Donald Trump won the White House twice on a promise to close the border. Now he waxes poetic about reopening the frontier — whose “spirit,” he said yesterday in his second Inaugural Address, “is written into our hearts.” This month, he talked about buying Greenland from Denmark, annexing Canada, retaking the Panama Canal and renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. “What a beautiful name,” Mr. Trump said, pronouncing the phrase with a decided stress on its last syllable: A-mer-i-CA, not A-MER-i-ca.

特朗普两次凭借关闭边境的承诺入主白宫。现在，他热情洋溢地谈论重新开放边境——在昨天的第二次就职演讲中，他说，边疆的“精神”“已经写进我们心中”。本月，他谈到从丹麦手中购买格陵兰岛，吞并加拿大，重新夺回巴拿马运河，并将墨西哥湾更名为“美利坚湾”。“多美的名字，”特朗普说，他在说这个词的时候坚定地把重音放在了最后一个音节上：A-mer-i-CA，而不是A-MER-i-ca。

This expansionist turn is surprising for a politician best known for wanting the nation to hunker down behind a border wall. But Mr. Trump is smart. He knows, it seems, that the angry, inward-looking nationalism that first won him office can be self-destructive, as it was during his besieged first term. These calls, then — to make America not just great but also greater in size — tap into a more invigorating strain of patriotism: a vision of a United States that is forever growing, forever moving outward.

对于一个希望国家蜷缩在边境墙后面而闻名的政治人士来说，这种扩张主义的转变令人惊讶。但特朗普很聪明。他似乎知道，最初让他当选的那种愤怒、内向的民族主义可能会自我毁灭，就像他遭受围困的第一个任期一样。因此，这些呼吁——不仅要恢复美国伟大荣光，而且要让它的国土变得更大——迎合了一种更加令人振奋的爱国主义：一个永远成长、永远向外发展的美国的愿景。

Mr. Trump’s recent remarks have electrified his base, with MAGA enthusiasts using social media to circulate battle plans to seize Canada and maps of a United States that stretches from the Arctic to Panama. But Mr. Trump is also harking back to the founders, many of whom similarly thought the United States had to expand to thrive. “Extend the sphere,” wrote James Madison in 1787; increase the “extent of territory,” and you’ll diffuse political extremism and stave off class warfare. “The larger our association,” said Thomas Jefferson in 1805, speaking of his Louisiana Purchase, “the less will it be shaken by local passions.”

特朗普最近的言论令他的支持者们激动不已，“恢复美国伟大荣光”的拥护者在社交媒体上传播夺取加拿大的作战计划，以及从北极延伸到巴拿马的美国地图。但特朗普也在追述那些开国元勋，他们中的许多人同样认为，美国必须扩张才能繁荣。詹姆斯·麦迪逊在1787年写道：“扩大疆域”；扩大“领土范围”就能分散政治极端主义，避免阶级斗争。1805年，托马斯·杰斐逊在谈到购买路易斯安那时说：“我们的联合体规模越大，就越不会被地方的激情所动摇。”

In the years that followed, the United States moved across the continent with dizzying speed, citing the doctrine of conquest as it took Indian and Mexican land, reaching the Pacific and then seizing Hawaii, Puerto Rico and other islands.

那之后的几年里，美国以令人眼花缭乱的速度横跨美洲大陆，本着征服主义占领了印第安人和墨西哥人的土地；到达太平洋，夺取了夏威夷、波多黎各和其他岛屿。

And later, in the 20th century, even after the United States, along with much of the world, renounced the doctrine of conquest, our leaders still conjured up a sense of potentially limitlessness expansion, in the opening of markets for U.S. exports, in wars to rid the world of evils, in upward mobility and a growing middle class and in science and technology, which offered what the historian Frederick Jackson Turner once said the American West promised: “perennial rebirth.”

后来，在20世纪，美国和世界上大部分国家一起放弃了征服主义，即便如此，在为美国出口产品开放市场的过程中，在为世界铲除邪恶的战争中，在向上流动和不断壮大的中产阶级中，乃至在科学和技术当中，我们的领导人仍然营造出一种潜在的无限扩张感，这一切提供了历史学家弗雷德里克·杰克逊·特纳曾经说美国西部所承诺的东西：“永恒的重生”。

Mr. Trump is tapping into this social and intellectual history, promising to “pursue our Manifest Destiny into the stars” — even “to Mars.” But he does so in that witchy style he has perfected, which makes conventional ideas sound outlandish.

特朗普正在利用这段社会和思想的历史，承诺“到星星上追求我们的昭彰天命”——甚至是“到火星上”。但他是以自己擅长的巫师风格来说这些话，让本来传统的想法听起来很离奇。

His detractors may scoff at the idea of annexing Greenland. But as it turns out, such annexation has long been a goal of U.S. politicians, at least since 1867, when Secretary of State William Seward, shortly after purchasing Alaska, considered buying the island — and Iceland — from Denmark. Franklin D. Roosevelt had his eye on the island, and after his death, the Truman administration, in 1946, offered Copenhagen $100 million for Greenland. The Danes declined. Later, Gerald Ford’s vice president, Nelson Rockefeller, proposed obtaining Greenland for its mineral wealth. In these pages, C.L. Sulzberger in 1975, citing national interest, wrote that “Greenland must be regarded as covered by” the Monroe Doctrine, that is, fully within the United States’ security perimeter.

他的批评者可能会嘲笑吞并格陵兰岛的想法。但事实证明，长期以来，这一直是美国政治人物的目标，至少从1867年开始，时任国务卿威廉·苏厄德在购买阿拉斯加后不久，考虑从丹麦手中购买格陵兰岛和冰岛。富兰克林·罗斯福也曾看中格陵兰岛，在他去世后，杜鲁门政府在1946年向哥本哈根出价1亿美元购买格陵兰岛。丹麦人拒绝了。后来，福特的副总统纳尔逊·洛克菲勒提议获得格陵兰岛的矿产资源。1975年，C·L·苏兹伯格在时报撰文，以国家利益为由，认为“格陵兰岛必须被视为受门罗主义的保护”，也就是说，完全在美国的安全范围之内。

As for Mr. Trump’s idea of adding more stars to the flag, William Kristol, a vocal Never Trump conservative, agrees with the idea, having suggested that Cuba could also become a state. He tweeted shortly after Mr. Trump gave up the White House in 2021, “60 years at 50 states is enough.” If the United States was to leave Trumpism behind, it had to grow — a sentiment Madison would agree with.

对于特朗普为国旗增加更多星星的想法，直言不讳的“永不特朗普”保守派威廉·克里斯托尔也表示赞同，他曾建议古巴也可以成为一个州。在特朗普2021年放弃白宫后不久，他发推写道，“50个州保持60年已经足够了。”如果美国要摆脱特朗普主义，它就必须扩张——麦迪逊会同意这种观点。

And now here’s Mr. Trump himself, triumphant in his return and grandstanding for growth.

而现在，轮到特朗普本人提出类似观点，凯旋而归的他明目张胆地推动扩张。

But he is operating in a vastly different world from past expansionists’. In the decades since Bill Clinton said in 1993 that the “global economy is our new frontier,” this country has witnessed a constriction in its sense of what is possible. Traumatizing wars, a culled middle class, crippling personal debt, dystopian tech, serial climate catastrophes, Gilded Age levels of concentrated wealth, stalled life expectancy, with young people dying at alarmingly high rates — all this has combined to create political paralysis.

然而，与过去的扩张主义者相比，他所处的世界截然不同。自1993年克林顿说“全球经济是我们的新疆域”以来，这个国家在数十年里体会到了自身可能性的局限。创伤性的战争、被削弱的中产阶级、严重的个人债务、反乌托邦式的科技、一系列气候灾难、堪比镀金时代的财富集中水平、停滞的预期寿命、年轻人惊人的高死亡率——所有这一切加在一起，造成了政治瘫痪。

Mr. Trump’s imperial gambit seems a bid to break out of the deadlock, to say there are no limits, that the country does have a future. Do we want Greenland? We’ll take Greenland. Do we want Canada?

特朗普的帝国策略似乎是为了打破僵局，以示这里没有限制，这个国家确实有未来。我们想要格陵兰吗？我们就拿下格陵兰。我们想要加拿大吗？

According to Politico, a number of wealthy Trump supporters, especially in tech, see Greenland as valuable not for its minerals or strategic position but as a spiritual solution to our current malaise, a way of restoring a sense of purpose to a country adrift.

据Politico报道，特朗普的一些富有的支持者，尤其是科技领域的支持者，认为格陵兰岛的价值不是因为它的矿产或战略地位，而是因为它是当前这种萎靡状态的精神解决方案，可以帮助这个迷失方向的国家重新找回目标感。

But the challenges this country confronts will not be solved by fleeing to an imagined frontier and hoping its harsh climate, as one Trump supporter put it, will forge a “new people.”

但是，这个国家面临的挑战无法通过逃到一个想象中的边疆，并且希望那里的恶劣气候能塑造特朗普的一个支持者所说的“新人民”来解决。

And this is where Mr. Trump’s fumbling around for a rallying cry becomes dangerous, for in treating international politics as if it were a game of Risk, he’s signaling that the world is governed by new rules, which are really old rules: The powerful do what they will; the weak suffer what they must. For all its shortcomings and hypocrisies, the global order that emerged at the end of World War II promoted the idea that cooperation, not aggression, should be the presumed starting point of diplomacy.

而这正是特朗普四处摸索，寻找号召力的危险之处，因为他把国际政治当作一场风险博弈来对待，无异于发出这样的信号：世界是由新规则支配的，而这些新规则实际上是旧规则：弱肉强食。第二次世界大战结束后出现的全球秩序尽管存在种种缺点和虚伪，但它倡导的理念是，外交的出发点应该是合作，而不是侵略。

Mr. Trump’s aggressive annexation fantasies — his threats to expand “our territory,” as he said Monday, to use punitive tariffs or military force to rearrange the world’s borders — say otherwise. Despite the soaring tone of his Inaugural Address, there was still plenty of aggrieved menace: “We will not be conquered,” he said, “We will not be intimidated.” He is sending a clear signal that dominance, not mutualism, is the world’s new organizing principle and that the doctrine of conquest, thought to have expired, is still valid.

特朗普咄咄逼人的吞并幻想——他威胁要扩大“我们的领土”，正如他周一所说的那样，要使用惩罚性关税或军事力量来重新安排世界的边界——说明情况并非如此。尽管他的就职演说语调高昂，但仍有很多愤愤不平的威胁：“我们不会被征服，”他说，“我们不会被吓倒。”他发出了一个明确的信号——世界新的组织原则是统治，而不是互惠，被认为已经过时的征服主义仍然有效。

Indeed, the world is plagued by savage wars. Today’s grand strategists, including those who guided the Biden administration, see wars not as things to be ended but as opportunities to create realms of influence.

的确，世界饱受野蛮战争的折磨。今天的大战略家们，包括那些指导拜登政府的人，都认为战争不是必须终结的东西，而是创造势力范围的机会。

On China, Joe Biden largely followed Mr. Trump’s lead on trade, and their various efforts to contain Beijing have increased the likelihood of conflict, particularly over Taiwan or the South China Sea. With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with Israel’s assault not just on Gaza but also on Lebanon and Syria and with our own “military interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and elsewhere,” the legal theorist Eric Posner wrote, the “ruins of international law are all around us.”

在中国问题上，拜登在贸易问题方面基本上追随了特朗普的脚步，他们遏制北京的各种努力增加了冲突的可能性，尤其是在台湾或南海问题上。随着俄罗斯入侵乌克兰，随着以色列不仅袭击加沙，还对黎巴嫩和叙利亚发起攻击，以及我们自己“对阿富汗、伊拉克、利比亚、叙利亚和其他地方的军事干预”，法律理论家埃里克·波斯纳写道，“国际法的废墟就在我们周围”。

Mr. Trump’s imperialist musings, then, aren’t so much setting the pace but legitimating something that already exists: a new world order where aggression is expected.

因此，特朗普的帝国主义遐想与其说是在设定节奏，不如说是在为已经存在的东西正名：一种可以预见侵略将会发生的世界新秩序。

Still, his uninhibited language (his willingness to provoke allies and force them to engage in childish games of dominance, as he is doing with Canada, Denmark and Panama) adds to the volatility of an already volatile world. One lesson the past teaches, especially the imperialist past Mr. Trump is invoking, is that opening the kind of belliger­ent, multifront balance of power that is in operation today — with the United States pushing against China, pushing against Russia, with all countries, everywhere, angling for advantage — will lead to more confrontation, more brinkmanship, more war.

然而，他那些无拘无束的言辞（他愿意激怒盟友，迫使他们参与幼稚的支配游戏，就像他对加拿大、丹麦和巴拿马所做的那样）使本已动荡不安的世界更加动荡不安。历史曾经给过我们一个教训（尤其是特朗普所援引的那段帝国主义的历史）：一旦开启今天正在运作的那种好战的、多战线的力量平衡——美国对抗中国，对抗俄罗斯，所有国家和地区都在争夺优势——将会导致更多对抗、更多边缘政策和更多战争。