In the initial rush of news on Saturday morning, many commentators speculated that the abduction of President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela was also a blow to President Vladimir Putin of Russia, since Venezuela and Russia are allies. To the contrary, it is a victory for Putin, because it is a blow — quite likely fatal — to the new world order of law, justice and human rights that was heralded in the wake of World War II.

在週六上午新聞蜂擁而來時，許多評論人士推測，委內瑞拉總統馬杜羅被綁架也是對俄羅斯總統普丁的打擊，因為委內瑞拉和俄羅斯是盟友。恰恰相反，這是普丁的勝利，因為這件事對二戰後所建立的以法律、正義和人權為基石的新世界秩序構成了重創——很可能是致命的打擊。

That order was never as robust as its champions made it out to be. Many of the multilateral institutions created to foster cooperation and enforce international law have been dysfunctional, often because they were sabotaged by their most powerful members. And yet, some mechanisms worked; some laws were enforced; some crimes were punished and many more were probably prevented; millions of people had their freedom and dignity affirmed; and a reasonable hope persisted that a law-based, humanistic world order would be built. No longer.

這個秩序從來就不像它的擁護者說的那樣強大。許多旨在促進合作和執行國際法的多邊機構早已失能，往往是因為受到最強大成員國的破壞。然而，有些機制曾經運轉；有些法律曾經得到執行；一些罪行曾經受到懲罰，更多的罪行可能得到過預防；成百上千萬人的自由和尊嚴曾經獲得保障；建立基於法律、人道主義的世界秩序的合理希望曾經存在。如今這一切都已終結。

When he addressed the public in a news conference on Saturday, President Trump announced that U.S. forces had abducted the president of Venezuela and his wife in the name of democracy, justice, freedom for the Venezuelan people and the safety of Americans. It was a mockery: Despite what the hoodlums running our country may actually believe, abduction — whether on a street in Boston, in an apartment building in New York or Chicago, or in Maduro’s compound in Caracas — never serves the cause of justice.

川普總統在週六的新聞發布會上向公眾發表講話時宣布，美軍以委內瑞拉人民的民主、正義、自由和美國人的安全的名義綁架了委內瑞拉總統和他的妻子。這是一種嘲弄：不管統治我們國家的暴徒們實際上可能相信什麼，綁架行為——無論發生在波士頓街頭，紐約或芝加哥的公寓樓，還是卡拉卡斯的馬杜羅官邸——永遠無法為正義事業服務。

Illegality does not uphold the law. Starting wars of aggression does not make anyone safer. Colonization does not bring freedom. And colonization is what Trump promised when he dismissed María Corina Machado, a Nobel laureate with a credible claim of a popular mandate and international recognition, as lacking leadership qualities and said, in various ways, no fewer than four times, “We are going to run the country.”

違法行為不能維護法律。發動侵略戰爭不會讓任何人更安全。殖民統治不會帶來自由。而殖民統治正是川普的承諾——諾貝爾獎得主瑪麗亞·科裡娜·馬查多是一位擁有可信民意授權和國際認可的政治人士，他卻貶低她缺乏領導素質，並以各種方式至少四次聲稱「我們將管理這個國家」。

This was a very particular kind of mockery, familiar to anyone who has paid attention to Putin. Russia’s president has claimed that his invasion of Ukraine was a mission to liberate the people of that country. He has claimed to be defending Russia’s sovereignty, which Ukraine’s existence never threatened. Putin has even claimed that Ukraine has illegitimately appropriated infrastructure created by his nation (well, by the Soviet Union, which Putin conflates with Russia) — just as Trump falsely claimed that Maduro perpetrated the largest theft of American property in history by nationalizing the oil industry that U.S. companies had helped build.

這是一種非常特殊的嘲弄，任何關注過普丁的人都很熟悉。這位俄羅斯總統聲稱入侵烏克蘭是為了解放烏克蘭人民。他聲稱是在捍衛俄羅斯的主權，而烏克蘭的存在從未威脅過俄羅斯的主權。普丁甚至宣稱烏克蘭非法侵佔了俄羅斯（準確說是蘇聯，普丁將蘇聯與俄羅斯混為一談）建造的基礎設施——就像川普錯誤地聲稱馬杜羅通過將美國企業參與建設的石油工業國有化，犯下了歷史上最大的盜竊美國財產的罪行。

There is a world of difference between Maduro, an autocrat who has stayed in power by falsifying elections, and Ukraine’s legitimate, democratically elected president, Volodymyr Zelensky. But what matters here is the similarity between the aggressors: Trump and Putin.

馬杜羅是一個通過選舉舞弊來掌權的威權領導者，與烏克蘭由民主選舉合法產生的總統澤連斯基可謂有著天壤之別。但這裡重要的是侵略者之間的相似性：川普和普丁。

For years, Putin has been asserting a vision of a world divided by a few powerful men into spheres of influence. This, too, is the post-World War II order — the Cold War order, in which countries colonized by the Soviet Union were excluded from the liberal aspirations asserted by the West. It has long been clear that Trump instinctively shares this point of view: Carving up the world appears to be what he thinks political power is for. Whoever wrote the National Security Strategy that was made public in December codified this worldview as the Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, the United States’ two-centuries-old assertion of power over the Western Hemisphere. During Saturday’s news conference, Trump appeared to have renamed the corollary the “Donroe Doctrine.”

多年來，普丁始終宣揚著由少數強權人物劃分世界勢力範圍的願景。這也正是二戰後的秩序——冷戰秩序，在這種秩序中，被蘇聯殖民的國家被排除在西方所主張的自由主義理想之外。很明顯，川普本能地認同這一觀點：在他看來，瓜分世界似乎正是政治權力的終極意義。去年12月公布的《國家安全戰略》的作者把這種世界觀編纂成「門羅主義的川普推論」，門羅主義是美國對西半球的權力宣示，持續兩個世紀之久。在週六的新聞發布會上，川普似乎已將這一推論重新命名為「唐羅主義」。

Half a century ago, as a Soviet third-grader, I sat through months of lessons devoted to natural resources. The Russian term — polezniye iskopayemiye — is telling: It literally translates as “beneficial extractables.” Those Soviet school units were so boring that I can still remember the sense that the minute hand of the classroom clock was standing still. I remember, too, that granite is solid, metal is found in ore, oil is necessary for modern life and the purpose of land acquisition is extraction. I remember, too, a giant map of the Soviet Union in which the many mineral-rich regions were colored bright red. This, I remember being told, was our wealth.

半個世紀前，作為蘇聯的一名三年級學生，我上過數月關於自然資源的課程。俄語術語「polezniye iskopayemiye」很能說明問題：它的字面意思是「有益的可提取物」。蘇聯的課程無聊至極，至今我仍記得教室裡時鐘上的分針彷彿凝固的感受。我還記得，花崗岩質地堅硬，金屬存在於礦石中，石油是現代生活的必需品，徵用土地的目的是開採資源。我還記得一幅巨大的蘇聯地圖，上面許多礦產豐富的地區都被塗成鮮紅色。我記得老師告訴我們，這是我們的財富。

Trump seems to have arrived, on his own, at the same understanding of geography and politics that was pounded into the heads of Soviet schoolchildren, including Putin and me. During Trump’s news conference, he responded to most questions — whether they were about the mechanics of “running” Venezuela, the cost of such governance, or other countries’ geopolitical interests in the region — with answers about all the oil the United States will pump out of the Venezuelan wells. His politics is the politics of self-enrichment, one big quest for beneficial extractables. During his first presidential campaign, he used to criticize George W. Bush for failing to “take the oil” during his war in Iraq. Some of us wondered at the time: How do you “take the oil”? This is how: You take the country.

Another thing Trump and Putin share is their disdain for European values, the very values of cooperation, justice and human rights that the post-World War II international order was designed to uphold. Putin’s speeches drip with this disdain, much like Trump’s national security strategy does. The Donroe Doctrine, it seems, may allow Trump to take Venezuela, Cuba — which he and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have openly threatened — and any other part of the Americas Trump desires. (I am sure he will return before long to talk of making Canada the 51st state.)

川普和普丁的另一個共同點是，他們都蔑視歐洲價值觀——正是這些以合作、正義與人權為內容的價值觀構成了二戰後國際秩序的基石。普丁的演講中充滿了這種蔑視，川普的國家安全戰略也是如此。「唐羅主義」似乎可以讓川普拿下委內瑞拉、古巴——他和國務卿魯比奧曾公開威脅過古巴——以及川普垂涎的美洲任何其他地方。（我相信他不久就會重提讓加拿大成為第51個州的事。）

If so, it will also allow Putin to take as much of Europe as he wants to bite off. Russia’s hybrid warfare in Europe — acts of both political and infrastructural sabotage, including suspected jamming of air-traffic-control frequencies at numerous European airports — has escalated since Trump returned to office. The Trump administration’s continued pressure on Ukraine has emboldened Putin. The invasion of Caracas, carried out in ways eerily similar to what Moscow had once planned for Kyiv, will embolden him further. A similar message has no doubt been received in Beijing: If Trump can take Venezuela and Putin can take Ukraine, surely President Xi Jinping of China can take Taiwan.

若果真如此，這也將使普丁能夠隨心所欲地吞併歐洲。自川普上台以來，俄羅斯在歐洲發動的混合戰爭——政治和基礎設施破壞行為，包括疑似干擾眾多歐洲機場的空中交通管制頻率——已經升級。川普政府對烏克蘭的持續施壓讓普丁膽子更大了。而入侵卡拉卡斯的方式與莫斯科曾經計劃入侵基輔的方式驚人地相似，這將使他更加大膽。北京無疑也接收到相同信號：若川普能掌控委內瑞拉、普丁能掌控烏克蘭，那麼習近平主席自然也能掌控台灣。

Putin was Maduro’s ally, but allies come and go; worldviews, and the desire to force the world to conform to them, stay. Putin’s world has just become more harmonious. Not because, as conspiracy theorists would have you believe, Putin tells Trump what to do, but because these two autocrats really do view the world in the same way. We have a saying for this in Russian: Two boots make a pair.

普丁是馬杜羅的盟友，但盟友總是有來有去；世界觀以及迫使世界順應自身世界觀的意願卻始終如一。普丁的世界變得更加和諧了。不是因為像陰謀論者讓你相信的那樣，普丁告訴川普該怎麼做，而是因為這兩個獨裁者確實以同樣的方式看待世界。俄羅斯有句諺語：兩隻靴子好成雙。