经济学人|The meddler 搅局者
Why the West’s response is inadequate
为什么西方的回应不够有力
In the late 1980s, as Mikhail Gorbachev launched perestroika, Russia made peace with the West. It was possible to believe that each would give up trying to subvert the other with lies and cold-war conspiracy theories. With the indictment of 13 Russians on February 16th by the American special counsel, Robert Mueller, it is clear just how fragile that belief was.
在80年代后期，戈尔巴乔夫（前苏联国家领导人）进行了前苏联改革，俄罗斯决定和西方和平共处。因此很有可能双方会放弃尝试使用谎言和冷战阴谋论的手段去颠覆对方的国家。然而随着2月16日美国一位特别检察官Robert Mueller对13位俄罗斯人的控告，上述想法显得脆弱不堪。
Mr. Mueller alleges that in 2014 Russia launched a conspiracy against America’s democracy, and he believes he has the evidence to withstand Russian denials and a court’s scrutiny. Perhaps because Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, thought the CIA was fomenting an uprising in Ukraine, the Internet Research Agency, backed by an oligarch with links to the Kremlin, set up a trolling team, payment systems, and false identities. Its aim was to widen divisions in America and, latterly, to tilt the vote in2016 from Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump.
Mueller断言俄罗斯在2014年执行了一场针对美国民主的阴谋，并且他说他有证据能反驳俄罗斯对此行动的否认并能接受法庭的详细调查。也许是因为俄罗斯的总统普京认为美国中央情报局正在煽动乌克兰起义，因特网研究机构（支持于与克里姆林宫相关的寡头政治执政者）建立了“钓鱼小组”，支付系统和假身份。这个做法的目的是为了加大美国的分歧，并且在最近的2016年使原本属于希拉里的投票变成特朗普的。
Europe has been targeted, too. Although the details are sketchier, and this is not the focus of the Mueller probe, Russia is thought to have financed extremist politicians, hacked computer systems, organized marches and spread lies (see page 15). Again, its aim seems to have been to deepen divides.
欧洲也被Mueller针对了，虽然细节比较笼统，而且这不是Mueller调查的核心，但是俄罗斯被认为资助了极端主义政治家，黑了电脑系统，组织了游行并散播了谣言（见第15页）。当然，它的目的是为了加深美国的分歧。
It is futile to speculate how much Russia’s efforts succeeded in altering the outcomes of votes and poisoning politics. The answer is unknowable. But the conspiracies are wrong in themselves and their extent raises worries about the vulnerabilities of Western democracies. If the West is going to protect itself against Russia and other attackers, it needs to treat Mr.Mueller’s indictments as a rallying cry.
现在去推测俄罗斯究竟在改变投票结果和政策上占了多大比例是没有意义的。这个答案是不可知的。但是这个阴谋论对于西方民主的本身是错误的，引起了人们对西方民主脆弱性的担忧。如果西方想要保护自己不受到俄罗斯和其他攻击者的攻击，那就需要将Mueller的控告当做一个“战斗口号”。
Trolleology
浑水摸鱼
They hold three uncomfortable lessons. One is that social media are a more potent tool than the 1960s techniques of planting stories and bribing journalists. It does not cost much to use Facebook to spot sympathizers, ferret out potential converts and perfect the catchiest taglines (see page 53). With ingenuity, you can fool the system into favouring your tweets and posts. If you hack the computers of Democratic bigwigs, as the Russians did, you have a network of bots ready to dish the dirt.
这给了西方国家三个让他们觉得不舒服的教训。第一个是社交媒体是一个比60年代编故事、贿赂记者等更有效的工具。用Facebook（脸书）去发掘同情者，找出潜在的能转换信仰的人并且完善最醒目的宣传语，这些都不需要花很多钱。通过精密的编辑，你可以欺骗系统使他更倾向于你的推特和帖子。如果你像俄罗斯人一样黑了民主党的大人物们的电脑，你就有了一个机器人程序去散播谣言了。
With a modest budget, of a little over $1m a month, and working mostly from the safety of St Petersburg, the Russians managed botnets and false profiles, earning millions of retweets and likes. Other, better-funded, groups exploit similar techniques. Nobody yet knows how the outrage they generate changes politics, but it is a fair guess that it deepens partisanship and limits the scope for compromise.
谨慎些估计预算，每个月只需要略高于1百万美元，并且大部分工作是来自圣彼得堡的安全工作，俄罗斯人管理着僵尸网络和错误的用户信息，赢得了上百万的转发和点赞。其他的资金较好的团体也在开发类似的技术。没有人知道他们是怎么激起众怒去改变政策的，但是很有可能是因为加深了党派性并且限制了人们的妥协范围。
Hence the second lesson, that the Russia campaign did not create divisions in America so much as hold up a warped mirror to them. It played up race, urging black voters to see Mrs. Clinton as an enemy and stay at home on polling day. It sought to inflame white resentment, even as it called on progressives to vote for Jill Stein, of the Green Party. After Mr. Trump’svictory, which it had worked to bring about, it organized an anti-Trump rally in Manhattan. Right after the Parkland school shooting, Russian bots began to pile into the debate about gun control (see page 30). Europeans are to a lesser degree divided, too, especially in Brexit Britain. The divisions that run so deep within Western democracies leave them open to intruders.
因此第二个教训是俄罗斯的竞选并没有在美国制造那么深的分裂，甚至连一个“扭曲的镜子”也没有造成。他们打了种族牌，催促黑人投票者将希拉里当做敌人来看待，并且希望他们在投票那天呆在家里。他们去激怒白人的怨恨感，甚至呼吁进步分子去给绿党的Jill Stein投票。在特朗普得到胜利后，他们在曼哈顿组织了反特朗普集会。在Parkland学校枪击事件后，俄罗斯机器人开始发起枪支管理的争议（见第30页）。欧洲人的分裂程度也没有想象中那么大，尤其是在英国脱欧中。西方民主的分裂很深，造成侵入者的任意攻击。
The most important lesson is that the Western response has been woefully weak. In the cold war, America fought Russian misinformation with diplomats and spies. By contrast, Mr. Mueller acted because two presidents fell short. Barack Obama agonized over evidence of Russian interference but held back before eventually imposing sanctions, perhaps because he assumed Mr. Trumpwould lose and that for him to speak out would only feed suspicions that, as a democrat, he was manipulating the contest. That was a grave misjudgment.
最重要的一个教训是西方对此的回应十分无力。在冷战期间，美国用外交官和间谍与俄罗斯的错误信息进行抗争。然而，Mueller这样做是因为两个总统都无法达到标准和要求。奥巴马因为俄罗斯的干扰而烦恼，却在最终实施制裁前退缩了，可能是因为他假设了特朗普会输掉竞选，然而作为民主党，他说出来这件事情可能会引起人们的猜忌，认为他在操控竞选。这是一个严重的判断失误。
Mr. Trump’s failing is of a different order. Despite having access to intelligence from the day he was elected, he has treated the Russian scandal purely in terms of his own legitimacy. He should have spoken out against Mr.Putin and protected America against Russian hostility. Instead, abetted by a number of congressional Republicans, he has devoted himself to discrediting the agencies investigating the conspiracy and hinted at firing Mr. Mueller or his minders in the Justice Department, just as he fired James Comey as head of the FBI. Mr. Mueller is not done. Among other things, he still has to say whether the conspiracy extended to the Trump campaign. Were Mr. Trump to sack him now, it would amount to a confession.
特朗普没有回应是另一个问题。尽管从他被选为总统的那一天起他就获得了情报，但是他在关于自己的合法性问题上被卷入了俄罗斯丑闻。他本应该反对普京并且保护美国不受到俄罗斯的敌对。但是相反，他却受到了一些国会的共产党的教唆，全力诋毁调查阴谋的部门并暗示解雇Mueller和他在司法部门的支持者，就像他解雇了联邦调查局的局长James Comey一样。Mueller还不算无路可走，在其他方面，他还提出这个阴谋是否关系到特朗普的竞选的问题。如果特朗普现在解雇了他，那就相当于承认了这个事情。
How to win the woke citizens vote
如何赢得清醒的市民们的投票
For democracy to thrive, Western leaders need to find a way to regain the confidence of voters. This starts with transparency. Europe needs more formal investigations with the authority of Mr. Mueller’s. Although they risk revealing intelligence sources and methods and may even please Russia—becauseproof of its success sows mistrust—they also lay the ground for action.Party-funding laws need to identify who has given money to whom. And social media should be open to scrutiny so that anyone can identify who is paying for ads and so that researchers can more easily root out subterfuge.
为了让民主制延续，西方领导者需要找到一个方法重新获得人们的信任。这就需要从透明度开始，欧洲需要关于Mueller所说的的真实性的更正式的调查。虽然他们这是在冒着遗漏情报资源和方法的危险，甚至可能会取悦俄罗斯，因为如果证实了就会播种“不信任的种子”，但他们也为行动奠定了基础。缔约方供资法律需要确定是谁的钱给了谁。同时社交媒体也应该接受仔细检查，这样任何人都可以确定是谁买的广告，研究人员也能更简单地除掉诡计。
Then comes resilience, which starts at the top. Angela Merkel successfully warned Mr. Putin that there would be consequences if he interfered in German elections. In France, Emmanuel Macron frustrated Russian hackers by planting fake e-mails among real ones, which discredited later leaks when they were shown to contain false information. Finland teaches media literacy and the national press works together to purge fake news and correct misinformation
然后是恢复力，要从最顶端开始调整。Angela Merkel曾经成功地警告过普京如果他干涉德国竞选会产生后果。在法国，Emmanuel Macron通过在真邮件里植入假的电子邮件来击败俄罗斯黑客，但这些电子邮件被证实是假的后泄露了信息。芬兰开设媒体素养课程，国家媒体团结在一起去铲除假新闻并改正错误信息。
Resilience comes more easily to Germany, France, and Finland, where trust is higher than in America. That is why retaliation and deterrence alsomatter—not, as in the cold war, through dirty tricks, but by linking American cooperation over, say, diplomatic missions, to Russia’s conduct and, if need be, by sanctions. Republican leaders in Congress are failing their country: at the least they should hold emergency hearings to protect America from subversion in the midterm elections. Just now, with Mr. Trump obsessively blaming the FBI andDemocrats, it looks as if America does not believe democracy is worth fighting for.
恢复对于德国、法国和芬兰来说更简单一些，因为他们的信任度高于美国。也就是为什么报复反击和妨碍也同样重要——不是指像冷战中那样通过肮脏的手段，而是将美国的合作比如外交任务和俄罗斯的行为联系起来，如果需要的话，可以实施制裁。国会的共产党领导者让他们的国家感到失望：至少他们应该举行紧急听证会来保护美国不在选举过程中受到妨碍。就连现在，特朗普十分过分地谴责FBI和民主党，看起来美国并不认为民主是值得去奋斗的。
原文链接：https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21737276-and-why-wests-response-inadequate-how-putin-meddles-western-democracies
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