How Sharp Power Threatens Soft P

The Right and Wrong Ways to Respond to Authoritarian Influence

应对威权政权影响的正确途径与错误方法

(翻译Foreign Affairs上的约瑟夫奈的文章)

Washington has been wrestling with a new term that describes an old threat.“Sharp power,”as coined by Christopher Walker and Jessica Ludwig of the National Endowment for Democracy(writing for ForeignAffairs.com and in a longer report),refers to the information warfare being waged by today’s authoritarian powers,particularly China and Russia. Over the past decade,Beijing and Moscow have spent tens of billions of dollars to shape public perceptions and behavior around the world—using tools new and old that exploit the asymmetry of openness between their own restrictive systems and democratic societies. The effects are global,but in the United States,concern has focused on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and on Chinese efforts to control discussion of sensitive topics in American publications,movies,and classrooms.

华盛顿最近一直与一个描述旧威胁的新名词摔跤，锐实力，这个概念由国家民主基金会的Christopher Walker和Jessica Ludwig创造，指由今天的威权政府，特别是俄罗斯和中国，发动并资助的舆论争夺。北京和莫斯科花费数百亿美元的巨资，使用各种老工具和新办法，利用它们国家不自由社会与民主社会的信息开放的不对称，来塑造世界各地的公众的看法和行为。这个现象是全球性的，但在美国，人们主要关注俄罗斯对2016年总统大选的影响，以及中国试图限制美国的出版物，电影和学校讨论敏感话题。

In their National Endowment for Democracy report,Walker and Ludwig argue that the expansion and refinement of Chinese and Russian sharp power should prompt policymakers in the United States and other democracies to rethink the tools they use to respond. They contrast sharp power,which“pierces,penetrates,or perforates the political and information environments in the targeted countries,”with“soft power,”which harnesses the allure of culture and values to enhance a country’s strength. And democracies,they argue,must not just“inoculate themselves against malign authoritarian influence”but also“take a far more assertive posture on behalf of their own principles.”

在他们提交到国家民主基金会的报告中，Walker和Ludwig论证说中国和俄罗斯的锐实力的扩张和精耕细作应该促使美国和其他民主国家的政策制定者们反思他们应对的方法。Walker和Ludwig对比了刺入，渗透和攻破目标国家的政治和舆论环境的锐实力和利用文化和价值观的诱惑力来加强一个国家的力量。他们强调说，民主世界不应该满足于给自己接种疫苗来预防恶性的集权病毒，而是采取更积极主动的姿态来捍卫我们的价值观。

Today,the challenge posed by Chinese and Russian information warfare is real. Yet in the face of that challenge,democratic governments and societies should avoid any temptation to imitate the methods of their adversaries. That means taking care not to overreact to sharp power in ways that undercut their true advantage. Even today,that advantage comes from soft power.

今天， 中国和俄罗斯引发的舆论挑战是实实在在的。然而，面对挑战，我们的政府和社会需要遏制住模仿我们的对手的冲动。这意味着，我们要如履薄冰，避免过度反应而削弱我们的优势。尽管这优势来自于软实力。

THE STAYING POWER OF SOFT POWER

In international politics,soft power(a term I first used in a 1990 book)is the ability to affect others by attraction and persuasion rather than through the hard power of coercion and payment. Soft power is rarely sufficient on its own. But when coupled with hard power,it is a force multiplier. That combination,though hardly new(the Roman Empire rested on both the strength of Rome’s legions and the attractions of Rome’s civilization),has been particularly central to U.S. leadership. Power depends on whose army wins,but it also depends on whose story wins. A strong narrative is a source of power.

国际政治中，软实力（我1990年写的一本书中提出的概念）是用吸引和劝说来影响其他人的能力，对比硬实力的胁迫和收买。只有软实力是不够的，但当与硬实力一起使用时，软实力是力量倍增器。他们的组合不是新的（罗马帝国依靠罗马军团和文化的吸引力），是美国全球领导力的核心。全球影响力来自于军事力量，更依赖于谁的故事讲得好。强的说服力是力量的源泉。

Soft power is not good or bad in itself. It is not necessarily better to twist minds than to twist arms. Osama bin Laden neither threatened nor paid the men who flew aircraft into the World Trade Center—he had attracted them with his ideas. But although soft power can be used to evil ends,its means depend on voluntarism,which is preferable from the point of view of human autonomy.

软实力本身不分好坏。洗脑不一定比强迫更有效。本拉登即没有威胁，也没有收买开飞机撞向世贸中心的人，他用自己的理想来吸引他们。尽管软实力会为邪恶之人所利用，它本意是指调动个人的积极性，从人的自由意志的观点来看，它是更好的。

Hard power,by contrast,rests on inducements by payment or coercion by threat. If someone puts a gun to your head and demands your wallet,it does not matter what you want or think. That is hard power. If that person is trying to persuade you to freely give up your wallet,everything depends on what you want or think. That is soft power.

相反，硬实力依靠利益诱导和武力威胁胁迫。如果有人拿枪指着你的脑袋要你的钱包，他不在乎你怎么想。这就是硬实力。如果这个人试图说服你自愿交出钱包，他需要考虑你喜欢什么，心里想什么。这是软实力。

Sharp power,the deceptive use of information for hostile purposes,is a type of hard power. The manipulation of ideas,political perceptions,and electoral processes has a long history. Both the United States and the Soviet Union resorted to such methods during the Cold War. Authoritarian governments have long tried to use fake news and social disruption to reduce the attractiveness of democracy. In the 1980s,the KGB seeded the rumor that AIDS was the product of U.S. government experiments with biological weapons;the rumor started with an anonymous letter to a small New Delhi newspaper and then was propagated globally by widespread reproduction and constant repetition. In 2016,an updated version of the same technique was used to create“Pizzagate,”the false rumor that Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager had abused children in a Washington restaurant.

锐实力，使用欺骗性的信息来实现带有敌意的目的，是一种硬实力。操控思想，政治欺骗，操作选举过程由来已久。冷战期间，美国和苏联都这么做。威权政府一直以来使用虚假信息和社会扰乱来降低民主的吸引力。1980年代，克格勃播种了谣言说艾滋病是美国政府生物武器实验的产品。他们寄给新德里的一家小报一封匿名信，之后谣言传遍全球。2016年，他们用类似的手法，操作上更精细，创造了“披萨门”，造谣说希拉里克林顿的竞选经理在华盛顿的一家餐厅虐待儿童。

What’s new is not the basic model;it’s the speed with which such disinformation can spread and the low cost of spreading it. Electrons are cheaper,faster,safer,and more deniable than spies. With its armies of paid trolls and botnets,along with outlets such as Russia Today(RT)and Sputnik,Russian intelligence,after hacking into the e-mails of the Democratic National Committee and senior Clinton campaign officials,could distract and disrupt news cycles week after week.

锐实力的手法并不是新的，值得我们注意的是虚假信息传播的速度和成本的低廉。电子信息传播比间谍传播更便宜，更快，更安全和更难否认。有雇佣的网上水军，在美国的媒体如Russia Today, Sputnik的帮助，俄罗斯情报机构，侵入了民主党全国委员会和克林顿竞选团队的电子邮箱，影响和扰乱美国的新闻舆论。

But if sharp power has disrupted Western democratic processes and tarnished the brand of democratic countries,it has done little to enhance the soft power of its perpetrators—and in some cases it has done the opposite. For Russia,which is focused on playing a spoiler role in international politics,that could be an acceptable cost. China,however,has other aims that require the soft power of attraction as well as the coercive sharp power of disruption and censorship. These two goals are hard to combine. In Australia,for example,public approval of China was growing,until increasingly alarming accounts of its use of sharp power tools,including meddling in Australian politics,set it back considerably. Overall,China spends $10 billion a year on its soft power instruments,according to George Washington University’s David Shambaugh,but it has gotten minimal return on its investment. The“Soft Power 30”index ranks China 25th(and Russia 26th)out of 30 countries assessed.

锐实力已经干扰了西方的民主选举，玷污了西方民主的声誉，却无助于提高肇事者的软实力，某些情况下甚至会有相反的效果。俄罗斯，只是想在国际政治中扮演搅局者的角色，代价是可以接受的。中国，既想提高文化吸引力，又要锐实力。两者鱼和熊掌，难以兼得。例如，随着中国不断的利用锐实力，搅局澳大利亚的政治，澳大利亚的民众对中国的好感停止增加，而且倒退了不少。根据乔治华盛顿大学的David Shambaugh的研究，中国每年花费100亿美元构建软实力，却收效甚微。软实力排名把中国排在三十个国家中的25位（俄罗斯26）。

THE DEMOCRAT’S DILEMMA

民主的困境

Although sharp power and soft power work in very different ways,the distinction between them can be hard to discern—and that’s part of what makes responding to sharp power difficult. All persuasion involves choices about how to frame information. Only when that framing shades into deception,which limits the subject’s voluntary choices,does it cross the line into coercion. It is this quality—openness and limits on deliberate deception—that distinguishes soft from sharp power. Unfortunately,it is not always easy to see.

尽管锐实力和软实力的工作机理完全不同，却很难辨别它们，这就是反制（中俄）锐实力（扩张）困难的部分原因。说服就是选择如何曲解信息。只有当曲解变成了欺骗，也就是限制对象的主观选择，它才越界变成威逼。正是公开性和限制故意的欺骗，使软实力区别于锐实力。可惜的是，通常情况下，它们很难区分。

In public diplomacy,when Moscow’s RT or Beijing’s Xinhua broadcasts openly in other countries,it is employing soft power,which should be accepted even if the message is unwelcome. When China Radio International covertly backs radio stations in other countries,that crosses the line into sharp power,which should be exposed. Without proper disclosure,the principle of voluntarism has been breached.(The distinction applies to U.S. diplomacy as well: during the Cold War,secret funding for anticommunist parties in the 1948 Italian election and the CIA’s covert support to the Congress for Cultural Freedom were examples of sharp power,not soft power.)

在公开的外交上，莫斯科的RT或北京的新华社在其他国家公开广播，是利用软实力，尽管我们不欢迎他们的报道，它们的做法会被接受。当中国国际广播电台秘密地资助其他国家的电台，这越界成了锐实力，需要被曝光。没有适当的信息公开，就违背了自由选择的原则（这也适用于美国外交，冷战期间，美国秘密资助了1948年意大利选举的反共产党政党，CIA对文化自由会议的暗中支持）。

Today’s information environment introduces additional complications. In the 1960s,the broadcaster Edward R. Murrow noted that the most important part of international communications was not the ten thousand miles of electronics,but the final three feet of personal contact. But what does that mean in a world of social media?“Friends”are a click away,and fake friends are easy to fabricate;they can propagate fake news generated by paid trolls and mechanical bots. Discerning the dividing line between soft and sharp power online has become a task not only for governments and the press but also for the private sector.

今天的信息传播更加复杂，1960年代，电台主播Edward R. Murrow注意到国际间的信息传播最重要的不是一万英里的电缆，而是最后三英尺的人对人的传播。在现在的大众传媒时代，情况会怎样呢？轻轻一点，就可以联系到朋友，假冒朋友非常容易，它们（对手）可以用雇佣的水军和网络机器人传播假消息。区分软实力和锐实力不仅是政府和媒体的难题，也是公司的挑战。

As democracies respond to sharp power,they have to be careful not to overreact,so as not to undercut their own soft power by following the advice of those who advocate competing with sharp power on the authoritarian model. Much of this soft power comes from civil societies—in the case of Washington,Hollywood,universities,and foundations more than official public diplomacy efforts—and closing down access or ending openness would waste this crucial asset. Authoritarian countries such as China and Russia have trouble generating their own soft power precisely because of their unwillingness to free the vast talents of their civil societies.

当民主国家应对锐实力时，它们需要谨慎行事，切勿过度反应，过度反应会削弱自己的软实力，虽然一些人建议使用威权体制的行事风格来与它们竞争。软实力大部分的影响力来自于公民社会，例如，华盛顿，好莱坞，大学，基金会传播民主自由比官方的外交政策更有效，限制新闻和言论自由会使这些民间的文化传播大使失效。威权国家如中国，俄罗斯无法精准地扩大软实力，是因为它们不愿意释放公民社会的潜力。

Moreover,shutting down legitimate Chinese and Russian soft power tools can be counterproductive. Like any form of power,soft power is often used for competitive zero-sum purposes,but it can also have positive-sum effects. For example,if China and the United States wish to avoid conflict,exchange programs that increase American attraction to China,and vice versa,can be good for both countries. And on transnational challenges such as climate change,soft power can help build the trust and networks that make cooperation possible. Yet as much as it would be a mistake to prohibit Chinese soft power efforts simply because they sometimes shade into sharp power,it is important to monitor the dividing line carefully. Take the 500 Confucius Institutes and 1,000 Confucius classrooms that China supports in universities and schools around the world to teach Chinese language and culture. Government backing does not mean they are necessarily a sharp power threat. The BBC also gets government backing but is independent enough to remain a credible soft power instrument. Only when a Confucius Institute crosses the line and tries to infringe on academic freedom(as has occurred in some instances)should it be treated as sharp power.

进一步讲，关闭中国和俄罗斯在美国的合法媒体会适得其反。与硬实力一样，软实力常用作零和竞争，但有时会双赢。例如，如果中国和美国希望避免冲突，交换生项目可以提升普通民众相互之间的理解和好感，两国都会受益。应对全球性的挑战，如气候变化，软实力有助于建立互信，加强沟通，促成全球合作。尽管，因为中国有时滥用软实力，就遏制中国传播它的文化是错误的，但区分这两者非常重要。以500所孔子学院和1000座孔子教室为例，中国政府在各国大学和学校里建立来教授中午，传播文化。政府资助并不一定是锐实力扩张。BBC也会接受政府资助，它会保持独立性，被大家认为是令人尊敬的媒体。只有当孔子学院越界干涉学术自由时（已经发生了）这才是锐实力，

To respond to the threat,democracies should be careful about offensive actions. Information warfare can play a useful tactical role on the battlefield,as in the war against the Islamic State(or ISIS). But it would be a mistake for them to imitate the authoritarians and launch major programs of covert information warfare. Such actions would not stay covert for long and when revealed would undercut soft power.

民主国家必须谨慎行事，避免采取冒犯措施，舆论攻势是（文明）斗争中有效的战术，比如和伊斯兰国的战争。错误的做法是模仿威权政府，进行秘密地信息渗透和舆论欺骗。这些手段不会永远不为人知，被曝光时会削弱软实力。

In the realm of defensive measures,meanwhile,there are some steps that democratic governments can take to counter the authoritarians’aggressive information warfare techniques,including cyberattacks on political processes and elections. Democracies have not yet developed adequate strategies for deterrence and resilience. They will also have to be more attentive to making sure that Russian and Chinese soft power programs,such as Confucius Institutes,do not slip into“sharp”power. But openness remains the best defense: faced with this challenge,the press,academics,civic organizations,government,and the private sector should focus on exposing information warfare techniques,inoculating the public by exposure.

同时，在被动防御方面，有一些措施民主政府可以采用来反制威权政府咄咄逼人的舆论攻势，包括对政策和选举的网络攻击。民主政府到现在仍没有采取足够的措施来防范和应对。我们同时需要提高警惕，防止俄罗斯和中国的软实力项目，如孔子学院堕落成锐实力。公开是最好的防御手段。面对挑战，媒体，研究机构，公民，民间组织，政府，企业应该曝光对方舆论渗透的手段，通过曝光对方来使公众警惕。

Fortunately,that is another edge that democracies have over dictatorships. It is true that the openness of democratic societies provides opportunities for authoritarian governments to employ age-old techniques of information warfare. But openness is also a key source of democracies’ability to attract and persuade. Even with the mounting use of sharp power,they have little to fear in open competition with autocracies for soft power. By reducing themselves to the level of their adversaries,democracies would squander their key advantage.

幸运的是，民主社会比集权社会有另一个优势。尽管民主社会的开放给了威权国家可乘之机，正因为它是开放的，民主社会可以令人心向往之，虽然 锐实力大行其道，我们却不担心与专制政权竞争。如果我们自降身段（采用与对手一样的手段），会浪费自己的优势。