《地理的囚徒》真相 The plain truth about geography and ideology

To see how geography and ideology collide, consider the ominous plain that is the Turkish-Syrian border. On one side is a Nato country. On the other, for long stretches, are the jihadis of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

（上圖說明：這是從土耳其一側看到的自敘利亞邊境小鎮科巴尼升起的濃煙。）

And yet when it comes to topography, the border is a non-event. The mountains that mark Turkey’s frontier with Iraq are absent here. Slipping across could barely be easier — a huge problem not just for Ankara but also for the western countries that live in fear of Isis.

要想看地理和意識形態如何碰撞，只要看一看土耳其和敘利亞邊界的不祥平原。一邊是一個北約(Nato)國家，而另一邊是“伊拉克和黎凡特伊斯蘭國”(ISIS)聖戰分子盤踞的大片土地。

Tim Marshall’s book is a reminder of the salience of geography in international affairs — of the threats such open plains continue to pose in this age of Predator drones and cyber attacks. Countries’ relations with their neighbours are still dictated by their physical characteristics, he argues. So Russia remains preoccupied by Poland’s 300 mile wide plain, a key battleground for armies pushing east and west; China by Tibet.

然而從地形上說，這條邊界線看起來平淡無奇。這裏並沒有突顯出土耳其和伊拉克之間分界線的高山。悄悄穿越這裏的邊境再方便不過——對於土耳其政府和對ISIS感到驚恐的西方國家，這是一個巨大的問題。

Ideologies may come and go but, says Marshall, who served a long

蒂姆氠歇爾(Tim Marshall)的書提醒人們，地理在國際事務中佔突出地位——在當今“捕食者”(Predator)無人機和網絡攻擊的時代，像這樣開闊的平原依然構成威脅。他主張，一國的地理特徵依然決定了其與鄰國的關係。因此，俄羅斯依然念念不忘波蘭300英里寬的平原，這是軍隊向東和向西推進的關鍵戰場；中國也一直關注西藏。

stint as diplomatic editor of Britain’s Sky News, such geopolitical facts of life endure.

意識形態可能變化不定，但曾在英國天空新聞電視臺(Sky News)長期擔任外交事務主編的馬歇爾表示，地緣政治的現實始終延續。

Presiding over the book is the shade of Sir Halford Mackinder, who inaugurated the discipline of geopolitics with a 1904 Royal Geographical Society lecture. His thinking about the world — notably the strategic importance of plains — pervades the book. But Marshall does more than just update Mackinder’s ideas. At the heart of his work is a thesis as dispiriting as it is radical: that the present dysfunctional state of the world is where we were always going to end up.

統領全書的是哈爾福德麥金德爵士(Sir Halford Mackinder)的影子，1904年他在皇家地理學會(Royal Geographical Society)發表了一篇演講，開闢了地緣政治學這門學科。麥金德對於世界的思想——尤其是平原的戰略重要性——滲透了全書。但馬歇爾並非只是更新了麥金德的思想。其著作的核心是一個既令人沮喪又十分極端的命題：當今世界的這種亂局是我們無論怎麼做都擺脫不了的宿命。

So Russian President Vladimir Putin had no choice but to claim Crimea and its warm water port of Sevastopol; China was always bound to overwhelm Tibet, with its border with India. This is, in short, the most deterministic book you will read for some time. There is no sense here, for example, that the wilful aggression of Mr Putin’s Russia is the result of mistakes, either by Moscow or the west, or that there is any alternative to the Chinese Communist party’s brand of nationalism.

按此邏輯，俄羅斯總統弗拉基米爾渠京(Vladimir Putin)別無選擇，只能吞併克里米亞及其塞瓦斯托波爾(Sevastopol)不凍港；鑑於西藏與印度交界，中國必然會佔領西藏。簡言之，這將是你好久以來讀到的最有決定論色彩的書。按照此書的邏輯，普京治下的俄羅斯的蓄意侵略不可能是莫斯科或者西方犯下錯誤的結果，中國共產黨的那種民族主義也不可能有什麼替代路線。

It is an unabashed exposition of realpolitik and at times seems to evince a sneaking sympathy for coup leaders in Egypt and Turkey. Still, Marshall is excellent on some of the highways and byways of geopolitics: on the obstacles Iran’s mountainous terrain pose to an integrated economy and the role of rivers in fracturing Europe into nation states.

這本書毫不留情地展示了現實政治，偶爾似乎隱隱流露出對埃及和土耳其的政變領袖的同情。話說回來，馬歇爾對地緣政治的一些脈絡有精闢敘述：伊朗多山的地形對一體化經濟造成的障礙，以及河流在分割歐洲大陸、形成多個民族國家中起到的作用。

There is plenty for a curmudgeon to object to. Although the book is subtitled “Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need To Know About Global Politics”, the black and white maps are not much to write home about. Marshall offers a virtual Atkins diet of geopolitics: there is plenty of the red meat of geographical and military analysis with little lighter fare, in terms of other voices or on-the-ground reporting.

這本書有很多地方可供不服氣的人指摘。儘管本書的副標題是“10張地圖詮釋你需要掌握的所有全球政治知識”，但這些黑白地圖並不值得大書特書。馬歇爾提供的東西堪比一份地緣政治學的阿特金斯(Atkins)減肥食譜：有大量地緣政治和軍事分析的紅肉，卻沒有什麼比較清淡的食物——其他言論或者實地報告。

Nor is the book free from error or inexplicable claims, such as the assertion that a target for unemployment was part of the Maastricht criteria to qualify for the euro or the notion that Germany has a “Plan B” to team up with Russia should co-operation with France flag.

這本書也並非不含錯誤或者令人費解的主張，比如斷言失業率目標是《馬斯特裏赫特條約》(Maastricht treaty)爲想要進入歐元區的國家設定的標準之一，或者如果德國與法國的合作不順利，德國有與俄羅斯合作的“B計劃”。

But the real question is whether, in his bid to establish the importance of geography, Marshall leaves enough space for ideas.

然而，真正的問題在於，在試圖證明地理的重要性時，馬歇爾是否爲思想留下了足夠的空間。

Geopolitics does not explain everything. The recent repressive and anti-western behaviour of the likes of Mr Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president, and Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, is due not just to the physical attributes of the lands they rule but also to a cluster of other factors, chiefly the west’s diminished power of attraction.

地緣政治並不能解釋一切。普京、土耳其總統雷傑普吠伊普埃爾多安(Recep Tayyip Erdogan)以及匈牙利總理維克托歐爾班(Viktor Orban)之流近年在國內壓制、在國際上反西方的行爲，不僅僅是他們統治的土地的地理特性，還包含一組其他因素，其中主要是西方的吸引力減弱了。

A decade ago, the allure of the US and the EU was strong enough to tempt such authoritarian-minded leaders to co-operate much more closely. The Iraq war, the Great Recession and EU crises have put paid to that. Meanwhile, any serious discussion of Isis surely has to deal with the appeal of the jihadis’ twisted ideas in both the Middle East and the west.

10年前，美國和歐盟(EU)的吸引力很強，足以誘使這些威權意識的領導人更爲緊密地合作。伊拉克戰爭、金融危機期間的“大衰退”，以及歐盟危機終結了這種局面。另外，任何有關ISIS的嚴肅討論，當然都得針對聖戰分子的扭曲思想在中東乃至西方的吸引力。