Symposium: The Politics of Great Power Retrenchment

[This is a post-publication review symposium] Concerns about America’s relative military and economic decline loom large in contemporary debates about United States grand strategy (Wallerstein 2013, Morgan 2012). The wisdom of policies of retrenchment occupies an important place in these disputes. Advocates argue that Washington should take proactive steps to avoid strategic overextension, including deprioritizing or even withdrawing from some regions of the world (Nexon 2013; McDonald and Parent 2011). Opponents contend that, at best, this will trigger a self-fulfilling prophecy that hastens American decline. At worst, it will lead to greater turmoil  and threaten the interests of the United States and its allies (Brooks et al. 2012/2013; Brooks et al. 2013; Muravchik 2013). In his International Studies Quarterly article, “Decline and Devolution: The Sources of Strategic Military Retrenchment,” Kyle Haynes (2015) contributes to this debate by asking a more basic question: what conditions lead declining powers to retrench from specific regions. He argues that “a declining state will choose to withdraw foreign military deployments and security commitments when there exists a suitable regional ‘successor’ to which it can devolve its current responsibilities. The degree of a successor's suitability and the strategic importance of the region to the declining state interact to determine when and how rapidly retrenchment will occur.” p[...]

【本文为出版后评议研讨会文稿】当前围绕美国大战略展开的辩论中，对美国相对军事与经济衰落的担忧始终占据显著位置（沃勒斯坦，2013；摩根，2012）。战略收缩（retrenchment）政策的合理性在这场论战中占据重要地位。支持者主张，美国政府应采取积极举措规避战略过度扩张，包括降低部分全球区域的战略优先级，甚至撤出相关军事存在（内克森，2013；麦克唐纳与帕伦特，2011）。反对者则认为，此举充其量只会触发一则自我实现的预言，加速美国的衰落；若往最坏的情况发展，还会引发更严重的动荡，并损害美国及其盟友的核心国家利益（布鲁克斯等，2012/2013；布鲁克斯等，2013；穆拉夫奇克，2013）。凯尔·海恩斯（Kyle Haynes，2015）在其发表于《国际研究季刊》（International Studies Quarterly）的论文《衰落与权力让渡：战略军事收缩的根源》中，为这场论战提出了一个更具基础性的问题：究竟是何种条件，会促使正在衰落的大国从特定区域实施战略收缩？他提出的核心论点为：“当存在合适的区域‘继任者’可承接当前责任时，衰落国家将选择撤出海外军事部署与安全承诺。继任者的适配程度，与该区域对衰落国家的战略重要性二者相互作用，共同决定了战略收缩的时机与速度。”……（原文后续内容省略）