《丛林再现》美国为什么非当世界警察不可

《丛林再现》：孤立主义为何并非美国的选项？为什么美国非当「世界警察」不可？川普打伊朗的真实逻辑

魏知超啥书都读  2026年3月5日

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRgKuAvhIJ8 

说好的"美国优先"，说好的退回西半球，为什么美国转眼就又对伊朗动手了？答案藏在美国新保守主义领军人物罗伯特·卡根的这本书里——《丛林再现：美国与我们风雨飘摇的世界》（The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World）（罗伯特·卡根 Robert Kagan 著）。

卡根说：我们习以为常的和平、自由与繁荣，根本不是人类文明自然进化的结果，而是一座美国用血肉和枪炮硬撑起来的“人造花园”。一旦美国这个园丁放下砍刀，丛林就会瞬间反扑，将我们所有人吞没。读懂这本书，你就理解了今天世界乱局背后最冷酷的底层逻辑。

《丛林重生：美国与我们岌岌可危的世界》

罗伯特·卡根著 2018年9月18日

https://www.amazon.ca/Jungle-Grows-Back-America-Imperiled/dp/0525521658

“一本精辟而文笔优美的新书，探讨了美国在世界上的独特角色。”——汤姆·弗里德曼，《纽约时报》

本书以卓越的视角和远见卓识，论证了美国作为世界和平与秩序维护者的角色，并探讨了如果我们退出国际舞台、将注意力转向国内将会发生什么。

近年来，全球局势发生了令人深感不安的事件。面对如此混乱的局面，美国民众似乎越来越倾向于退出。在这篇强有力且发人深省的文章中，罗伯特·卡根阐明了美国退出国际舞台为何是最糟糕的选择，因为这种做法是基于对世界局势的根本性且危险的误读。就像丛林砍伐后会不断再生一样，世界始终充斥着危险的势力，如果不加以控制，他们便有能力也有意愿让局势雪上加霜。

卡根明确指出，“现实主义者”那种承认自身局限性、关注自身失败的冲动，误解了美国几十年来在遏制世界最严重动荡方面所发挥的关键作用。他认为，真正的现实主义建立在这样的理解之上：历史的常态始终是走向混乱——如果我们放任不管，丛林终将再次生长。

汤姆·尼尔森书评——《丛林重生：美国与我们岌岌可危的世界》

罗伯特·卡根 2018年9月18日

汤姆·尼尔森（威斯康星州） 2022年2月16日

汤姆的书评：汤姆·尼尔森分享他最新喜爱的书籍。

每当我读到著名新保守主义“思想家”罗伯特·卡根的文章时，脑海中总会响起一个声音：“滚蛋吧。”历史已经证明，新保守主义外交政策彻底失败，而像卡根这样的拥护者——以及小布什政府的明星保罗·沃尔福威茨和迪克·切尼——手上都沾满了鲜血。你或许会认为他们早就应该吸取教训了，但他们并没有。

在卡根的长篇论文《丛林重生》（他用这个词来形容我们最终会回归到混乱的自然状态）中，他哀叹美国是如何失去二战后建立的世界秩序，以及最近另一位布什总统在20世纪80年代末共产主义垮台后所宣称的新世界秩序。卡根渴望建立一个“全新的世界秩序”，在这个秩序中，我们将努力与欧洲进行深度接触，并认真审视重新介入中东事务，着眼于建设民主社会。我可不是在开玩笑。

卡根写道：“人们不禁会想，如果当初把哪怕一小部分的时间、精力和资源用于扶持（欧洲和亚洲）一连串的独裁政权，伊斯兰世界会是什么样子？”

难道他过去二十年都睡着了吗？他听说过伊拉克和阿富汗吗？任何一家严肃的出版社怎么会考虑出版这种无知之作？

卡根指出，二战后，欧洲和日本都遭受重创，我们却成为了自由世界的领导者。《布雷顿森林协定》和《马歇尔计划》为重建这两个地区制定了蓝图。这些计划取得了成功（但代价是美国制造业和中产阶级的衰落），最终苏联和东欧走向衰落和崩溃。

卡根认为，正是由于75年前、13届总统任期前做出的那些决定，我们才被束缚在这一外交政策之下。因此，我们必须介入……方方面面。叙利亚、中国、韩国、台湾、阿富汗、乌克兰、伊拉克、伊朗、也门……等等等等，免得丛林再次蔓延。

这听起来很像前总统比尔·克林顿的战略顾问、新自由主义者保罗·贝加拉的言论。他最近曾发表过一句名言：民主党的问题不在于其领导人，而在于其“追随者”。他感到沮丧，因为我们没有庆祝拜登政府的成就，当然，他自认为比我们更清楚。诚然，《美国救援计划法案》和《基础设施法案》取得了巨大的成功。仅我所在的县就从《美国救援计划法案》中获得了3600万美元的拨款，这将使我们能够开始漫长的疫情后复苏之路。然而，尽管取得了这些成就，股市也一片繁荣，经济指标强劲，但就业和经济问题仍然是“追随者”们最为关注的问题。

为什么？因为体制出了问题。

而体制之所以出问题，是因为民主党和共和党政府都奉行了新自由主义的国内政策和新保守主义的外交政策。我们没有制定以美国工人为本、构建经济的国家产业战略，而是专注于供给侧经济学、减税、自由贸易协定以及按照我们的模式改造其他国家。其他所有发达国家都有一项旨在加强产业、维持经济的总体国家政策。

对外国进口商品进行监管，让富人缴纳应缴的税款，并投入数十亿美元用于基础科学研究。但我们却没有这样做。（中国经济并非依靠自由市场力量，例如政府干预极少的开放贸易协定，才成为世界第一大经济体。）

我们几乎被卷入了每一场冲突，因为我们以为这会促进“新世界秩序”的建立。结果，我们发现自己疲于奔命，就像在玩打地鼠游戏，前一场军事冲突还没平息，下一场就又冒了出来。

很遗憾地告诉你，贝加拉和卡根对此毫不在意。

我敢打赌，贝加拉和卡根的家族里肯定没几个人当过兵。我家有七位退伍军人。我的员工里也有几十位退伍军人。

我厌倦了在这些无底洞般的军事冲突中白白浪费生命和财富，同时又把宝贵的资源从发展地方经济和加强社区建设中转移出去。贝加拉和卡根，我们为你们做饭，为你们打仗。够了！是时候把新保守主义扔进历史的垃圾堆，让卡根退休，炒掉克诺夫出版社的编辑们了。

汤姆·尼尔森为威斯康星州撰稿，他是一位丈夫，两个孩子的父亲，曾竞选美国参议员，现任奥塔加米县行政长官。

The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World Hardcover 

by Robert Kagan (Author) Sept. 18 2018

https://www.amazon.ca/Jungle-Grows-Back-America-Imperiled/dp/0525521658

"An incisive, elegantly written, new book about America’s unique role in the world." --Tom Friedman, The New York Times

A brilliant and visionary argument for America's role as an enforcer of peace and order throughout the world--and what is likely to happen if we withdraw and focus our attention inward.

Recent years have brought deeply disturbing developments around the globe. American sentiment seems to be leaning increasingly toward withdrawal in the face of such disarray. In this powerful, urgent essay, Robert Kagan elucidates the reasons why American withdrawal would be the worst possible response, based as it is on a fundamental and dangerous misreading of the world. Like a jungle that keeps growing back after being cut down, the world has always been full of dangerous actors who, left unchecked, possess the desire and ability to make things worse. 

Kagan makes clear how the "realist" impulse to recognize our limitations and focus on our failures misunderstands the essential role America has played for decades in keeping the world's worst instability in check. A true realism, he argues, is based on the understanding that the historical norm has always been toward chaos--that the jungle will grow back, if we let it.

Book Review by Tom Nelson — The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World 

By Robert Kagan Sept. 18 2018

Tom Nelson for Wisconsin   Feb 16, 2022

Tom’s Tomes: A book review series where Tom Nelson talks about his latest favorite books.

When I read the famed neo-conservative “thinker” Robert Kagan, I hear a voice in my head: “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.” History has shown that neo-conservative foreign policy has been an abysmal failure and its docents like Kagan — along with President George W. Bush administration stars Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney — have blood on their hands. You’d think they would have learned their lesson by now. They haven’t.

In his long essay, The Jungle Grows Back, (his expression that we ultimately regress to our natural state of chaos) Kagan laments how the US lost control of the world order it built in the aftermath of World War II, and more recently the new world order that the other President Bush declared after the fall of communism in the late 1980s. Kagan pines for a “new, new world order” if you will where we strive for deep engagement with Europe and take a hard look at re-engaging in the Middle East with an eye toward building democratic societies. I kid you not.

Kagan writes, “One wonders what the Islamic world would look like if a fraction of that time, effort, and resources had been devoted to nurturing democratic government [in the Middle East] rather than to supporting a succession of dictatorships [in Europe and Asia].”

Has he been asleep the last twenty years? Has he heard of Iraq or Afghanistan? How can any serious publishing house even consider printing such ignorance?

Kagan notes that we became the leader of the free world after World War II when both Europe and Japan were decimated. The Bretton Woods Agreement and Marshall Plan established the blueprint that would rebuild both parts of the world. The plans succeeded (at the expense of U.S. manufacturing and our middle class) and in time the Soviet Union and eastern Europe faltered and collapsed.

Kagan believes that because of the decisions made 75 years and 13 presidential administrations ago we are tethered to this foreign policy. Thus we must involve ourselves… everywhere. Syria, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Iraq, Iran, Yemen. You name it, lest the jungle grows back.

It sounds a lot like former President Bill Clinton strategist and neo-liberal Paul Begala who recently and famously said the problem with the Democratic Party is not its leaders but its “followers”. He was frustrated because we weren’t celebrating the accomplishments of the Biden Administration and of course he knows better. To be sure, the American Rescue Plan Act and the Infrastructure bill have been hugely successful. My county alone received $36 million from ARPA that will empower us to begin the long-road to recovery from COVID. However, despite this success, a roaring stock market and strong economic indicators, the issue of jobs and the economy remain a top concern among the “followers”.

Why? The system is broken.

And the system is broken because both Democratic and Republican administrations embraced a neo-liberalism domestic policy and a neo-conservative foreign policy. Instead of developing a national industrial strategy that builds an economy from the perspective of the American worker, we focused on supply-side economics, tax cuts, free trade deals and building up other countries in our image. Every other developed country has an overarching national policy that strengthens industry, keeps a check on foreign imported goods, makes the rich pay their fair share and invests billions into basic science research. But not us. (The Chinese economy did not become the largest in the world by relying on free market forces like wide-open trade deals with minimal government involvement.)

And we got sucked into almost every conflict because we thought it would foster a “new, new world order”. Instead, we found ourselves chasing our tails or playing a game of whack-a-mole in which the next military flare-up popped up before the previous one was extinguished.

Hate to break it to you, neither Begala and Kagan could care less.

I bet you dollars to donuts neither Begala or Kagan can count many family members who’ve served the military. My family counts seven veterans. Dozens of veterans populate my workforce.

I’m tired of losing blood and treasure to these black hole military conflicts while diverting precious resources away from building up our local economies and strengthening our communities. We make your food and fight your wars, Begala and Kagan. No more! Time to toss neo-conservatism into the ash bin of history, retire Kagan and fire the editors at Knopf Publishing House.

Written by Tom Nelson for Wisconsin, a Husband, father of 2, former candidate for U.S. Senate, Outagamie County Executive