崛起国如何与霸权国争夺小国?——基于古代东亚历史的案例研究

How Did a Rising Power Compete with a Hegemonic Power for a Small State?——Case Studies from the History of Ancient East Asia

自1945年以来,大国相互间的战争变得异常稀少和困难,这一变化使得崛起国与霸权国权力竞争的主要方式由此前的军事征服和霸权战争转变为通过结盟的形式给小国提供诸如安全保障这样的好处,以此换取小国在政治和安全问题上对自己的支持和追随。在霸权国不断巩固和扩大其盟友阵营,以挤压崛起国潜在盟友数量的情况下,崛起国能否成功崛起并最终赢得国际政治主导权的关键,在于它能否从霸权国手中争夺到追随自己的盟国。作者通过详细分析辽国与北宋争夺高丽以及后金与明朝争夺朝鲜这两个古代东亚的案例,对崛起国如何与霸权国争夺小国这个问题进行了初步的探究。理论分析和经验考察都表明,作为目前主流战略思想的利益交换策略,并不足以帮助崛起国争夺到小国。而包括威慑和胁迫在内的强制性策略的适当使用,更有可能实现这一目的。这种策略的核心是要让霸权国和小国分别意识到,它们阻挠和拒绝崛起国相关诉求所遭到的损失会大于它们不这样做时的损失。

Due to the fact that war between great powers has become almost unlikely since the Second World War, the mode of power competition between rising powersand hegemonic powers since 1945 has essentially changed from military subjugation and hegemonic war into providing benefits such as security guarantees to small states in exchange for their support and obedience on political and security issues. In order to preserve its unipolar status, a hegemonic power would therefore preventively cement and expand its alliance camp so as to squeeze the number of a rising power’s potential allies. Under such a circumstance, whether the rising power would successfully rise or ultimately win the dominance on international politics relied on if it could win over small states as its allies who were heretofore in the hegemonic power’s camp. This article performs a tentative research on how a rising power competes for small states with a hegemonic state by elaborately investigating two cases from ancient East Asian history. Theoretical analysis and empirical studies both suggest that coercive strategies including deterrence and compellence are highly likely necessary conditions for the rising power to win over small states,while the strategy of interest exchange, as the mainstream strategic idea,may be futile to achieve the purpose. The key of the coercive strategy is to make the hegemonic power and the small states respectively realize that their obstruction and resistance would cost themselves even more.