海湾地区正处于动荡之中。沙特阿拉伯几十年来主导着该地区，凭借石油财富吸引世界一半的关注，并常常得到顺从，如今其根基正在动摇。平民正在被杀害，美国人员正在撤离。其主要机场时常被胡塞武装导弹迫使关闭。富人正竭力逃离，海外朝圣者也对前来访问心存顾虑。
The Gulf is in turmoil. Saudi Arabia, which for decades has dominated the region, using its oil wealth to command the attention and often obeisance of half the world, is tottering on its foundations. Civilians are being killed, US personnel evacuated. Its principal airports are intermittently closed by Houthi missiles. The rich are taking flight as best they can, and overseas pilgrims are wary about visiting.
尽管其追随者对2018年谋杀批评该政权的《华盛顿邮报》记者贾马尔·哈舒吉负有责任，但实际统治者、王储穆罕默德·本·萨勒曼仍曾是白宫和白金汉宫的受欢迎客人。然而如今，这位王储与大多数海湾统治者一样，是个忧心忡忡的人。据报道，他一直在被安置在配备掩体的重兵把守的宫殿之间转移。
De facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been a welcome guest at the White House and Buckingham Palace despite his acolytes’ responsibility for the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post journalist critical of the regime. Yet today the prince, like most of his fellow Gulf rulers, is a worried man. He has been shuffled between heavily guarded palaces equipped with bunkers, according to reports.
其武装部队耗费了惊人的资金，却似乎无力遏制胡塞武装——这些也并不畏惧美军空袭的也门部落民，连沙特军队都难以吓倒。究竟是怎么回事？
His armed forces, on which breathtaking sums have been expended, seem incapable of checking the Houthis, Yemeni tribesmen who are no more daunted by American air power than by Saudi troops. What goes on?
多年前，我与一位英国国防出口高级官员交谈，我曾——或许有些自以为是地——提出，当我们几乎不知道海湾统治者会如何使用这些武器时，继续向该地区倾销英国和美国武器是鲁莽的。他的回应是，这是英国极其重要的外汇收入来源，而且大部分装备最终都会在沙漠中腐朽。他关于制造历史上最大军事废料堆的评论，至今仍让我记忆犹新。
Years ago, I had a conversation with a top British defense-exports official, where I suggested — perhaps priggishly — that it was reckless to keep pouring UK and American weapons into the Gulf region when we had little idea what their rulers might do with them. His response was that this was an immensely important source of foreign currency earnings for Britain and that most of the kit would end up moldering in the desert anyway. His comments about creating the largest military junk heap in history have stayed with me ever since.
无论他20年前说的是否属实，今天我们面对的现实是，被召唤去作战的沙特武装部队看起来空洞不堪。正如英国军队的一句简练俚语所说：“装备齐全，却毫无头绪。”
Whether or not what he said was true 20 years ago, today we are confronted by the reality that the Saudi armed forces, called upon to fight, look hollow. “All the gear, and no idea,” as a laconic British army catchphrase has it.
造成这一现象的原因有多种。几十年来，焦虑的海湾统治者一直在平衡作战效能与政权安全——防止任何对手获得发动政变的权力基础。在沙特阿拉伯，武装力量不同组成部分的控制权曾在王子们之间分配，尽管穆罕默德·本·萨勒曼已采取行动，将指挥权集中化和专业化。
There are various reasons for this. Nervous Gulf rulers for decades sought to balance operational effectiveness against regime security — to deny rivals any power base for a coup. In Saudi Arabia, control of different elements of the armed forces was split between princes, although MBS has moved to centralize and professionalize the command.
海湾国家的军队拥有一些令人瞩目的军官。一名巴林学员和一名阿联酋学员近期曾获得英国桑赫斯特皇家军事学院的“国际荣誉之剑”。但许多作战力量——即普通士兵——是外籍契约人员。
The Gulf armies boast some impressive officers. A Bahraini and an Emirati cadet were among recent winners of the International Sword of Honour at Britain’s officer training college, Sandhurst. But many of the fighting elements — the rank and file — are expatriate contractors.
高技术设备的保障服务也经常由外籍人员提供。英国航空航天系统公司在沙特阿拉伯雇用了数千人。虽然其中许多人是当地人，但海湾国家仍需依靠外国人来维持其战机的飞行。他们依靠美国提供情报和防空。
Support services for high-tech equipment are often provided by expats, too. Britain’s BAE Systems Plc employs thousands of people in Saudi Arabia. While many of these are locals, the Gulf states rely on foreigners to keep their combat aircraft flying. They depend on the US for intelligence and air defense.
在面对伊朗和胡塞武装的威胁时，唐纳德·特朗普总统能为他们做的事是如此之少，这在最近几个月里成了一个残酷的启示。美国海军正传出一些令人沮丧的消息，关于维持对伊朗的远距离封锁是多么困难。至少有10艘军舰、两个航母战斗群以及5个额外的战斗机中队投入了行动。人员和装备承受的压力巨大。我听说有一位军官估计，美国海军需要10年时间才能恢复。谁又能说中国在此期间会尝试什么呢？
It has been a cruel revelation in recent months how little President Donald Trump is able to do for them, in the face of Iranian and Houthi threats. Grim tales are coming out of the US Navy about the difficulties of sustaining a distant blockade of Iran. At least 10 warships and two carrier groups, plus five additional fighter squadrons, are committed. The strain on personnel and equipment is great. I’ve heard of one officer reckoning it will take the US Navy 10 years to recover. And who is to say what the Chinese may attempt, meanwhile?
面对断断续续的导弹袭击，海湾国家几乎已经放弃了美国会施以援手的任何期望。华盛顿，或者说利雅得，都没有给出任何合理的说辞。
The Gulf states, facing intermittent missile attacks, have almost abandoned any expectation that the US will ride to their rescue. There is no plausible narrative coming out of Washington or, for that matter, Riyadh.
至于胡塞部族成员，我记得半个世纪前曾访问过也门，当时那里的确是一个非常野性的地方——拥有令人赞叹的美丽荒凉山脉，以及独特的当地建筑风格：高大、方形、刷成白色且极具装饰性的宫殿和房屋。
As for the Houthi tribesmen, I remember visiting Yemen half a century ago, when it was a very wild place indeed — awesomely beautiful barren mountains and a unique local architecture of high, square, white-painted and highly decorated palaces and houses.
每个部落成员都武装到牙齿，但那时他们的军事目标并不宏大，只是占领下一个城镇或也许是地区首府。如今，知情的外国人对胡塞武装行动的复杂程度感到惊讶。2022年与沙特和阿联酋达成的停火为他们提供了重新武装并掌握导弹和无人机技术的喘息空间。
Every tribesman was armed to the teeth, but back then they had no more ambitious military objectives than capture of the next town or maybe regional capital. Today, informed foreigners are astonished by the sophistication of Houthi operations. A 2022 ceasefire agreed with the Saudis and Emiratis gave them the breathing space to rearm and master missile and drone technology.
他们在高科技装备的使用以及为本国人民和世界塑造叙事方面比以往更有把握。其部队人数以数万人计，虽然他们没有作战飞机，但这些飞机似乎对对方并未产生太大影响。
They are more assured than ever in their management of high-tech kit, and handling of a narrative for their own people and the world. Their forces are numbered in the tens of thousands, and while they possess no combat aircraft, these do not appear to be achieving much for the other side.
沙特已显示出在军事上无法粉碎胡塞武装的能力。利雅得与阿布扎比之间的关系紧张。穆罕默德·本·萨勒曼知道，他所谓的土耳其和巴基斯坦盟友不太可能参与对也门的地面进攻。沙特向中国呼吁，试图说服其伊朗客户克制，却落得无人理会。
The Saudis have shown themselves incapable of crushing the Houthis militarily. Relations between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi are strained. MBS knows it is unlikely his notional Turkish and Pakistani allies will have anything to do with a ground assault on Yemen. Saudi appeals to China, to persuade its Iranian clients to hold back, fall on deaf ears.
对西方而言，最令人惭愧的部分是海湾国家缺乏军事效能，且已放弃指望美国拯救它们，可能不得不诉诸其最丰富的资源：金钱。通过霍尔木兹海峡的石油和天然气出口有所回升。有些人怀疑，这既与向伊朗的秘密付款有关，也与美国的空中或海上力量有关。
The most chastening part of the story for the West is that the Gulf states, lacking military effectiveness and having given up on America saving them, may have to resort to their most plentiful resource: money. Oil and gas exports through the Strait of Hormuz have somewhat revived. Some suspect this is as much to do with secret payments to the Iranians as with US air or naval power.
我认识的一位英国将军把我注意力引向查尔斯·金德尔伯格（Charles Kindleberger）这位强大的美国经济学家于1973年出版的一本书。该书的论点是，那些年英国变得过于衰弱，无法行使其传统的广泛霸权，而美国尚未准备好承担这一角色。独裁者利用了权威真空。
A British general that I know has drawn my attention to a 1973 book by the formidable US economist Charles Kindleberger, . Its thesis was that in those years Britain became too weak to exercise its traditional far-reaching hegemony, while America was not yet ready to step up to the plate. Dictators exploited the vacuum of authority.
我的朋友也看到了同样的严峻局面：美国将注意力主要集中在西半球和中国身上，两国都不再有能力像过去那样维护全球的秩序。偶尔对伊朗采取强硬措施根本算不上一种有效的战略；海湾地区的任何统治者也都清楚这一点。
My friend sees the same bleak scenario unfolding now, with the US focused on the Western Hemisphere and China; neither willing nor able to police the globe as once it did. Sporadically lashing out at Iran is not a strategy, and no Gulf ruler deludes himself that it is.
特朗普似乎一心只想促成乌克兰被出售给弗拉基米尔·普京的交易。在海湾地区，只有伊朗及其支持者显得信心十足。无论制裁给他们带来了多大的困难，伊朗政权依然坚信自己已经经受住了以色列和美国所能施加的最猛烈的打击。
Trump appears preoccupied with attempting to broker the cash sale of Ukraine to Vladimir Putin. In the Gulf only Iran and its clients look confident. Whatever difficulties sanctions are causing them, the regime is reveling in the belief that it has survived the heaviest bombardment Israel and the US can throw at it.
无论有没有美国的支持，海湾国家都无力在军事上遏制伊朗及其胡塞武装的支持者。他们可能只能选择继续掏钱（即通过经济手段来解决问题）。这一切对地区和全球的稳定来说都是非常不利的。
The Gulf states have shown themselves incapable, with or without the Americans, of seeing off Iran and its Houthi clients militarily. They may be reduced instead to holding out their wallets. All of which would be very bad indeed for regional and global stability.
沙特阿拉伯是特朗普推动对伊朗战争的最大受害者之一：由于石油产量急剧下降，其国内生产总值预计今年将会下降。沙特 Arabia 成为地区性经济中心的梦想已经破灭了。
Saudi Arabia is one of the big losers from Trump’s Iran war. Its gross domestic product is expected to fall this year as its oil activity has dropped sharply. Its dreams of becoming a regional hub have crashed into a harsh truth.
这一切的后果是，美国在这个地区的道德、政治和战略影响力正在不断削弱。目前白宫的任何人似乎都不知道该如何扭转这一局面。
And the corollary of all this is a hemorrhaging of moral, political and strategic authority for its US ally. It seems unlikely that anyone in the current White House will have any idea of how to get it back.