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美国外交政策的令人惊讶的两党合作

Even in Times of Polarization, Consensus Has Prevailed

即使在极端分化的时代，共识仍然占主导地位

BY JORDAN TAMA 乔丹·塔玛（JORDAN TAMA）撰写

July 6, 2023 2023年7月6日

In an article in The Atlantic in 2020, shortly before he became CIA Director, William Burns observed that “in the past, a sense of common domestic purpose gave ballast to U.S. diplomacy; now its absence enfeebles it.” Burns is not alone in bemoaning the decline of bipartisan agreement on foreign policy. Writing in Foreign Affairs a year later, Charles Kupchan and Peter Trubowitz argued that the “domestic consensus that long supported U.S. engagement abroad has come apart in the face of mounting partisan discord and a deepening rift between urban and rural Americans.” Indeed, this has become a common refrain, with the stark contrast in approaches between U.S. President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump on such issues as NATO, Russia, and climate change often cited to demonstrate the precipitous decline of consensus politics. 在2020年《大西洋月刊》的一篇文章中，就在他成为中央情报局局长之前，威廉·伯恩斯观察到“过去，共同的国内目标为美国外交提供了支撑；现在，它的缺失使其变得无力。”伯恩斯并不是唯一对外交政策的两党一致性下降感到悲叹的人。一年后，在《外交事务》杂志上写道，查尔斯·库普坎和彼得·特鲁伯维茨认为，“长期支持美国对外参与的国内共识在面对日益加剧的党派纷争和城乡美国人之间日益加深的分歧时瓦解了。”事实上，这已经成为一个常见的说法，美国总统乔·拜登和前总统唐纳德·特朗普在北约、俄罗斯和气候变化等问题上的明显不同立场经常被引用来证明共识政治的急剧衰落。

Yet a deeper look at the political dynamics that have shaped U.S. foreign policy since the end of World War II reveals that such sharp differences are hardly new. Ever since the rise of the United States as a great power, bipartisan cooperation, partisan bickering, and intraparty disagreement have coexisted in shaping the country’s foreign policy. These tensions were present even during the early years of the Cold War, a period usually regarded as a golden age for bipartisanship. Today, Democrats and Republicans are generally aligned on China and industrial reshoring but are polarized on climate change and immigration. At the same time, the Republican Party is split over aid to Ukraine, reflecting a GOP divide between nationalists and internationalists that dates back to World War II. In short, the politics of U.S. foreign policy has always been more complicated than images of past unity or current polarization suggest. 然而，对塑造自二战结束以来美国外交政策的政治动态进行更深入的观察会发现，这种尖锐的分歧并不是什么新鲜事。自美国崛起为大国以来，两党合作、党派争吵和党内分歧一直共同塑造着该国的外交政策。即使在冷战早期，通常被视为两党合作的黄金时代，这些紧张关系也存在。如今，民主党和共和党在对中国和产业回流的立场上基本保持一致，但在气候变化和移民问题上存在极化。与此同时，共和党在对乌克兰援助问题上存在分歧，反映出自二战以来民族主义者和国际主义者之间的共和党分裂。简而言之，美国外交政策的政治本质一直比过去的团结形象或当前的极化所表现出的要复杂得多。

A NOT SO GOLDEN AGE 一个并不那么辉煌的时代

Vociferous disagreement over foreign policy marked the United States’ earliest days, when the Founding Fathers argued bitterly over whether the country should intervene in support of revolutionary-era France during its war with Great Britain. A century later, U.S. hawks and progressives fiercely debated the questions of hostilities with Spain and the occupation of Cuba and the Philippines in the Spanish-American War. After World War I, President Woodrow Wilson was unable to persuade Republicans in Congress to vote for the treaty establishing the League of Nations, preventing the United States from joining the first multilateral institution designed to preserve peace. 美国早期的外交政策引发了激烈的争议，创国元勋们就是否应该在法国与英国交战期间支持法国革命进行了激烈的争论。一个世纪后，美国的鹰派和进步派就与西班牙的敌对关系以及对古巴和菲律宾的占领问题进行了激烈的辩论。第一次世界大战后，伍德罗·威尔逊总统未能说服国会中的共和党人投票支持建立《国际联盟》的条约，使得美国无法加入这个旨在维护和平的第一个多边机构。

The United States’ victory in World War II and the onset of the Cold War produced a new bipartisanship in both foreign policy rhetoric and action during Harry Truman’s first term as president. Capturing the mood of the time, Senator Arthur Vandenberg famously stated that partisan politics should stop “at the water’s edge.” Such bipartisan cooperation has always been essential for the United States to address major international challenges by giving allies and enemies alike a sense of the consistency of the country’s policies. Working together, President Truman, who was a Democrat, and Senator Vandenberg, a Republican who was Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, marshaled strong support from both parties for such landmark initiatives as the NATO treaty and the Marshall Plan. 美国在二战中的胜利和冷战的开始，在哈里·S·杜鲁门担任总统的第一任期内，产生了一种新的两党合作关系，不论是在外交政策言辞还是行动上。正如参议员亚瑟·范登堡所说，党派政治应该在“水边”停止。这种两党合作一直对美国至关重要，它让盟友和敌人都感受到美国政策的一致性。在总统杜鲁门（民主党）和参议员范登堡（共和党，同时也是参议院外交关系委员会主席）的共同努力下，两党为北约条约和马歇尔计划等具有里程碑意义的倡议获得了强大的支持。

Yet it did not take long for interparty divisions to reemerge. During Truman’s second term, Vandenberg developed lung cancer and was away from the Senate for 19 months before dying in 1951. During his absence, Republican voices became sharply critical of the president’s policies. As the 1940s ended, the Communist Party took over China, the Soviet Union tested an atomic bomb, and North Korea invaded South Korea. Republican members of Congress blamed Truman for allowing each of these setbacks to happen. Around the same time, Senator Joseph McCarthy and other Republicans alleged that the Truman administration was allowing communists to infiltrate the U.S. government. 然而，党内分歧很快重新出现。在杜鲁门的第二个任期内，范登堡得了肺癌，离开参议院19个月后于1951年去世。在他离开期间，共和党人对总统的政策发表了尖锐的批评。随着1940年代的结束，共产党接管了中国，苏联进行了原子弹试验，朝鲜入侵了韩国。国会的共和党成员指责杜鲁门允许这些挫折的发生。与此同时，参议员约瑟夫·麦卡锡和其他共和党人声称杜鲁门政府允许共产主义分子渗透美国政府。

Divisions within the parties themselves also resurfaced during the early years of the Cold War. In 1950, conservative Democrats lined up with Republicans to approve legislation establishing a Subversive Activities Control Board to investigate communist infiltration. This coalition also authorized the Justice Department to deport non-U.S. citizens who were deemed to pose a threat to national security. Although Truman argued that this legislation restricted civil liberties, Congress overrode his veto. The same congressional coalition blocked approval of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which Truman had negotiated. Four decades would pass before the Senate finally ratified this treaty criminalizing the world’s most heinous atrocity. Republicans, for their part, were split between internationalists who favored expansive foreign policy commitments and nationalists who wanted to limit U.S. involvement overseas. When U.S. forces became bogged down fighting North Korean and Chinese forces on the Korean Peninsula, some Republicans called for taking the war directly to China, whereas others argued that the United States should never have gotten involved in the first place. 冷战初期，党内的分歧也重新浮出水面。1950年，保守派民主党人与共和党人站在一起，批准了设立一个调查共产主义渗透的《颠覆活动控制委员会》的立法。这个联盟还授权司法部将被认为对国家安全构成威胁的非美国公民驱逐出境。尽管杜鲁门认为这项立法限制了公民自由，但国会推翻了他的否决。同样的国会联盟阻止了杜鲁门谈判的《预防和惩治种族灭绝罪公约》的批准。四十年后，参议院终于批准了这项将世界上最严重的暴行定为犯罪的条约。共和党内部也存在分歧，一方面是支持广泛外交政策承诺的国际主义者，另一方面是希望限制美国海外参与的民族主义者。当美军在朝鲜半岛与朝鲜和中国军队作战陷入泥潭时，一些共和党人呼吁直接对中国发动战争，而另一些人则认为美国本不应该首先介入。

A new wave of bipartisanship took hold following the inauguration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953, facilitated by a growing consensus in Washington that the United States needed to take strong steps to limit and counter Soviet power. Yet members of Congress remained divided on important international issues and partisan rhetoric was common. In 1957, when Eisenhower sought to increase foreign aid as a tool for fighting communism, conservative Democrats aligned with inward-looking Republicans to block him. Conversely, when Eisenhower sought to rein in a ballooning defense budget, hawkish Democratic senators attacked him for supporting spending restrictions that they claimed would allow the Soviet Union to gain a military edge over the United States. Senator John F. Kennedy, when announcing his presidential campaign in 1960, charged that under Eisenhower, “our security has declined more rapidly than over any comparable period in our history.” 在1953年德怀特·D·艾森豪威尔总统就职后，一股新的两党合作浪潮兴起，这得益于华盛顿日益形成的共识，即美国需要采取强有力的措施来限制和对抗苏联的力量。然而，国会成员在重要的国际问题上仍然存在分歧，党派言辞很常见。1957年，当艾森豪威尔试图增加对外援助以作为对抗共产主义的工具时，保守派民主党人与内向的共和党人结盟阻止了他。相反，当艾森豪威尔试图控制膨胀的国防预算时，鹰派的民主党参议员指责他支持开支限制，声称这将使苏联在军事上超过美国。1960年，参议员约翰·F·肯尼迪在宣布竞选总统时指责艾森豪威尔时表示：“在艾森豪威尔的领导下，我们的安全状况下降得比我们历史上的任何一个时期都要快。”

New fault lines emerged following U.S. failures in the Vietnam War and presidential abuses of power. During the 1970s, Democratic and Republican lawmakers banded together to enact legislation—opposed by Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford—to limit presidential authority in areas including the use of military force, intelligence operations, and human rights. Meanwhile, hard-line conservatives sharply criticized the policy of détente that Nixon and Ford pursued toward the Soviet Union, laying the foundation for the more aggressive anticommunist policies instituted by President Ronald Reagan. Some of those Reagan policies, in turn, generated strong pushback from many Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. Most notably, Congress enacted laws from 1982 to 1984 prohibiting administration-backed aid to Nicaraguan contra rebels fighting to overthrow the communist-aligned Sandinista government. The Reagan administration’s decision to provide covert aid to the contras in violation of those laws prompted congressional investigations that nearly led to the president’s impeachment. 在越南战争中，美国的失败和总统滥用权力导致了新的分歧。在20世纪70年代，民主党和共和党议员联合起来通过了一系列法案，限制总统在军事力量、情报行动和人权等领域的权力，尽管这些法案遭到了理查德·尼克松和杰拉尔德·福特总统的反对。与此同时，强硬派保守派强烈批评尼克松和福特对苏联采取的缓和政策，为罗纳德·里根总统实施更具攻击性的反共政策奠定了基础。而里根总统的一些政策又引发了国会山上许多民主党人和一些共和党人的强烈反对。特别值得注意的是，国会在1982年至1984年间通过了法律，禁止政府支持的援助尼加拉瓜反对派反对与共产主义者结盟的桑迪尼斯塔政府。里根政府违反这些法律秘密援助反对派，引发了国会的调查，几乎导致总统遭到弹劾。

WASHINGTON WRANGLING 华盛顿纷争

Since the end of the Cold War, disagreement on foreign policy has waxed and waned. The Senate has approved six waves of NATO enlargement since the 1990s with near-unanimous support, enabling the addition of 15 countries to the alliance, with Sweden now only needing Hungary and Turkey’s approval to become the 16th new member. Democrats and Republicans have also voted together to impose sanctions on Russia, North Korea, and other nations in response to human rights violations, military aggression, and other threatening behavior. In addition, broad bipartisan coalitions have approved more than $100 billion to combat HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases, and greenlighted the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Despite the deep divisions of the post-Trump era, Democrats and Republicans have also come together during the Biden administration to support actions countering the rise of China. These include major investments in domestic semiconductor manufacturing, an expanded military presence in the Asia-Pacific region, and displays of support for Taiwan. 自冷战结束以来，对外政策的分歧时起时落。自上世纪90年代以来，参议院已经批准了六次北约扩大，几乎一致支持，使得15个国家加入了北约，瑞典现在只需要匈牙利和土耳其的批准，就能成为第16个新成员。民主党和共和党也一起投票对俄罗斯、朝鲜和其他国家实施制裁，以回应人权侵犯、军事侵略和其他威胁行为。此外，广泛的两党联盟已经批准了超过1000亿美元用于抗击艾滋病和其他传染病，并批准了美墨加协议。尽管在特朗普时代存在深刻分歧，但在拜登政府任期内，民主党和共和党也团结一致支持应对中国崛起的行动。这些行动包括在国内半导体制造业进行重大投资，扩大亚太地区的军事存在，并表达对台湾的支持。

But the post–Cold War era has also been marked by vigorous disagreements. Although some Democrats initially supported the war in Iraq, positions on the conflict split largely along partisan lines once no weapons of mass destruction were found there. During the Obama administration, Republicans universally assailed the 2015 agreement negotiated by President Barack Obama under which Iran agreed to constraints on its nuclear program in return for the lifting of economic sanctions. Just three years later, Trump exited the agreement, which he called “the worst deal ever.” Republicans attacked the Obama administration for failing to avert a 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, and the Biden administration for its handling of the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. In one typical comment on the Afghanistan withdrawal, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy called Biden’s “lack of leadership” during the crisis “shameful.” Although it is unsurprising that the opposition party would try to score political points when overseas events make the president politically vulnerable, such scathing rhetoric can have real consequences in eroding the country’s international standing. Debates over climate change and immigration have also been characterized by strong polarization, making it very difficult for the United States to address those critical challenges. 但是后冷战时代也充满了激烈的分歧。尽管一些民主党人最初支持伊拉克战争，但在没有发现大规模杀伤性武器后，对该冲突的立场主要沿党派分歧而分。在奥巴马政府期间，共和党普遍抨击了2015年由巴拉克·奥巴马总统谈判达成的协议，根据该协议，伊朗同意限制其核计划，以换取经济制裁的解除。仅仅三年后，特朗普退出了这项他称之为“史上最糟糕的交易”的协议。共和党抨击奥巴马政府未能阻止2012年利比亚班加西美国外交使团遭受恐怖袭击，以及拜登政府对2021年美国从阿富汗撤军的处理方式。在对阿富汗撤军的一次典型评论中，众议院少数党领袖凯文·麦卡锡称拜登在危机期间的“领导力不足”是“可耻的”。虽然反对党在海外事件使总统在政治上脆弱时试图得分并不令人意外，但这种严厉的言辞可能会对国家的国际地位产生真正的影响。关于气候变化和移民的辩论也被强烈的两极化所特征化，使得美国很难应对这些关键挑战。

At the same time, both parties have continued to face strong internal divisions over foreign policy during the last 30 years. Within the Democratic Party, debates over the North American Free Trade Agreement in the 1990s and the Trans-Pacific Partnership proposed by the Obama administration, which the United States did not join, pitted free traders against protectionists, while debates over military intervention in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria pitted liberal hawks against progressive doves. Internal disagreement is especially visible today within the Republican Party, as the “America first” agenda of Trump’s wing of the party clashes with the hawkish internationalism of Republicans such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and former Vice President Mike Pence. For example, although most Republicans in Congress joined with Democrats to appropriate more than $75 billion in military, financial, and humanitarian aid to Ukraine during 2022, nationalists and isolationists such as Senator Josh Hawley and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene have grown increasingly critical of the scale of this support, and it remains uncertain whether a majority of Republicans will continue to support Ukraine if the war becomes prolonged. 与此同时，过去30年来，两党在外交政策上一直面临着严重的内部分歧。在民主党内部，关于上世纪90年代北美自由贸易协定以及奥巴马政府提出的跨太平洋伙伴关系协定的辩论，使自由贸易者与保护主义者产生了冲突，而关于对波斯尼亚、科索沃、阿富汗、利比亚和叙利亚的军事干预的辩论，则使自由派鹰派与进步派鸽派产生了分歧。内部分歧在共和党内尤为明显，特朗普派的“美国优先”议程与参议院少数党领袖米奇·麦康奈尔和前副总统迈克·彭斯等共和党人的鹰派国际主义发生冲突。例如，尽管大多数共和党议员与民主党人一起，在2022年为乌克兰拨款超过750亿美元的军事、财政和人道援助方面达成了一致，但像参议员乔希·霍利和众议员玛乔丽·泰勒·格林这样的民族主义者和孤立主义者对这种支持的规模越来越持批评态度，而且目前尚不确定在战争持续下去的情况下，是否会有大多数共和党人继续支持乌克兰。

For all these tensions and divisions, both within and between the two parties, however, the current environment in which U.S. foreign policy is shaped is not that different from what it was in past decades. Consider a new study of congressional voting data, which shows the continued coexistence of bipartisanship and division over U.S. foreign policy. Of 424 important foreign policy roll call votes from 1991 to 2020, majorities of House Democrats and Republicans voted together 49 percent of the time, and the figure in the Senate was 53 percent. Strikingly, these rates of bipartisan voting on foreign policy remained rather steady, at 48 and 43 percent, respectively, during Trump’s presidency. In short, bipartisanship is still common in U.S. foreign policy. 然而，尽管两党内部和两党之间存在这些紧张和分歧，但美国外交政策形成的当前环境与过去几十年并没有太大的不同。考虑一项关于国会投票数据的新研究，该研究显示了美国外交政策上的两党合作和分歧的持续共存。从1991年到2020年的424次重要外交政策投票中，众议院民主党和共和党在49%的时间内一起投票，而参议院的比例为53%。令人惊讶的是，在特朗普总统任期内，这些两党在外交政策上的合作投票率保持相对稳定，分别为48%和43%。简而言之，两党在美国外交政策上仍然普遍存在合作。

CREATIVE TENSION 创造性的紧张感

Certainly, there is much cause for concern about the effects of today’s political landscape on U.S. foreign policy. Trump and many of his political allies propound a highly nationalistic and xenophobic vision of the United States’ role in the world. If Trump is elected president again, his foreign policy decisions and behavior could significantly erode the rules-based international order. At the same time, dramatic swings in policy from one president to the next have reduced the willingness of the United States’ allies and partners to trust its commitments. The magnitude of this problem is greater than it has ever been before. 当然，对于今天的政治局势对美国外交政策的影响，确实有很多值得担忧的原因。特朗普及其政治盟友们提出了一种高度民族主义和排外的美国在世界中的角色愿景。如果特朗普再次当选总统，他的外交政策决策和行为可能会严重侵蚀基于规则的国际秩序。与此同时，从一个总统到下一个总统的政策剧烈摇摆已经降低了美国的盟友和伙伴对其承诺的信任。这个问题的重要性比以往任何时候都要大。

Yet many Republican presidential candidates, including former Governor Nikki Haley and Senator Tim Scott, as well as such influential members of Congress as Senator Lindsey Graham and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul, reject much of Trump’s foreign policy agenda, and continue to favor a brand of conservative internationalism that owes more to Reagan. Despite being the Republican standard-bearer for seven years, Trump has not succeeded in forging a consensus between inward- and outward-looking Republicans. This divide is likely to persist. 然而，许多共和党总统候选人，包括前州长尼基·哈利和参议员蒂姆·斯科特，以及国会的重要成员，如参议员林赛·格雷厄姆和众议院外交事务委员会主席迈克尔·麦考尔，都反对特朗普的大部分外交政策议程，继续支持一种更接近里根的保守派国际主义。尽管特朗普在七年间一直是共和党的旗手，但他并未成功在内外看的共和党人之间达成共识。这种分歧很可能会持续存在。

Inconsistent U.S. bipartisanship brings both disadvantages and less obvious advantages. On the one hand, the prevalence of domestic divisions over foreign policy prevents the United States from acting effectively to address many key global challenges, diminishes the credibility of U.S. overseas commitments, and reduces the incentive for other countries to cooperate. On the other hand, vigorous internal debate has long been a strength of the U.S. system, facilitating greater deliberation before important decisions and providing much-needed course corrections when things go awry. 美国两党不一致的立场既带来了不利之处，也带来了不太明显的好处。一方面，国内对外政策的分歧使得美国无法有效应对许多重要的全球挑战，削弱了美国对海外承诺的可信度，减少了其他国家合作的动力。另一方面，激烈的内部辩论长期以来一直是美国体制的优势，有助于在重要决策之前进行更深入的讨论，并在事情出错时提供急需的修正。

During the Cold War, the father of the containment doctrine, George Kennan, often lamented that freewheeling U.S. democracy prevented Washington from carrying out as coherent and consistent a grand strategy as the authoritarian Soviet Union. Yet the United States made numerous adjustments during the Cold War that enabled it to outlast its communist rival. Going forward, the key imperative for whichever party is in office will be to marshal the country’s vigorous internal debates into policy innovations and refinements that strengthen, rather than weaken, continued U.S. leadership on the most critical issues of our time. 在冷战期间，遏制主义之父乔治·肯南经常抱怨，自由奔放的美国民主制度阻碍了华盛顿实施一种一致而连贯的大战略，而威权主义的苏联则没有这个问题。然而，美国在冷战期间进行了许多调整，使其能够战胜其共产主义对手。未来，不论哪个政党执政，关键任务将是将国内激烈的辩论转化为政策创新和完善，以加强而不是削弱美国在我们这个时代最重要问题上的领导地位。