自弗拉基米尔·普京于2022年2月对乌克兰发动全面入侵以来，英国一直在公共建筑上悬挂乌克兰国旗。这让我觉得不对劲。
Britain has been flying the Ukrainian flag on public buildings ever since Vladimir Putin began his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. This feels wrong to me.
这并不是因为乌克兰的事业不重要。我的家人在我们位于苏塞克斯郡的花园里悬挂自己的乌克兰国旗已有很长时间，以至于我们不得不将其更换过两次，因为旗帜被风吹破、被雨腐蚀了。不，这样做不对，原因有二。
That is not because the cause of Ukraine does not matter. My family have flown our own Ukrainian flag in our Sussex garden for so long that we have twice had to replace it, as it gets shredded by wind and rotted by rain. No, it is wrong for two reasons.
第一个原因是，公共建筑上的常规国旗应该仅代表每个机构的常设宗旨及其存在的权威——例如，白金汉宫上方悬挂的英国国旗，以及当君主在宫内居住时悬挂的皇家旗。我们在脱欧之前在我们的国旗旁悬挂欧盟国旗是正确的，尽管我们许多人发现这是一个令人沮丧的景象。它代表了一个简单的事实，即我们生活在两个当局之下。
The first is that regular flags on public buildings should represent only the permanent purpose of each institution and the authority by which it exists – hence, for example, the Union flag over Buckingham Palace and the Royal Standard which flies there when the monarch is in residence. It was correct that we flew the EU flag beside our own until Brexit, though many of us found it a grim sight. It represented the plain fact that we lived under two authorities.
第二个不对的地方在于，我们展示乌克兰国旗是不真诚的。它迎合了乌克兰事业在英国公众舆论中的力量，却并未反映实际的政府政策。它在视觉上等同于历届政府的口号，即英国将“不惜一切代价”帮助乌克兰。我们从未计算过究竟需要付出什么代价，更谈不上实现它。
The second wrong is that our display of the Ukrainian flag is insincere. It responds to the strength of the Ukrainian cause in British public opinion, but does not reflect actual government policy. It is the visual equivalent of the slogan of successive governments that Britain will do “whatever it takes” to help Ukraine. We have never calculated whatever it would take, much less achieved it.
即使在现在，随着官方越来越承认俄罗斯对我们的海底电缆、网络安全、领空、能源和粮食供应、我们的盟友甚至我们的选举进行着威胁，我们却还在谈论要在2030年之前实现适当的国防开支比例。到那时，普京的“特别军事行动”持续的时间可能已经达到第一次世界大战的两倍。
Even now, with growing official acknowledgement that Russia threatens our undersea cables, our cyber security, our airspace, our supplies of energy and of grain, our allies and even the conduct of our elections, we talk of achieving the right rate of defence spending by 2030. By that time, Putin’s “special military operation” could have gone on for twice the length of the First World War.
周五，多米尼克·劳森（Dominic Lawson）揭露了唐纳德·特朗普对乌克兰长期一贯的敌意以及其动机的卑劣。在对普京的温和态度上，特朗普确实是西方最糟糕的领导人。他去年在椭圆形办公室试图羞辱弗拉基米尔·泽连斯基，依然是我有生以来见过的、一个民主国家领导人对另一个民主国家领导人所做出最令人作呕的公开举动。
On Friday, Dominic Lawson exposed the long-term consistency of Donald Trump’s hostility to Ukraine and the baseness of his motives. In his tenderness towards Putin, Trump is indeed the worst Western leader. His attempted humiliation of Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office last year remains the most disgusting public behaviour by the leader of one democracy towards another seen in my lifetime.
本周，特朗普再次回到类似的主题上，在对俄罗斯柴油制裁网开一面的同时表示：“乌克兰是时候换个新总统了。”他在每一个关键时刻都反复宣称，是乌克兰挑起了战争，是乌克兰剥夺了西方的能源，也是乌克兰在拒绝和平。悍然打破特朗普最新“停火协议”的是普京，但受到特朗普指责的却是遵守该协议的泽连斯基。接下来他大概会告诉我们，是比利时在1940年5月入侵了德国。
This week, Trump returned to similar themes, saying, as he gave Russia a break from diesel sanctions: “It’s time for Ukraine to get a new President.”He drives home at each key moment his claim that it is Ukraine that started the war, Ukraine that is depriving the West of energy and Ukraine that is refusing peace. It was Putin who brazenly broke Trump’s latest “ceasefire”, but it was Zelensky, who abided by it, whom Trump blamed. Next he will tell us that Belgium invaded Germany in May 1940.
结果是，本周俄罗斯得以在乌克兰杀害更多的人，因为特朗普的美国撤回了此前提供的保护。在特朗普与埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）诡异的密谋下，“星链”降低了网速，致使乌克兰未能及时收到俄军袭击的信号。没有任何新的美国“爱国者”导弹运抵。巴勃罗·毕加索（Pablo Picasso）的名作《格尔尼卡》（Bombing of Guernica）今天也可以重现，只需将地点换到基辅。自由世界的领导人竟然与那个企图剥夺自由的人勾结在一起：这真是一件令人震惊的事。
As a result, Russia was able to kill more people in Ukraine this week because Trump’s America withdrew the protection it had previously provided. In a weird complicity between Trump and Elon Musk, Starlink slowed its speeds so that Ukraine did not get the signals of Russian attacks in time. No new US Patriot missiles are arriving. Pablo Picasso’s famous Bombing of Guernica could be painted today, relocated to Kyiv. The leader of the free world is in league with the man who wants to unfree it: that is a truly shocking thing.
但我恐怕，当本周三我看到爱尔兰近卫军在唐宁街列队簇拥着泽连斯基总统和安迪·伯恩罕（Andy Burnham）时，我并没有觉得“啊，好吧，至少英国还在乎”。相反，我发出了叹息。这又是一次徒劳的姿态，又是对一个强有力象征的滥用，其目的只是为了逃避行动。这表明，对于整个欧洲大陆（无论是欧盟内部还是外部）若想实现和平所必须拥有的东西——也就是共同安全，我们依然不够认真。
But I am afraid that when I saw the Irish Guards lining up to flank President Zelensky and Andy Burnham in Downing Street this Wednesday, I did not think: “Ah, well,” at least Britain cares.”Instead, I groaned. It was yet another futile gesture, yet another abuse of a powerful symbol to avoid action. It showed we are still not serious about what the whole European continent, inside or out of the EU, must have if it wants peace – a common security.
正如每个中小学生曾经都知道的那样，1938年9月，时任英国首相内维尔·张伯伦曾说：“我们竟然因为一个遥远国家（捷克斯洛伐克）的一场争端、因为那些我们一无所知的人，而在这里挖战壕、试戴防毒面具，这是多么可怕、荒诞、难以置信的事啊。”这种想法正是他对希特勒采取绥靖政策的根源，并在几天后促成了那份命运多舛的《慕尼黑协定》。
In September 1938, as every schoolboy once knew, the then prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, said: “How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a far away country [Czechoslovakia] between people of whom we know nothing.”This thought lay behind his appeasement of Hitler and produced the fateful Munich agreement a few days later.
此后，英国政治家们一直决心不再重蹈张伯伦的覆辙，但有时他们的行动（或不作为）却与其言辞相悖。伯恩罕（曼彻斯特）表示他对乌克兰的支持“坚定不移”，但就像张伯伦（伯明翰）一样，他是一名城市市长。在他的内心深处，对于任何外国事务，都存在着那种同样的“这跟我们有什么关系？”的心态。
Ever since, British politicians have resolved not to repeat Chamberlain’s mistake, but sometimes their actions (or inactions) belie their words. Mr Burnham (Manchester) said he was “unwavering” in his support for Ukraine but, like Chamberlain (Birmingham), he was a city mayor. Somewhere in his mental make-up is that same “what’s it got to do with us?” sense about anything foreign.
当然，这个问题在选民中引起了共鸣。即使在现代通讯条件下，今天的乌克兰确实也让人感觉十分遥远，就像90年前的捷克斯洛伐克一样。但当时的问题已经有了答案：“争端”之所以影响到我们，是因为希特勒决心摧毁包括英国在内的整个欧洲的安全。
That question resonates with voters, of course. Even with modern communications, Ukraine does feel faraway today, as Czechoslovakia did 90 years ago. But the question was answered then: the “quarrel” affected us because Hitler was determined to overthrow the security of all Europe, including Britain.
这个问题现在同样可以得到回答。就像《凡尔赛和约》之后的希特勒一样，普京从未接受现行的欧洲秩序，因为他认为该秩序坑害了他的国家。对他而言，冷战结束后苏联的解体——由于他不是共产主义者，他更愿意将其视为俄罗斯帝国——是一场必须复仇的巨大灾难。
The same question can be answered now. Like Hitler after Versailles, Putin has never accepted the prevailing European order because he believes it did his country down. For him, the post-Cold War break-up of the Soviet Union – which he, not being a communist, prefers to think of as the Russian Empire – was the great catastrophe to be avenged.
由此可见，乌克兰并不是普京唯一的终极目标，而仅仅是手头最大、唾手可得的征服对象。2022年，他对完成这项任务的难易程度作出了严重误判，但对普京而言，这种失误并没有抵消其历史目标，也没有改变继续推进的必要。
It follows from this that Ukraine is not Putin’s single goal but merely the largest available conquest immediately to hand. In 2022, he grossly miscalculated the ease of the task but, for him, that error does not nullify the historical purpose, nor the need to push on.
在那些我们甚至比乌克兰还要少闻其名的小国——摩尔多瓦、佐治亚——他正在积极破坏整个政治实体的稳定。当他把目光投向更西边的地区时，他不断试探北约对手。就像某种恶魔牙医，他不断寻找一个又一个蛀牙洞。他飞越其他国家的领空。从北极、波罗的海一直延伸到英吉利海峡，他在测试潜艇航线和海上通道。
In countries which we have heard of even less than Ukraine – Moldova, Georgia – he is actively destabilising whole polities. When he looks further west, he constantly tests his Nato opponents. Like some demon dentist, he finds hole after hole. He overflies others’ airspace. And from the Arctic, across the Baltic and down through the English Channel, he tests submarine routes and sea lanes.
一些怀疑论者会对与20世纪30年代的类比提出质疑。诚然，所有此类比喻都不尽精确。但怨恨政治、伪历史的族裔民族主义借口以及对规模更大战争的不断渴望，确实与当年有着高度相似之处。西方领导人迟疑的反应也是如此——他们往往过于自满、富足、在选举中缺乏安全感，并在少数情况下受到直接腐败的侵蚀，以至于无力抵抗。尼禄在罗马城大火时弹琴。而在现代英国，我们纵容人们在福利上作假，付出的代价却是我们的防务。
Some sceptics will question the comparison with the 1930s. It is true that all such things are inexact. But the grievance politics, pseudo-historical ethno-nationalist justifications and the imperative of ever greater war do have strong resemblances. So do the hesitant reactions of Western leaders, often too complacent, rich, electorally insecure and, in a minority of cases, directly corrupted, to resist. Nero fiddled while Rome burnt. In modern Britain, we let people fiddle the welfare, at the cost of our defence.
也有观点认为，普京比希特勒更聪明，因为他更有耐心。他的在任时间已经是这位元首的两倍多。直到在乌克兰因侵略手段过于露骨而碰壁之前，他一直在足够缓慢地积累战果，以麻痹人们的警惕，2014年他占领克里米亚时便是如此。他的信念或许带有狂热色彩，但他对欧洲（包括英国）在可能的情况下如何默认走向无为主义的理解却极其敏锐。
The case can also be made that Putin is cleverer than Hitler, because more patient. He has been in office more than twice as long as the Führer. Until Ukraine went wrong because his aggression was so blatant, he had been accumulating his gains slowly enough to disarm vigilance, as happened when he occupied Crimea in 2014. His beliefs might be fanatical, but his understanding of how Europe, including Britain, defaults to quietism if it possibly can, is acute.
因此，同样在特朗普的协助下，他将暴行常态化的手腕——蓄意轰炸平民、医疗中心和列车；绑架并洗脑儿童；虐待战俘；数十万士兵的死亡——也日益熟练。四年多过去了，这些事情已很少再登上主要新闻头条。
So, again aided by Trump, is his skill in normalising atrocity – the deliberate bombing of civilians, medical centres and railway trains; the abduction and brainwashing of children; the torture of prisoners of war; the deaths of hundreds of thousands of soldiers. More than four years in, such things rarely make the main headlines.
尽管乌克兰战争带来的人员伤亡已足以成为西方进行干预的理由，但这并非一个能说服各国的论点。正确的论点是，如果我们不阻止普京，我们的整个欧洲大陆，包括这些近海岛屿，都将走向失败。目前，大多数西欧领导人在理智上明白这一点，但内心深处仍然不愿相信。正如1939年和1940年那样，他们没有美国的参与。与当年不同的是，如今似乎没有任何一个主要欧洲大国下定决心无论如何都要进行抵抗。
Although the human cost of war in Ukraine is justification enough for Western intervention, it is not an argument which persuades states. The right argument is that if we do not stop Putin, our whole continent, including these offshore islands, will lose. At present, most Western European leaders know this in their heads, but still do not want to believe it in their hearts. As in 1939 and 1940, they are without America. Unlike at that time, no major European power seems determined, all the same, to resist.