It was a bracing start for what turned out to be a wild 13-month effort to devise a modern-day security strategy for a president with no experience, more interest in cutting deals than designing a long-term strategy — and an unwillingness to sit for intelligence briefings, much less discussion of containing an angry, decaying Russia or of a 50-year plan to compete with a rising China. So “Battlegrounds” is, at its heart, the McMaster strategic plan that might have come to fruition had he worked for a president who was interested in strategic plans.這一振奮人心的開端之後，卻是瘋狂的13個月，他在這段時間裡努力設計現代安全戰略，而他所效力的總統毫無經驗，對達成交易而不是設計長期戰略更感興趣——他連坐下聽情報簡報會都不情願，更不用說參與關於遏制憤怒而衰敗的俄羅斯、或製定與正在崛起的中國競爭的50年計劃的討論了。所以，《戰場》這本書的核心，就是麥克馬斯特原本可能成為現實的戰略計劃——如果他是為一位對戰略計劃感興趣的總統工作的話。
The key to his argument is that America is suffering from what Hans Morgenthau called “strategic narcissism,” or, in McMaster’s words, “the tendency to view the world only in relation to the United States and to assume that the future course of events depends primarily on U.S. decisions or plans.” It’s hard to argue with that premise: Every new president comes to office assuming that the world is waiting for direction from Washington. Some countries are. Others are looking for power vacuums they can fill, each in its own way.
他的論點關鍵是，美國患上了漢斯·摩根索(Hans Morgenthau)所謂的“戰略自戀”，或者用麥克馬斯特的話來說，“只從美國的角度看待世界的傾向，認為未來事態發展主要取決於美國的決定和計劃。”很難否認這樣一個前提：每一位新總統上台時，都認為世界正在等待華盛頓的指示。有些國家是如此。其他國家則在以各自的方式尋找可以填補的權力真空。
"The pandemic is the last nail in the coffin of strategic fiasco."
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