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川普2.0從理查尼克森那裡借鏡了許多Trump 2.0 borrows a ton from Richard Nixon
但第 37 任總統的策略也存在很大風險But the 37th president’s playbook also has big risks
尼爾·弗格森NIALL FERGUSON
2025 年 3 月 7 日MAR 07, 2025
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2323
二十五25
《紐約郵報》，2025 年 3 月 6 日
您已在政治舞台上成功回歸。您對華盛頓的官僚主義深表懷疑。您鄙視自由派菁英和他們控制的媒體，尤其是電視網絡和《紐約時報》。
你們正試圖讓美國擺脫一場你們沒有發起的戰爭，你們認為這場戰爭消耗了美國的資源。你剛剛給你的盟友帶來了巨大的震驚。你確實希望他們在安全方面減少對美國的依賴。您也想利用美國製造業來對抗他們的競爭。你的目標是實現以色列與其他國家在中東的和平。而你們正試圖離間俄羅斯和中國的關係，並利用這一點來為自己謀利。
恭喜你，唐納德·川普：你正式成為理查德·尼克森的復仇者。自 1974 年 8 月尼克森被迫辭職以來，很少有總統試圖效仿尼克森。但你卻要這麼做。從很多方面來說你這樣做都是正確的。你只是需要小心謹慎。理查如今沒有被人們深情懷念是有原因的──除了你。
我的許多歐洲朋友都對過去兩週發生的事件感到震驚。他們與許多美國盟友在 1971 年 8 月 15 日星期日晚上的感受如出一轍，當時尼克森總統在電視上宣布對所有進口商品徵收 10% 的附加稅、暫停美元與黃金的兌換、以及 90 天的工資和價格凍結。
「尼克森衝擊」是對歐洲美元持有者拋售黃金以及美國通膨上升的回應。但它有一個地緣政治對應。一個月前的 7 月 15 日，尼克森宣布他將於隔年訪問共產主義中國，這在日本和台灣引起了不亞於一個月後美元貶值的震驚。
除書籍外，我的所有作品都落入了尼爾·弗格森的時間機器的懷抱。其中一些是免費的，一些可透過出版物付費牆訪問，一些僅供訂閱者使用。但一切都在這裡。
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川普衝擊
自 2 月 18 日以來，我們看到的是川普衝擊。首先，川普指責烏克蘭總統澤倫斯基發動烏克蘭戰爭並稱之為獨裁者。十天后，在橢圓形辦公室，川普和副總統JD Vance嚴厲斥責澤連斯基忘恩負義，並將他趕出白宮。 3月4日，川普「暫停」對烏克蘭的軍事援助。同一天，他兌現了對加拿大和墨西哥徵收25%關稅的威脅。
這讓美國的盟友感到震驚，尤其是在歐洲，即將上任的德國總理弗里德里希·梅爾茨用極為強烈的言辭譴責川普，呼籲「真正脫離美國而獨立」。
歐洲沒有人真正了解美烏礦產協議，也不知道為什麼該協議上週沒有簽署，也不知道川普為什麼要讓澤連斯基自食其力。但歐洲人最終意識到，歐洲的防禦責任在他們身上。依靠山姆大叔核能的時代已經結束了。從這個意義上來說，川普的震撼戰術是有效的。
歐洲人感到困惑的原因是，他們認為川普想當世界皇帝，而實際上川普烏克蘭政策的關鍵或許不是傲慢，而是軟弱。
一種可能性是，川普和他最親密的顧問們清楚地看到了美國立場的弱點：財政過度緊張，因為我們的債務利息支出超過了國防支出，而軍事緊張則是由於我們任由國防工業製造基礎萎縮。
自 1974 年 8 月尼克森被迫辭職以來，很少有總統試圖效法他。 Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
請注意，兩週前，萬斯在抨擊我批評總統的烏克蘭政策時所使用的語言：「尼爾是否了解當地的現實情況，是否了解俄羅斯的數量優勢，是否了解歐洲的庫存枯竭或他們更加枯竭的工業基礎？」請注意埃隆·馬斯克最近與雷·達裡奧在網上的辯論，討論中國製造業產量相對於美國及其盟友及其盟友有多大。
歐洲人對俄羅斯和烏克蘭十分著迷。但在我看來，川普政府更關心中國。 「我可以告訴你什麼，」川普總統上週表示。 「我和習近平主席關係很好。我和他關係一直很好。我們希望他們來投資…我們與中國的關係將非常好。」正如哈佛大學的 Graham Allison 所指出的，儘管川普政府已經加徵關稅並加強了技術限制，但川普本人也在對中國甜言蜜語。
那麼川普想去北京讓你想起了什麼？越來越多的評論家注意到川普戰略中存在尼克森主義的因素。川普第一任期內國家安全委員會的關鍵人物納迪亞·沙德洛指出，尼克森也相信「我們的外國朋友應該更負責任地參與」自身的國防，並以權力平衡為基礎制定外交政策。羅斯杜塞特在《紐約時報》上撰文指出，川普受益於尼克森的外交政策寫實主義。前希臘財政部長亞尼斯·瓦魯法基斯認為，我們正以美元貶值的形式走向新版「尼克森衝擊」。
華盛頓流傳的關鍵觀點是，川普正試圖（用愛德華·勒特瓦克的話來說）採取“反向尼克森策略”，以“將普丁從北京拉出來”。尼克森訪華是為了利用中蘇關係破裂的機會，而「川普則發現了一個機會，他意識到普丁在烏克蘭問題上追求有利結果，這是一個讓他與北京疏遠的機會。」曾在川普第一屆政府國務院任職的拉塞爾·伯曼和基倫·斯金納在《美國觀察家》上發表了同樣的觀點。
“你是一個偉大的人”
川普與尼克森的類比也有一個國內層面。川普最近在 Truth Social 上發文表示：「拯救國家的人不會違反任何法律。」這句話通常被認為是拿破崙說的。但尼克森在 1977 年的一次採訪中對戴維弗羅斯特說了一句名言：“當總統這樣做時，那就意味著這並不違法。”
川普和尼克森的關係源遠流長。 1982 年 6 月，川普寫信給這位前總統說：「我認為您是這個國家最偉大的人物之一，能與您共度一個夜晚是我的榮幸。」在尼克森的晚年，他們是定期通訊員。 1987 年 12 月，尼克森告訴川普，他的妻子帕特在菲爾多納休的脫口秀節目中看到了川普。 “你可以想像，”他寫道，“她是一位政治專家，她預測，無論你何時決定競選公職，你都會成為贏家！”
1993 年，川普在尼克森 80 歲生日之際對他說道：“你是一位偉人，我一直以來都將對你懷有無比的敬意和欽佩。我很自豪認識你。”
而川普隨後的職業生涯也常常與尼克森相呼應——尤其是他在第一任期內險遭彈劾，以及去年令人驚訝的政治復出，堪比 1968 年尼克森從政治墳墓中回歸。正如哈佛大學法學教授傑克·戈德史密斯最近對《紐約客》所說，川普第二屆政府所做的大部分事情都可以看作是持續努力，以恢復行政部門的權力，使其回到 1972 年的水平，當時尼克森（右圖）正處於權力的巔峰。尼克森曾提出「扣押」問題，即總統有權不使用國會撥出的資金，但國會在 1974 年否決了這個問題。
模仿尼克森的麻煩是顯而易見的。事情沒有好結果。隨著固定匯率體系的瓦解，美元開始下跌。 1973 年贖罪日戰爭爆發後，阿拉伯 OPEC 國家紛紛提高石油價格——這是美國政府實施而非由美國政府發起的衝擊。 1974年8月8日，尼克森因水門事件被迫辭職時，美國經濟已陷入衰退，失業率迅速上升，通貨膨脹率高達11%。標普 500 指數從 1972 年 11 月尼克森取得壓倒性勝利後的最高點下跌了 46%，至 1974 年 9 月的最低點。
但對川普總統來說，真正大的問題是尼克森的大戰略比看起來更難。在我看來，只要習近平和普丁在北京和莫斯科發號施令，中俄分裂的可能性就很低。畢竟，中蘇分裂並不是尼克森一手造成的。在他入主白宮之前，蘇聯和中華人民共和國就已經瀕臨邊境敵對狀態。
太平洋軍事演習
正如謝爾蓋·拉德琴科（Sergey Radchenko）在其傑作《統治世界》中所指出的，兩大共產主義政權在 20 世紀 60 年代對彼此產生了強烈的反感，因此在他們看來，冷戰主要是他們之間的競爭，而不是與美國的競爭。
如果烏克蘭最終成為川普（或許是萬斯）的南越，正如威廉·麥格恩所說，那麼這個類比就不太有吸引力了。
尼克森對三角關係的其他成員不抱有任何幻想。他了解蘇聯和「中國共產黨」的真面目。相較之下，川普有時似乎過於信任他的俄羅斯同行。他或許也低估了習近平抵制其花言巧語的能力。如果——這似乎很有可能——中國在川普任內對台灣採取行動，或許只是「隔離」該島，那麼川普究竟會怎麼做？
台灣問題引發的海軍對決的影響確實令人擔憂。在近年來大多數公開的軍事演習中，美國都在竭盡全力戰勝中國。在去年國際戰略研究中心組織的演習中，美國在「衝突開始的第一周內」就用完了遠程反艦飛彈。在尼克森時代的任何超級大國較量中，這種情形都是不可想像的。
在川普2.0的外交政策中，我更希望雷根比尼克森更能發揮作用。但我認同總統的觀點：與 20 世紀 70 年代初一樣，今天美國的權力確實有其限制。挑戰在於學習理查尼克森的經驗 — — 但不要最後被教訓。
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尼爾·弗格森的「時間機器」將歷史視角應用於當代經濟和政治議題，因為你看得越遠，就能看得越遠。Niall Ferguson's Time Machine applies historical perspective to contemporary problems in economics and politics, because the further back you look, the further ahead you can see.
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塞繆爾·施圖勒Samuel Stuller
3月7日3月7日
尼克森外交政策的關鍵部分是由基辛格博士制定和實施的。恕我直言，盧比歐先生並不是像基辛格那樣的人物。這可能是最重要的事實，可能會導致政策朝著與計劃不同的方向發展。The crucial part of Nixon's foreign policy was developed and implemented by Dr Kissinger. With all due respect, Mr Rubio is not a Kissinger-like figure. This may be the most important fact that could lead policy in a different direction than planned.
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維克Vic
3月7日3月7日
這太完美了。它以基辛格所推薦的方式描述現實和現實。經歷過尼克森時代，從多個方面近距離觀察過這段時期後，我越來越明顯地認識到，尼爾·弗格森是一位傑出的歷史和現代嚮導。他即將出版的亨利·基辛格傳記將是一部傑作。This is perfect. It describes reality and reality in the way that Kissinger would have recommended. Having lived throught the Nixon years, and seen them closeup in several ways, it becomes more and more evident that Niall Ferguson is a brilliant guide to history and to the present. His upcoming biography of Henry Kissinger should be a masterwork.
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這不是“道德廢話”，而是一個慘痛而現實的歷史教訓：戰爭容易發起，卻難以結束。
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Trump 2.0 borrows a ton from Richard Nixon
But the 37th president’s playbook also has big risks
NIALL FERGUSON
MAR 07, 2025
206
23
25
New York Post, March 6, 2025
You’ve made a huge political comeback. You’re deeply suspicious of the Washington bureaucracy. You’re contemptuous of liberal elites and the media they control, especially TV networks and The New York Times.
You’re trying to get America out of a war you didn’t start and which you regard as a drain on US resources. You’ve just delivered a massive shock to your allies. You really want them to rely less on the US for their security. You also want to counter their competition with US manufacturing. You’re aiming to achieve peace in the Middle East between Israel and everyone else. And you’re seeking to drive a wedge between Russia and China and exploit it to your advantage.
Congratulations, Donald Trump: You are officially Richard Nixon’s revenge. Not many presidents have sought to emulate Nixon since he was forced to resign in disgrace in August 1974. But you are going there. And in many ways you are right to do so. You just need to tread warily. There is a reason Richard is not fondly remembered today — except by you.
Many of my European friends are reeling from the events of the past two weeks. They feel the way many US allies felt on the night of Sunday, Aug. 15, 1971, after President Nixon had gone on TV to announce a 10% surcharge on all imports, a supposedly temporary suspension of the convertibility of the dollar into gold, and a 90-day wage and price freeze.
The “Nixon Shock” was in response to a run on gold by European holders of dollars, as well as a rise in US inflation. But it had a geopolitical counterpart. Nixon’s announcement a month earlier, on July 15, that he would be visiting Communist China the following year was as big a shock in Japan and Taiwan as the dollar devaluation a month later.
Niall Ferguson's Time Machine is where all my writing lands, except the books. Some of it’s free, some of it’s accessible via publication paywalls, some of it’s for subscribers only. But it’s all here.
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The Trump Shock
What we have seen since Feb. 18 has been the Trump Shock. It began with Trump blaming Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for starting the war in Ukraine and being a dictator. Ten days later, in the Oval Office, Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance chewed Zelensky out for ingratitude and showed him the door. On March 4 Trump “paused” military aid to Ukraine. On the same day, he carried out his threat to impose 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico.
This has left American allies reeling, especially in Europe, where the incoming German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has used remarkably strong language to condemn Trump, calling for “real independence from the USA.”
No one in Europe really understands the US-Ukraine minerals deal, nor why it didn’t get signed last week, nor why Trump is hanging Zelensky out to dry. But the Europeans finally get that European defense is on them. The years of riding on Uncle Sam’s nuclear coattails are over. In that sense, Trump’s shock tactics worked.
The reason the Europeans are baffled is that they think Trump wants to be emperor of the world — whereas the key to Trump’s Ukraine policy may not be hubris, but on the contrary a sense of weakness.
One possibility is that Trump and his closest advisers see clearly the weakness of the US position: the fiscal overstretch, now that we are spending more on interest on the debt than on defense, and the military understretch since we allowed our defense-industrial manufacturing base to shrivel.
Not many presidents have sought to emulate Nixon since he was forced to resign in disgrace in August 1974. Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
Note the language Vance used when slamming me for criticizing the president’s Ukraine policy on X two weeks ago: “Is [Niall] aware of the reality on the ground, of the numerical advantage of the Russians, of the depleted stock of the Europeans or their even more depleted industrial base?” Note Elon Musk’s recent online debate with Ray Dalio on just how big Chinese manufacturing production is relative to the US and its allies.
Europeans obsess about Russia and Ukraine. But to my eyes, the Trump administration is more concerned about China. “I can tell you what,” President Trump said last week. “I have a great relationship with President Xi. I’ve had a great relationship with him. We want them to come in and invest. . . . The relationship we’ll have with China will be a very good one.” As Harvard’s Graham Allison has noted, Trump himself has been sweet-talking China, even as his administration has slapped on tariffs and tightened up tech restrictions.
Now what does Trump’s desire to go to Beijing remind you of? More and more commentators are spotting the Nixonian elements of Trump’s strategy. Nadia Schadlow, a key figure on the National Security Council in Trump’s first term, has noted how Nixon also believed in “more responsible participation by our foreign friends” in their own defense and based his foreign policy on the balance of power. Writing in The New York Times, Ross Douthat noted Trump’s debt to Nixon’s foreign policy realism. Former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis thinks we are heading for a new version of the Nixon Shock in the form of dollar devaluation.
The key idea doing the rounds in Washington is that Trump is attempting (in Edward Luttwak’s words) a “reverse-Nixon maneuver” to “prise Putin from Beijing.” Whereas Nixon went to China to exploit the Sino-Soviet split, “Trump has spotted [an] opportunity, realizing that in Putin’s pursuit of a favorable outcome in Ukraine there is an opportunity to detach him from Beijing.” Russell Berman and Kiron Skinner, who both served at the State Department in Trump’s first administration, make the same point in the American Spectator.
‘You are a great man’
There is a domestic dimension to the Trump-Nixon analogy, too. “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” Trump recently posted on Truth Social. It’s a phrase usually attributed to Napoleon. But Nixon famously told David Frost in a 1977 interview, “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.”
Trump and Nixon go way back. “I think that you are one of this country’s great men, and it was an honor to spend an evening with you,” Trump wrote to the former president in June 1982. They were regular correspondents in Nixon’s twilight years. In December 1987, Nixon told Trump that his wife Pat had seen Trump on Phil Donahue’s talk show. “As you can imagine,” he wrote, “she is an expert on politics and she predicts that whenever you decide to run for office you will be a winner!”
“You are a great man,” Trump told Nixon on the occasion of his 80th birthday in 1993, “and I have had and always will have the utmost respect and admiration for you. I am proud to know you.”
And Trump’s subsequent career has often echoed Nixon’s — not least his brushes with impeachment in his first term and his astonishing political comeback last year, which rivaled Nixon’s return from the political grave in 1968. As Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith told The New Yorker recently, much of what the second Trump administration is doing can be seen as a sustained effort to restore the powers of the executive branch to where they were in 1972, when Nixon (pictured right) was at the height of his power. The question of “impoundment” — the president’s right not to spend funds Congress has appropriated — was one Nixon raised, only to have Congress slap it down in 1974.
The trouble with emulating Nixon is obvious. It didn’t end well. As the system of fixed exchange rates unraveled, the dollar slid. The outbreak of the Yom Kippur War in 1973 was followed by the Arab OPEC countries’ oil price hike — a shock administered to rather than by the US government. By the time Nixon was forced to resign over Watergate on Aug. 8, 1974, the US economy was in recession, with unemployment rising rapidly, and inflation at 11%. The S&P 500 declined 46% from its peak in the aftermath of Nixon’s landslide victory in November 1972 to its nadir in September 1974.
But the really big problem for President Trump is that Nixonian grand strategy is harder than it looks. To my mind, the probability of a Sino-Russian split must be very low as long as Xi and Putin are calling the shots in Beijing and Moscow. After all, it’s not as if Nixon brilliantly created the Sino-Soviet split. The USSR and the PRC were already close to border hostilities before he even entered the White House.
Pacific war games
As Sergey Radchenko shows in his brilliant book “To Run the World,” the two great communist regimes developed an obsessive antipathy toward one another during the 1960s, so that the Cold War in their minds became principally a competition between themselves, not against the US.
And it’s hardly an appealing analogy if Ukraine is going to end up being Trump’s (or maybe Vance’s) South Vietnam, as William McGurn has suggested.
Nixon had no illusions about the other members of the triangle. He knew the Soviets and the “Chicoms” for what they were. At times, by contrast, Trump seems too trusting of his Russian counterpart. And he may also underestimate Xi’s ability to resist his blandishments. If — as seems all too plausible — China makes a move against Taiwan on Trump’s watch, perhaps by simply “quarantining” the island, what exactly will Trump do?
The implications of a naval showdown over Taiwan are truly concerning. In most publicly known war games in recent years, the US struggles to prevail over China. In one game last year, organized by the Center for International and Strategic Studies, the US ran out of long-range anti-ship missiles “within the first week of the conflict.” That would not have been a conceivable scenario in any of the superpower showdowns in Nixon’s time.
I would have preferred more Reagan than Nixon in the foreign policy of Trump 2.0. But I take the president’s point that, as in the early 1970s, there are real limits to American power today. The challenge is to take a leaf out of Richard Nixon’s book — without in the end having the book thrown at you.
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Samuel Stuller
3月7日
The crucial part of Nixon's foreign policy was developed and implemented by Dr Kissinger. With all due respect, Mr Rubio is not a Kissinger-like figure. This may be the most important fact that could lead policy in a different direction than planned.
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Vic
3月7日
This is perfect. It describes reality and reality in the way that Kissinger would have recommended. Having lived throught the Nixon years, and seen them closeup in several ways, it becomes more and more evident that Niall Ferguson is a brilliant guide to history and to the present. His upcoming biography of Henry Kissinger should be a masterwork.
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