, reinforces these trends. If western leaders have grown wary of globalisation, many of their electorates have turned positively hostile. Globalisation was sold in the US and Europe as an exercise in enlightened self-interest – everyone would be a winner in a world that pulled down national frontiers. It scarcely seems like that to the squeezed middle classes as the top one per cent scoop up the gains of economic integration.
Much as the south has prospered within the old rules – China’s admission to the World Trade Organisation was been the biggest geopolitical event so far of the present century – yet the new powers show scant enthusiasm for multilateralism. The old order is widely seen as an instrument of US hegemony. India scuppered the latest attempt to reinvigorate the WTO.
Globalisation needs an enforcer – a hegemon, a concert of powers or global governance arrangements sufficient to make sure the rules are fairly applied. Without a political architecture that locates national interests in mutual endeavours, the economic framework is destined to fracture and fragment.
Narrow nationalisms elbow aside on global commitments. Sanctions are part of this story, but Russia’s contempt for the international order is a bigger one. Sad to say, we learnt in 1914 that economic interdependence is a feeble bulwark against great power rivalry.

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