The outcome of the American election won’t change anything, because the course is already set

美國大選的結(jié)果不會改變?nèi)魏问虑?，因?yàn)檫M(jìn)程已經(jīng)確定

The American presidential campaign of 2024 has been marked by a series of unprecedented events. These include lawsuits against one candidate and relatives of the sitting president, assassination attempts against Donald Trump and, finally, the unprecedented situation of Joe Biden being forced out of the race by his own party. All of this has made the election marathon an extraordinary event.

2024 年美國總統(tǒng)競選出現(xiàn)了一系列前所未有的事件。其中包括針對一名候選人和現(xiàn)任總統(tǒng)親屬的訴訟、針對唐納德·特朗普的暗殺企圖，以及最后喬·拜登被本黨趕出競選的史無前例的情況。所有這些都使選舉馬拉松成為一場非同尋常的盛事。

Meanwhile, domestic politics in the US is spilling over into the rest of the world, and it’s helping fuel the growing dissatisfaction of the countries representing the world’s majority with the intense attempts by Washington to maintain its leadership. But we should not read too much into the vote, because the policy of seeking to preserve American dominance remains the main strategy of both candidates.

與此同時，美國國內(nèi)政治正在向世界蔓延，這也加劇了世界大多數(shù)國家對華盛頓維護(hù)領(lǐng)導(dǎo)地位的強(qiáng)烈不滿。但我們不應(yīng)過度解讀選舉結(jié)果，因?yàn)閷で缶S護(hù)美國主導(dǎo)地位的政策仍然是兩位候選人的主要策略。
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The neoconservative group remains quite prominent in the ruling Democratic Party, whose members’ worldview is built around the idea of power as the only tool for maintaining US leadership. This position doesn’t depend on personal attitudes and beliefs, but is derived from the status they occupy in the political mechanism. The then Senator Biden, for example, once proposed a large number of constructive initiatives in Congress. Among other things, he opposed NATO membership for the Baltic states, to the point where his party colleagues accused him of being too peace-loving in his foreign policy.

在執(zhí)政黨民主黨內(nèi)，新保守派依然占據(jù)相當(dāng)重要的地位，其成員的世界觀建立在強(qiáng)權(quán)是維護(hù)美國領(lǐng)導(dǎo)地位的唯一工具這一理念之上，這一理念并不取決于個人的態(tài)度和信念，而是源于他們在政治機(jī)制中所處的地位。例如時任參議員的拜登，曾在國會提出大量建設(shè)性倡議，其中包括反對波羅的海國家加入北約，以致黨內(nèi)同僚指責(zé)他的外交政策過于愛好和平。

Once in the White House, however, Biden strictly followed the usual American logic of global leadership. The defense budget under his administration broke all records of recent decades. The consistency of US foreign policy practice in terms of deterrence strategy towards geopolitical rivals allows us to assert that the structural confrontation with Russia and China will continue regardless of the outcome of the election. The dynamics of this confrontation – in Ukraine and around Taiwan – will be determined by the military budget, a draft of which has already been developed and will be approved before the inauguration of his successor.

然而，入主白宮后，拜登嚴(yán)格遵循了美國一貫的全球領(lǐng)導(dǎo)邏輯。他執(zhí)政期間的國防預(yù)算打破了近幾十年的所有紀(jì)錄。美國在對地緣政治對手實(shí)施威懾戰(zhàn)略方面的外交政策實(shí)踐一貫性，讓我們可以斷言，無論選舉結(jié)果如何，與俄羅斯和中國的結(jié)構(gòu)性對抗都將繼續(xù)下去。這場在烏克蘭和臺灣（地區(qū)）周邊地區(qū)發(fā)生的對抗的態(tài)勢將由軍事預(yù)算決定，該預(yù)算草案已經(jīng)制定并將在繼任者就職前獲得批準(zhǔn)。

Against the backdrop of the election campaign, it is particularly interesting to see how much sharper the rhetoric has become and how it has been filled with catchy, ‘workable’ initiatives. Former Secretary of State Michael Pompeo’s plan for a “forced peace” in Ukraine, which proposes, among other things, that Kiev be brought into NATO on an accelerated basis “so that European allies will bear the burden of its defense,” has been well received. The result of such a scenario would be a direct military conflict between NATO and Russia, so it is unlikely. Such statements, which do not demonstrate a systemic understanding of the situation, need not in principle be long-term in nature. Their function is to mobilize hawks in the establishment, and among the electorate, to show that a forced escalation of the conflict is one possible scenario. It should be noted that as secretary of state, Pompeo established himself as a man prone to making high-profile statements that didn’t culminate in large-scale actions. Nevertheless, his quote is worth considering in the context of the fact that there is no political force in the US that would see the outcome of the Ukraine crisis as an opportunity for reconciliation with Russia.

在競選活動的背景下，尤其有趣的是，這些言論變得更加尖銳，而且充滿了引人注目的“可行”舉措。前國務(wù)卿邁克爾·蓬佩奧提出的“強(qiáng)制和平”計(jì)劃受到了好評，該計(jì)劃提議加速基輔加入北約，“以便歐洲盟友承擔(dān)其防御負(fù)擔(dān)”。這種情形的結(jié)果將是北約與俄羅斯之間發(fā)生直接軍事沖突，因此可能性不大。這些聲明并沒有表明對局勢的系統(tǒng)性理解，原則上也不需要是長期性的。它們的作用是動員當(dāng)權(quán)派和選民中的鷹派，表明沖突被迫升級是一種可能的情況。值得注意的是，蓬佩奧在擔(dān)任國務(wù)卿期間，經(jīng)常發(fā)表一些高調(diào)言論，但最終卻沒有采取大規(guī)模行動。然而，考慮到美國沒有任何政治力量會將烏克蘭危機(jī)的結(jié)果視為與俄羅斯和解的機(jī)會，他的言論值得思考。
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On the one hand, a continuation will allow Washington to mobilize European NATO members to increase defense spending to a new target of 3% of GDP. In essence, this means more purchases of American weapons by Western Europeans and thus support for the US military-industrial complex. On the other hand, active support for Ukraine allows Russia to be drawn deeper and deeper into an expensive military campaign, thus solving the problem of deterrence without direct confrontation.

一方面，如果繼續(xù)下去，華盛頓將動員歐洲北約成員國將國防開支增加到占國內(nèi)生產(chǎn)總值 3% 的新目標(biāo)。從本質(zhì)上講，這意味著西歐國家將購買更多美國武器，從而支持美國軍工聯(lián)合體。另一方面，積極支持烏克蘭可以使俄羅斯越來越深入地卷入昂貴的軍事行動，從而在不直接對抗的情況下解決威懾問題。

The collision of interests between Washington and Kiev is noteworthy here. The Ukrainian government, well aware that its own resources have been exhausted, is feverishly trying to cling to any chance of remaining at the top of the Western coalition’s priorities, and often – as in Kursk – acts rather opportunistically. By offering the West a visible military success, Kiev hoped to force it to become directly involved in the conflict. The Americans see this impulse from Ukraine, but are not interested in such a scenario.

華盛頓和基輔之間的利益沖突值得注意。烏克蘭政府深知自己的資源已經(jīng)耗盡，因此拼命想抓住任何機(jī)會，繼續(xù)成為西方聯(lián)盟的頭號目標(biāo)，而且經(jīng)常采取機(jī)會主義的行動，比如在庫爾斯克事件中?；o希望通過向西方展示明顯的軍事勝利，迫使西方直接參與沖突。美國看到了烏克蘭的這種沖動，但對這種情況并不感興趣。

Washington needs Ukraine as a proxy that it can use for as long as possible. The country’s usefulness as an instrument of US foreign policy suggests that the US-Russian crisis will be protracted. At the same time, the upward trajectory of the American defense budget will not change, regardless of the outcome of the election. Thus, Russian foreign policy and military planning is based on maintaining the present military conditions and continuing the strategic rivalry with the US, regardless of who the next American president is.

華盛頓需要烏克蘭作為其可以盡可能長時間利用的代理人。烏克蘭作為美國外交政策工具的作用表明美俄危機(jī)將會持續(xù)很長時間。與此同時，無論選舉結(jié)果如何，美國國防預(yù)算的上升趨勢都不會改變。因此，無論誰是下一任美國總統(tǒng)，俄羅斯的外交政策和軍事規(guī)劃都是建立在維持現(xiàn)有軍事條件和繼續(xù)與美國進(jìn)行戰(zhàn)略競爭的基礎(chǔ)上的。