经济缘何成为各国的备选武器

    上周，美国总统奥巴马在巴伐利亚阿尔卑斯山区出席了一年一度的七国集团（G7）领导人峰会，并在会后按惯例和其他领导人拍了一张别扭的合影。对于这项程序，就连自由世界的领袖们似乎都无法叫停（2013年的合影仍然难以超越）。尽管一切都似曾相识，但从今年的照片里仍能读出一些新意。

    照片捕捉到的画面是G8峰会再次变成G7峰会后成员国首脑的第一次正式会议，或者说，至少是首次足足筹备了一年的会议（虽然去年也举行了G7峰会，但它距离七国决定将俄罗斯拒于门外只有短短几周。会议修改了日程，并在最后一刻将举办地从俄罗斯索契变为荷兰海牙）。因此，上周的峰会代表着跨大西洋主义加日本这一人们更熟悉的“全球治理”格局的回归。冷战过后，G7的全球治理已经力不从心，需要有所收敛，这一点在这种模式上体现的最为具体。

    真正的朋友重新坐在了一起，那么，G7情况如何呢？

    先来听听好消息。

    G7领导人借本次会议聚焦于俄罗斯。对于目前美欧联合制裁俄罗斯，欧洲国家逐渐失去了热情，美国和英国因此设法给欧盟伙伴打气。这样的场面充分表明，目前美国和欧盟在联合制裁方面的态势有多么新奇。缓慢而笨拙的欧盟外交政策能把人逼疯，美国则从来没有如此克制过，拒绝冲在欧盟前面。

    美国和欧盟在制裁问题上难以保持统一，与之形成鲜明对比的则是双方在军事和安全方面的协调既规范又成熟，这也正是合作与共识的基本条件。毫无疑问，北约存在缺陷，但美国和欧盟从无到有建立起来的军事红线也是如此。无论12个月来北约做出的具体决定正确与否，北约领导人已在较短时间内针对俄罗斯的挑衅进行了商洽和沟通，并采取了一套具体的应对措施。与北约在安全方面的作用相比，欧美在经济领域缺乏类似机制，或者说缺乏在经济上协同作战的框架或基础。只要存在这种情况，美国和欧盟领导人就仍然很难在最关键的领域达成一致，进而解决乌克兰问题，比如通过联合制裁来遏制俄罗斯，共同制定稳定方案以免乌克兰经济急剧滑坡，以及针对石油政治等俄罗斯惯用的经济压迫手段采取充分的防御措施。

    事实证明，这些经济层面的问题对乌克兰危机及其最终结果都有着核心影响，这绝非偶然。一方面，欧美拥有最成熟的联盟体系，足以应对当今的军事威胁，另一方面，双方在经济领域缺乏这样的机制，因而无法从这个角度向共同的外交目标迈进。这样的反差正是俄罗斯总统普京把经济战术作为首要对策的原因（当然，普京的军事手段也显露无疑，但他的军事战略似乎是通过随心所欲地加大或降低攻击性来拖垮乌克兰经济，同时让欧洲达到损失忍耐极限，再也无心继续对俄实施制裁）。也正是出于这个原因，中国才会选择通过经济手段在世界上彰显国家意志。当世界步入地缘经济治国的时代，越来越多的地缘政治和权力斗争都将通过经济手段展开。

    上周的峰会令人鼓舞，它让G7领导人围坐在更小、更灵活的会议桌边，这至少表明他们开始认识到这个地缘经济治国的新时代，以及在这个时代进行合作所需的新常态。这是G7成员国重新聚首后所面临的机遇——为西方亟需的地缘经济合作建立基础，进而应对正在崛起的中国、咄咄逼人的俄罗斯以及伊斯兰国等精通金融的恐怖组织带来的挑战。

    而为了能够把握住这些新的机遇，G7必须做出清醒的决策。它需要建立新的规范，使各成员国更好地了解本方的底线。以当前对俄制裁中的结构性设计缺陷为例。欧盟27个成员国争论不休肯定是个问题，在这种情况下，为什么还要规定欧盟制裁会自动到期呢？为什么非要让欧盟成员国就是否继续制裁做出决定，而不是让俄罗斯通过兑现承诺来争取解除制裁呢？G7峰会是个很有用的场合。在这里，成员国可以确立基本架构，以便各自的制裁措施能够共同发挥作用；在这里，各国领导人可以消除设计和执行方面的分歧，为针对俄罗斯和伊朗的重要制裁扫除障碍。

    最后，G7的回归还可以让美国、欧盟和日本就其真正共同关心的问题制定更高的目标，并且建立更有意义的联动机制。简而言之，就是更多地“一举两得”和“一举三得”。除了乌克兰危机，上周G7峰会的另一个主要议题是气候问题。在这方面，与会各国本有可能就能源补贴达成一致。最近，笔者和美国外交关系协会的同事以及业内专家共同发表了一篇报告，说明了燃油补贴在乌克兰经济生存能力中发挥着怎样的关键作用（最近几年，乌克兰每年的燃料补贴成本大约为100亿美元；这是个天文数字，尤其是考虑到今后四年国际货币基金组织将为乌克兰提供总额175亿美元的援助）；它如何让俄罗斯等石油和天然气主要生产国受益；以及如果取消燃油补贴，石油日消费量就可能减少300-400万桶。相反，G7领导人只满足于承诺到本世纪末彻底脱碳。但没人能坚持到那个时候，即使做不到这一点，他们也无需承担责任，我们也不会问责。不管怎样，现在的G7成员国又都是朋友了，大家就不能同心协力，把事情做好一点儿吗？（财富中文网）

    本文作者珍妮弗•哈里斯是美国外交关系协会（CFR）高级研究员。加入CFR之前，珍妮弗在美国国务院参与政策规划工作，负责全球市场、地缘经济以及能源安全问题。她目前正在撰写一本书，内容是现代国家如何让经济和金融手段成为治国工具。

    翻译：Charlie

    审校：夏林

    President Barack Obama was in the Bavarian Alps this week for the annual Group of Seven Leaders’ Summit, complete with the time-honored awkward Group photo, a rite that even the leaders of the free world seem powerless to end (2013’s entry remains the one to beat). Yet for all of its timeworn familiarity, this year’s photo offered hints of something new.

    It captured the Group’s first real gathering as a body of seven again, down from eight — or, at least the first that all sides had the benefit of a year to plan (while the Group did meet as seven last year, that meeting came just weeks after the Group’s decision to uninvite Russia for conduct unbecoming of a G8 member, upending the planned agenda and forcing a last-minute change of venue from Sochi to the Hague). As such, this week’s Summit suggested the return of a more familiar form of “global governance” – Trans-atlanticism plus Japan. It was the most concrete admission yet that global governance in the post-Cold War era had bitten off more than it could manage, and was in need of downscaling.

    Back among true friends, then, how did the G7 do?

    First the good news.

    Leaders seized the occasion to keep their gaze on Russia, as the United States and the United Kingdom sought to stiffen the resolve of EU countries waning in their enthusiasm for the current U.S. – EU sanctions on Russia. The spectacle underscored just how novel the current U.S.- EU coordination on sanctions is; never before has Washington exercised this much restraint in refusing to get out ahead of a European Union foreign policy apparatus that can be maddeningly slow and unwieldy.

    Such difficulties maintaining a unified line on sanctions drew especially sharp contrast with the routine and sophisticated coordination—the basic habits of cooperation and shared understandings—that the U.S. and Europe enjoy on the military and security side. No doubt NATO has its flaws, but nor are Washington and Brussels inventing military redlines from scratch. Whether or not the specific decisions coming out of NATO over the past 12 months have been the right ones, NATO’s leaders have in relatively short-order managed to settle on, communicate, and execute a concrete set of responses to Russian provocations. The U.S. and Europe have no such economic counterpart similar to what NATO represents on the security side, no such framework or foundation for jointly exercising economic muscle. So long as that is the case, U.S and EU leaders will continue to struggle with many of the most important ingredients to resolving this conflict —from coordinated sanctions capable of pushing back on Russian aggression, to a joint blueprint for stabilizing Ukraine from economic freefall, to adequate defenses against the pipeline politics and other forms of economic coercion so favored by Moscow.

    It is no accident that these economic dimensions are proving central to this crisis and its eventual outcomes. This contrast—the most sophisticated alliance system to answer military threats in the modern world on one hand, and no meaningful counterpart when it comes to advancing the economic aspects of our common foreign policy objectives—is precisely why President Putin has taken to economic tatics as a first resort (of course military tactics are in full evidence, too, but in dialing up or down aggression at will, President Putin’s military strategy seems calculated to fatigue Ukraine economically and exhaust Europe’s pain tolerance for maintaining sanctions). And it is why China, too, has opted for economic means of working its will in the world. Welcome to the era of geoeconomic statecraft, where more and more, geopolitics and state power struggles will be waged through economic means.

    This week’s Summit was a heartening sign that the leaders assembled at the leaner, more nimble G7 table are at least beginning to wake up to this new era of geoeconomic statecraft, and the new habits of cooperation it will require. That is the opportunity of the newly returned G7: to offer a foundation for the kind of geoeconomic cooperation the West will need if it is to meet the challenges of a rising China, a belligerent Russia, and a sophisticated financing outfit like the Islamic State.

    But to evolve in this direction, the G7 will need to make some conscious decisions. It will need new norms that give all sides better baseline presumptions. Take sanctions, for instance, and the structural design flaws inherent to the current EU sanctions approach. Why, when wrangling 27 member nations is certain to prove challenging, are the EU’s sanctions designed so as to automatically expire? Why place the default burden on EU member countries to renew these sanctions, rather than on Moscow to earn their removal through delivering on stated commitments? The G7 would be a useful venue for member countries to agree to a basic architecture for how their respective sanctions regimes should work jointly—a place where leaders could smooth the many design and enforcement wrinkles plaguing important sanctions regimes against both Russia and Iran.

    Finally, a return to the G7 should also allow for more ambition and meaningful linkages across issues of genuine, unanimous concern in the United States, Europe and Japan—in short, more “two-fers” and “three-fers.” In addition to the Russia – Ukraine crisis, another of the Group’s major agenda items this week was climate. Here, the Group could have targeted fuel subsidies. Recent work I have done with colleagues at the Council on Foreign Relations and experts in the field makes clear how centrally fuel subsidies figure into Ukraine’s economic viability (fuel subsidies have cost Ukraine roughly $10 billion per year in recent years—an amazing sum, especially considering that the country’s current IMF bailout totals $17.5 billion over four years); how they reward Russia along with other major oil and gas producers, and how, if dismantled, oil consumption could fall by 3 to 4 million barrels of oil per day. Instead, G7 leaders contented themselves with a pledge to ween themselves from carbon by the end of this century—when neither they will be around to answer for failure, nor we to point it out. At least now back among friends, can’t we agree to do better?

    Jennifer M. Harris is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Prior to joining CFR, Jennifer was a member of the policy planning staff at the U.S. Department of State responsible for global markets, geo-economic issues, and energy security. Jennifer is currently writing a book on the modern use of economic and financial instruments as tools of statecraft.