|哈爾·布蘭茲專欄作家
美國正在輸掉分裂世界的競賽
將全球劃分為中國和俄羅斯的勢力範圍更有可能導致戰爭而不是和平。
The US Is Losing the Contest to Divide the World
Splitting the globe into spheres of influence with China and Russia is more likely to lead to war than peace.
By Hal Brands
Hal Brands is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and the Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.
習近平和普丁沙皇可能有很多值得慶祝的事情。
攝影師：Pavel Byrkin /AFP/Getty Images
|哈爾·布蘭茲專欄作家
美國正在輸掉分裂世界的競賽
將全球劃分為中國和俄羅斯的勢力範圍更有可能導致戰爭而不是和平。
作者：Hal Brands
哈爾‧布蘭茲 (Hal Brands) 是彭博觀點專欄作家，也是約翰霍普金斯大學高級國際研究學院亨利‧基辛格傑出教授。
溫斯頓邱吉爾承認，這是一份“糟糕的文件” 。
1944 年 10 月，英國首相提議他和蘇聯統治者約瑟夫·史達林將巴爾幹半島分成不同的區域，以避免戰後衝突。
俄羅斯將在羅馬尼亞和保加利亞佔據主導地位；
英國在希臘；匈牙利和南斯拉夫將被五五分成。
這個提議太可恥了，以至於邱吉爾建議燒毀他與史達林剛剛達成一致的文件。
他擔心，「以如此隨意的方式」決定數百萬人的命運「可能被認為相當憤世嫉俗」。
「不，你留著吧，」史達林回答。
邱吉爾從未向美國總統富蘭克林·羅斯福展示這份文件，
而羅斯福當時正宣稱美國反對基於勢力範圍的和平。
然而，歐洲大陸很快就被分裂了，儘管與邱吉爾想像的略有不同。
冷戰期間，
西歐成為美國的勢力範圍；
東歐被莫斯科主宰。
直到冷戰結束，西方取得了決定性的勝利，東歐才獲得解放。
在隨後令人激動的單極時代，世界似乎已經拋棄了這種不雅的地緣政治安排。然而今天，我們有必要思考，大國是否會再次瓜分世界。
多年來，中國、俄羅斯及其他修正主義國家一直在尋求區域勢力範圍。
可以想像，在唐納德·川普的領導下，美國總統也會採取同樣的舉措。
（但美國是從世界退縮回maga）
確實，川普的意圖常常令人費解。很難說他的總統任期將會留下什麼樣的創造與破壞。
然而，川普的許多直覺——他對美國聯盟的矛盾態度、他渴望與俄羅斯總統普丁和中國領導人習近平建立良好關係——非常適合勢力範圍外交。
他似乎不反對以犧牲弱國的利益來與大國達成交易。
因此，一個被劃分為勢力範圍的世界將會是什麼樣子是值得探索的，尤其是因為它會比它的支持者所認為的更加黑暗、更加危險。
保護利潤
勢力範圍是強國決定弱國命運的安排。有時，勢力範圍涉及正式帝國的建立或徹底的領土征服。
在其他情況下，它們涉及更寬鬆的安排，但仍然對一個國家的政策和政治產生影響。
近幾十年來，勢力範圍確實是個不道德的概念。
但從歷史上看，這種現象並不罕見。
提洛同盟使雅典控制了古希臘大部分地區。
在西方帝國主義時代，歐洲國家建立了龐大的勢力範圍。
正如我在我的新書
《歐亞世紀The Eurasian Century》
中所述，二十世紀的世界大戰本質上是爭奪侵略性獨裁政權是否被允許建立龐大的舊世界帝國的鬥爭。
莫斯科在東歐的殘酷霸權是冷戰的中心。
在這個殘酷的世界裡，控制關係，甚至支配關係，都是很正常的。
勢力範圍之所以如此常見，是因為它們通常為大國提供四個優勢：
保護（對抗競爭對手的地理緩衝）；
投射（一個可以向更遠的地方投射力量的安全基地）；
利潤（優先獲取資源和市場的權利）；
以及在註重地位的世界中享有的聲望。
雖然每個勢力範圍都不同，但它們都會限制較小國家的行動自由。
這就是為什麼美國長期以來一直是勢力範圍爭奪戰中不同尋常的、矛盾的參與者，儘管它在這場遊戲中比任何人都玩得好。
美國的秘密帝國
美國在其歷史的最初150年建立了龐大的勢力範圍。
它擴張到整個北美，然後將歐洲列強趕出拉丁美洲，從而建立起專有的西半球領土。
時任國務卿理查德·奧爾尼 (Richard Olney) 於 1895 年寫道：
「美國實際上在這片大陸上擁有主權，它的法令對於它所幹預的領域而言就是法律。」
這是對帝國特權的公開表述。
美國將拉丁美洲經濟與自己的經濟捆綁在一起；它廣泛干涉拉美政治，並針對實際或潛在威脅進行了數十次軍事幹預。如果美國從建立區域勢力範圍開始，那麼在20世紀它就會將這項計畫推向全球。
冷戰期間，華盛頓組建了由西歐和東亞主要國家組成的聯盟集團。在非洲、中東等地區建立了合作夥伴、客戶和代理商網路。美國從來沒有真正成為一個正式的帝國。但這些安排使其對世界各國的政治、經濟和外交產生了巨大的、無與倫比的影響力。
因此，當美國總統向外國觀察家（包括邱吉爾）宣講帝國主義的罪惡時，他們紛紛翻白眼，這並不奇怪。但這些總統可以提出三個合理的論點來解釋為什麼美國的計畫與其他計畫不同。
單一超級大國
首先，它更加是自願的。美國可能成為美洲的強硬霸權。但在歐洲和亞洲，那些對附近掠食者有恐懼的國家要求它發揮卓越的影響力。學者吉爾·倫德斯塔德 (Geir Lundestad) 寫道，
美國建立了一個「受邀的帝國」。
時至今日，烏克蘭和其他前線國家仍渴望進入華盛頓的勢力範圍，而不是置身事外。
其次，美國勢力範圍的擴大必然導致更殘暴的帝國的衰退。
在西半球的主導地位使得美國能夠果斷幹預兩次世界大戰，因為它相對不受本土安全威脅的困擾。在冷戰中，美國的同盟體系遏制並超越了蘇聯，為自由世界帶來了勝利，同時也解放了東歐。
最後，如果說某些勢力範圍是殘酷的和具有經濟掠奪性的，那麼美國的勢力範圍大多不是這樣：
美國追求的是一種讓許多國家和人民受益的全球領導形式。
華盛頓在其影響的地區培育民主價值。它培育了全球經濟，使其參與者變得富裕。它並沒有奪取和吞併領土，而是努力、甚至透過戰鬥，使征服——帝國最殘酷的形式——成為過去。
冷戰後，美國官員認為，在一個開明的霸權的領導下，每個人都會更安全。喬治·W·布希總統解釋道，透過保持“無可挑戰的力量”，美國將避免“破壞穩定的軍備競賽”和“破壞性的國家競爭”。或許，只有一個勢力範圍──美國──的世界將會是最好的世界。
獨裁者的反擊
其他人不同意。
普丁在 2007 年宣稱，「一個主人、一個主權」的體係是危險的。
「美國在各方面都超越了自己的國界。」
美國霸權剝奪了俄羅斯和中國等曾經的、並且是未來的帝國所渴望的地緣政治特權和意識形態安全。
因此他們試圖重建一個勢力範圍的世界。
普丁在烏克蘭的戰爭是俄羅斯25年來恢復莫斯科在所謂「近鄰」地區主導地位計畫的頂峰。
習近平正在推行“亞洲人的亞洲”，這意味著由於華盛頓被驅逐，該地區將由北京統治。
伊朗花了二十年建立自己的中東帝國，直到去年才遭遇以色列的攻擊。
準專制的土耳其正試圖在北非至高加索地區恢復奧斯曼帝國的昔日輝煌。
多年來，美國一直抵制這些努力。 2015 年，時任副總統喬·拜登訪問烏克蘭時表示：
「我們不會承認任何擁有勢力範圍的國家。」
但隨著權力平衡的轉變，抵抗變得更加困難。而今天美國似乎不再完全反對利益範圍了。
川普表示，俄羅斯將會、而且或許應該控制烏克蘭大部分地區。
長期以來，川普一直對美國的聯盟承諾感到矛盾，這種承諾旨在阻止北京和莫斯科壓倒較弱的鄰國。他公開表示希望緩和獨裁者統治其地區的局勢。
同時，川普團隊正大肆宣揚「門羅主義2.0」：
甚至威脅使用軍事或經濟脅迫手段讓加拿大、格陵蘭和巴拿馬等鄰國屈服。
一個由大國制定規則並迫使弱國遵守的世界可能非常適合川普。
很難知道這會導致什麼結果。
現在分裂世界顯然不再像邱吉爾時代那麼容易了。
但不道德的交易和勢力範圍的回歸正變得越來越有可能。
它們的輪廓和意義是什麼？
川普會屈服嗎？
最容易想像這種安排是在歐洲發生的，川普似乎決心結束烏克蘭戰爭，並實現與俄羅斯關係正常化，幾乎不惜一切代價。
如果川普迫使基輔達成一項軟弱且無法執行的和平協議，莫斯科最終將獲得對該國大部分地區的控制權——無論是軍事上還是政治上。
由此，它可以把這場曾經看似必輸的侵略戰爭變成對其他不聽話的後蘇聯國家的教訓。
如今，普丁或川普都無權將半個非洲大陸交給俄羅斯。但大國協議將對恢復俄羅斯在歐洲東部邊緣的主導地位大有裨益。
其對應者可能是亞洲沿海地區的中國勢力範圍。
川普在經濟問題上是鷹派，
但在中國問題上卻是安全問題鴿派。
他曾毫不客氣地說，如果北京攻擊台灣，美國將無能為力。
中美協議可能使美國減少對台北的支持，為北京的併吞道路提供更清晰的指引。
同樣，減少美國在西太平洋的存在將鞏固中國在南海的主宰地位。
如果川普或未來的總統退出美國的印度-太平洋聯盟，從韓國到澳洲等國家將難以抵抗中國的脅迫。即使北京並不追求物理上的主導地位，它也可能要求該地區給予它更大的尊重。
在這種情況下，美國的勢力範圍不會消失：它將退回西半球。
美國將加倍努力消除北京的經濟、技術和軍事影響力，或許會讓中國退出新世界成為華盛頓退出舊世界的代價。
門羅2.0還可能包括採取更大力度的壓力來鞏固美國的主導地位，甚至擴大其領土——如果目標是加拿大或格陵蘭，那麼可能會消滅北約並加劇新的跨大西洋分歧。
因此，
新的勢力範圍將由大國之間的明確或隱性交易來建構。
美國將撤出歐亞大陸的戰略前沿，同時鞏固對西半球的控制。
它將不再與已開發民主國家結成深厚聯盟，
而是與莫斯科和北京建立更無情的交易關係。
這些新的關係可以透過川普所吹捧的軍備控制協議來鞏固，這將大幅削減美國的軍事開支，因為美國將不再保衛千里之外的國家。
事實上，這種方法的吸引力是顯而易見的，特別是對於一位公開擔心第三次世界大戰風險的總統來說。
軍事領域協議將會限制烏克蘭和台灣海峽局勢近期升級的危險。
這會暫時加大大國之間的距離。
難怪主張美國克制的人和國際關係「現實主義者」喜歡這樣的安排。
但其顯性和隱性成本都將十分嚴重。
分裂世界是危險的
「勢力範圍」是一個奇怪的、無趣的術語。
但當這一領域由暴力的、不自由的暴君統治時，這只不過是對選擇自由進行致命壓制的委婉說法而已。
我們知道，
如果烏克蘭落入莫斯科之手，等待它的將是什麼樣的恐怖——酷刑、大屠殺、強制俄羅斯化。
如果北京奪取了台灣，別指望它會表現得更好。
大國總是會影響小國的政治，因此預計俄羅斯或中國控制的地區的民主規範和自由將受到嚴重侵蝕。
全球經濟也不會繁榮。
有些人可能希望美國放棄對台灣的支持，以換取北京方面保證台灣高端半導體供應的承諾。
但隨著雄心勃勃的大國開始統治週邊地區，它們不可避免地會重新調整其經濟方向。隨著貿易和投資關係向北京傾斜，美國遲早會被排除在中國主導的東亞之外。
如果勢力範圍確實能帶來更大的國際穩定並降低戰爭風險，那麼這些成本與收益相比可能微不足道。但這說法值得仔細推敲。
瓜分世界比聽起來要難，尤其是因為那些被決定命運的國家也有發言權。
拉脫維亞和菲律賓或許無力逃脫大國的侵蝕。
但波蘭和日本並不是無能的微型國家，它們不會歡迎在由激烈的競爭對手統治的地區生活。
因此，他們很可能會發動戰爭，或是拼命爭取核武器，以維護自己的安全和獨立。
大國瓜分的世界可能會成為一個核子擴散猖獗的世界。
即使對華盛頓來說，危險也比看起來更大。
回想起來，學者們常常將冷戰以及蘇聯和美國勢力範圍的對立視為一個穩定的時代。
但事實並非如此。
軍事平衡的變化引發了高風險的危機——在北韓、柏林、古巴和其他地方——因為超級大國相互考驗彼此保衛各自領土的決心。
這段歷史對未來可能發生的事情提出了警告。
勢力範圍交易並不是神聖的。它們的持久性恰好與產生它們的力量的平衡一樣。因此，如果與莫斯科和北京的交易只是讓他們在重要地區佔據更加強勢，那麼這些交易可能標誌著他們顛覆現有秩序的開始，而不是結束。
如果普丁控制了烏克蘭，為什麼他不利用它作為進一步發展的墊腳石？
一旦中國控制了台灣，為什麼不利用其優勢對付其他脆弱國家？
如果中國最終統治了世界上最具活力的地區，為什麼它不利用由此產生的實力在中太平洋挑戰美國？
有什麼能夠阻止它違背避開西半球的承諾？
美國自身的歷史揭示了大國交易的短暫性：
當詹姆斯·門羅發表其同名主義時，他承諾，只要歐洲不介入美洲，美國也不會介入歐洲，只要這一承諾符合美國的利益，它就會一直有效。
根本問題在於，勢力範圍模型建立在對大國行為的錯誤假設之上。如果普丁和習近平都是謙虛的人，有著中等的野心，他們可能會對邊境的安全緩衝區感到滿意。
但與許多修正主義強國一樣，他們也被偉大意識形態和對榮耀的追求所驅使。
習近平的目標是讓中國成為最強大、最俱全球影響力的國家。隨著修正主義勢力逐漸消化新的收益，瓜分世界的做法或許能帶來暫時的穩定——但前提是它們準備好再次挑戰現狀。在未來，勢力範圍不是通往和平的道路，而是通往戰爭的道路。
目前這一切都只是假設。但隨著修正主義勢力的不斷推進以及美國阻止世界勢力範圍形成的決心逐漸減弱，世界勢力範圍的輪廓正變得越來越明顯。不幸的是，無論目前聽起來多麼誘人，這並不是美國人最終會喜歡的未來。
布蘭茲也是美國企業研究所的高級研究員、《危險地帶：即將到來的與中國的衝突》一書的合著者，以及宏觀諮詢夥伴公司的高級顧問。
彭博社觀點 Hal Brands 的更多評論：
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哈爾‧布蘭茲 (Hal Brands)是彭博觀點專欄作家，也是約翰霍普金斯大學高級國際研究學院亨利‧基辛格傑出教授。
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Emperor Xi and Tsar Putin may have a lot to celebrate.
Photographer: Pavel Byrkin /AFP/Getty Images
|Hal Brands, Columnist
The US Is Losing the Contest to Divide the World
Splitting the globe into spheres of influence with China and Russia is more likely to lead to war than peace.
By Hal Brands
Hal Brands is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and the Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.
It was a “naughty document,” Winston Churchill admitted. In October 1944, the British prime minister proposed that he and Soviet ruler Joseph Stalin avert postwar conflict by splitting the Balkan Peninsula into separate spheres. Russia would reign supreme in Romania and Bulgaria; Britain in Greece; Hungary and Yugoslavia would be divided 50-50.
The proposal was scandalous enough that Churchill suggested burning the document that he and Stalin had just agreed on. It “might be thought rather cynical” to settle the fates of millions “in such an offhand manner,” he worried. “No, you keep it,” Stalin replied.
Churchill never showed that document to US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was proclaiming America’s opposition to a peace based on spheres of influence. Yet the continent was soon divided, albeit along slightly different lines than Churchill had imagined. During the Cold War, Western Europe became an American sphere of influence; Eastern Europe was dominated by Moscow. Only when the Cold War ended, in a decisive Western triumph, was Eastern Europe freed.
In the heady, unipolar era that followed, the world seemed to have left such unseemly geopolitical arrangements behind. Today, however, it’s fair to wonder if the great powers might divide the world among them again.
China, Russia and lesser revisionists have been seeking regional spheres of influence for years. Under Donald Trump, it’s possible to imagine a US president going along. To be sure, Trump’s intentions are often mystifying. It’s hard to say what mix of creation and destruction his presidency will leave behind.
Yet many of Trump’s gut instincts — his ambivalence about US alliances, his yearning for good relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping — are well suited to spheres-of-influence diplomacy. He doesn’t seem averse to striking great-power bargains at the expense of weaker states. So it’s worth exploring what a world divided into spheres of influence might look like, not least because it would be darker, and more dangerous, than its proponents believe.
Protection for Profit
A sphere of influence is an arrangement in which a strong country dictates the destiny of a weaker one. Sometimes, spheres of influence involve the construction of formal empires or the outright conquest of territory. In other cases, they involve looser arrangements that still provide influence over a country’s policies and politics.
In recent decades, spheres of influence have indeed been a naughty notion. But historically, they aren’t unusual. The Delian League gave Athens sway across much of the ancient Greek world. European nations built vast spheres of influence in the age of Western imperialism.
As I recount in my new book, The Eurasian Century, the world wars of the 20th century were essentially fights over whether aggressive autocracies would be allowed to establish huge Old World empires. Moscow’s ruthless hegemony in Eastern Europe was at the center of the Cold War. Relationships of control, even domination, are simply normal in a cutthroat world.
Spheres of influence are so common because they typically offer four advantages to great powers: protection (a geographic buffer against rivals); projection (a secure base from which to project power farther afield); profit (privileged access to resources and markets); and prestige in a status-conscious world. And if every sphere of influence is different, they all limit the freedom of action of smaller states. That’s why the US has long been an unusual, ambivalent participant in the spheres-of-influence contest, even as it has played the game better than anyone else.
America’s Secret Empire
The US established a massive sphere of influence in the first 150 years of its history. It expanded across North America, then evicted European powers from Latin America en route to building a proprietary hemispheric domain. “The United States is practically sovereign on this continent, and its fiat is law upon the subjects to which it confines its interposition,” Secretary of State Richard Olney wrote in 1895 — a statement of imperial privilege if ever there was one.
The US tied Latin American economies to its own; it meddled pervasively in their politics and conducted dozens of military interventions against actual or potential threats. And if America began by creating a regional sphere of influence, in the 20th century it would take that project global.
During the Cold War, Washington forged alliance blocs comprising key countries in Western Europe and East Asia. It established networks of partners, clients and proxies in Africa, the Middle East and other regions. The US never had much of a formal empire. But these arrangements gave it immense, unrivaled influence over the politics, economies and diplomacy of countries around the world.
No surprise, then, that foreign observers — Churchill included — rolled their eyes when American presidents lectured them about the evils of imperialism. But those presidents could make three decent arguments for why America’s project was different from the rest.
A Single Superpower
For one thing, it was more voluntary. The US could be a heavy-handed hegemon in the Americas. But in Europe and Asia, it was asked to exert preeminent influence by countries that were existentially fearful of predators nearby. America, the scholar Geir Lundestad wrote, constructed an “empire by invitation.” To this day, Ukraine and other front-line states are desperate to get into Washington’s sphere of influence, not to stay out.
Second, the rise of America’s sphere of influence ensured the decline of far more brutal empires. Dominance in the Western Hemisphere allowed the US to intervene decisively in both world wars, because it was relatively untroubled by security threats close to home. In the Cold War, the US alliance system contained and outclassed the Soviet Union, delivering a free-world victory that freed Eastern Europe, as well.
Finally, if some spheres of influence are brutal and economically extractive, America’s mostly wasn’t: The US pursued a form of global leadership that benefited many countries and many people. Washington cultivated democratic values in areas under its influence. It fostered a global economy that enriched its participants. Rather than seizing and annexing territory, it worked, even fought, to make conquest — the worst form of imperial cruelty — a thing of the past.
After the Cold War, US officials argued that everyone would be safer under the leadership of a single, enlightened hegemon. By maintaining “strengths beyond challenge,” President George W. Bush explained, America would avoid “destabilizing arms races” and “destructive national rivalries.” Perhaps a world with only one sphere of influence — America’s — would be the best world of all.
The Dictators Fight Back
Others disagreed. A system with “one master, one sovereign” was dangerous, Putin declared in 2007. “The United States has overstepped its national borders in every way.” American hegemony was denying once-and-future empires like Russia and China the geopolitical privileges and the ideological security they craved. So they tried to recreate a spheres-of-influence world.
Putin’s war in Ukraine is the acme of a 25-year project to revive Moscow’s primacy in what Russians call its “near abroad.” Xi is pursuing “Asia for Asians,” code for a region in which Beijing rules because Washington has been banished. Iran spent two decades building its own Middle Eastern empire, before it ran into an Israeli buzzsaw last year. A quasi-autocratic Turkey is trying to restore old Ottoman glories from North Africa to the Caucasus.
For years, the US resisted these efforts. “We will not recognize any nation having a sphere of influence,” then-Vice President Joe Biden said while visiting Ukraine in 2015. But resistance became harder as the balance of power shifted. And today, the US doesn’t seem entirely opposed to spheres of interest anymore.
Trump has indicated that Russia will, and perhaps should, dominate large parts of Ukraine. He and several advisers have suggested that Taiwan will inevitably become Chinese. Trump has long been conflicted about the US alliance commitments that prevent Beijing and Moscow from steamrolling weaker neighbors. He openly desires de-escalation with autocrats pushing to rule their regions.
Meanwhile, Trump’s team is trumpeting “Monroe Doctrine 2.0”: It is even threatening to use military or economic coercion to bring neighbors like Canada, Greenland and Panama to heel. A world where great powers make the rules, and force weaker powers to follow them, would probably suit Trump just fine.
It is difficult to know where this will lead. It certainly isn’t as easy to divide the world as it was in Churchill’s day. But the return of sordid deals and spheres of influence is becoming more plausible. What might their contours and implications be?
Will Trump Give In?
It’s easiest to imagine such arrangements in Europe, where Trump seems determined to end the war in Ukraine, and normalize ties with Russia, at almost any cost. If Trump forces Kyiv into a weak, unenforceable peace deal, Moscow will eventually gain control — whether militarily or politically — over most of that country. It could thereby turn what once looked like a losing war of aggression into a lesson for what awaits other disobedient post-Soviet states.
Putin would surely consolidate his mastery in Belarus. And if a Ukraine deal was accompanied by US force reductions on the continent — or maybe an eventual withdrawal from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization — it would hypercharge Russian intimidation of exposed Eastern European states. Today, it isn’t within Putin’s power — or Trump’s — to deliver half the continent to Russia. But a great-power deal could go a long way toward restoring Russian primacy on Europe’s eastern edge.
The counterpart could be a Chinese sphere in littoral Asia. Trump is an economic hawk, but a security dove, on China. If Beijing attacks Taiwan, he once profanely remarked, there’s nothing America can do.
A Sino-American bargain could bring reduced US support for Taipei, giving Beijing a clearer path to annexation. Likewise, a reduction in US presence in the Western Pacific would consolidate China’s dominance of the South China Sea. And should Trump, or a future president, withdraw from America’s Indo-Pacific alliances, countries from South Korea to Australia would struggle to resist Chinese coercion. Even if Beijing doesn’t aspire to physical dominance, it could demand far greater deference from the region.
The American sphere of influence wouldn’t vanish in this scenario: It would retract to the Western Hemisphere. The US would redouble efforts to extirpate Beijing’s economic, technological and military influence, perhaps making Chinese retrenchment from the New World the price of Washington’s withdrawal from the Old. Monroe 2.0 could also include the use of far sharper pressures to lock in America’s dominance or even expand its territory — which, if Canada or Greenland were the targets, would probably finish off NATO and harden the new transatlantic divide.
The new spheres of influence would thus be structured by great-power deals, whether implicit or explicit. The US would pull back from the strategic frontiers of Eurasia, while consolidating its control of the Western Hemisphere. It would swap deep alliances with the advanced democracies for more ruthless, transactional ties to Moscow and Beijing. Those new ties could be consolidated through arms control agreements, of the sort Trump has touted, that would slash US military spending because America would no longer defend countries thousands of miles away.
Indeed, the attractions of this approach are obvious, particularly for a president who worries aloud about the risks of World War III. A spheres deal would limit the near-term danger of escalation in Ukraine or the Taiwan Strait. It would create greater distance, for a while, between the great powers. Little wonder that advocates of American restraint, and international relations “realists,” like such arrangements. But the costs, both obvious and hidden, would be severe.
Dividing the World Is Dangerous
“Spheres of influence” is a wonky, antiseptic term. But when the sphere in question is run by a violent, illiberal tyrant, it is simply a euphemism for the lethal suppression of freedom of choice. We know what horrors — torture, mass killings, forced Russification — await Ukraine if it falls to Moscow. Don’t expect Beijing to behave much better if it grabs Taiwan. Great powers invariably shape the politics of smaller powers, so expect a severe erosion of democratic norms and liberties in areas that Russia or China controls.
The global economy wouldn’t thrive, either. Some may hope that the US can trade away support for Taiwan in exchange for Beijing’s promise to keep the island’s high-end semiconductors flowing. But as ambitious powers come to rule their surrounding regions, they inevitably reorient their economies. Sooner or later, the US would be locked out of a Chinese-dominated East Asia, as trade and investment relationships pivoted toward Beijing.
These costs might pale compared with the benefits, if spheres of influence really created greater international stability and reduced the risks of war. Yet that claim deserves scrutiny.
Carving up the world is harder than it sounds, not least because the countries whose fates are being determined also get a say. Maybe Latvia or the Philippines can’t do much to escape encroaching great powers. But Poland and Japan aren’t impotent micro-states, and they won’t welcome life in regions ruled by bitter rivals. So they might well fight, or sprint for nuclear weapons, to preserve their security and independence.
A world apportioned among the great powers could be one in which nuclear proliferation runs rampant. Even for Washington, the dangers would be greater than they seem.
In hindsight, scholars often see the Cold War, with its rival Soviet and America spheres of influence, as an era of stability. That’s not how it really was. Shifts in the military balance produced high-stakes crises — in Korea, Berlin, Cuba and elsewhere — as the superpowers tested each other’s resolve to defend their respective domains. This history offers a warning of what might lie ahead.
Spheres-of-influence deals are not sacred. They are precisely as durable as the balance of forces that produces them. So if bargains with Moscow and Beijing simply give them stronger positions in vital regions, those deals might mark the beginning, not the end, of their quests to upend the existing order.
If Putin dominates Ukraine, why wouldn’t he use it as a stepping-stone to further advances? Once China controls Taiwan, why not press its advantage against other vulnerable states? And if China comes to rule the world’s most dynamic region, why wouldn’t it use the resulting power to challenge America in the Central Pacific? What would stop it from reneging on its commitment to steer clear of the Western Hemisphere?
America’s own history reveals the evanescence of great-power bargains: When James Monroe issued his eponymous doctrine, he pledged to stay out of Europe if Europe stayed out of the Americas, a promise that held exactly as long as it suited US interests.
The fundamental problem is that the spheres-of-influence model rests on lousy assumptions about great-power behavior. If Putin and Xi were modest men, with middling ambitions, they might be satisfied with security buffers along their borders.
But they, like many revisionist powers, are driven by ideologies of greatness and quests for glory. Xi aims to make China the mightiest, most globally influential state. A divide-the-world approach might deliver temporary stability, as revisionist powers digest new gains — but only until they are ready to challenge the status quo again. In this future, spheres of influence aren’t the path to peace but the road to war.
This is all hypothetical, for the moment. But the outlines of a spheres-of-influence world are becoming more visible, as revisionist powers push ahead and America’s commitment to preventing such a world wanes. Unfortunately, that’s not a future Americans will ultimately enjoy living in, no matter how tempting it may, at the moment, sound.
Brands is also a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, the co-author of “Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China,” and a senior adviser to Macro Advisory Partners.
More From Hal Brands at Bloomberg Opinion:
- Every President Has a Foreign Policy. Trump Has Five
- The Man Who Predicted Today’s World Over a Century Ago
- Pete Hegseth Is Closing a Pentagon Office That Wins Wars
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This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Hal Brands is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and the Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.
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