2. The Divide Between Ancient and Modern World Orders
二、古今“天下”秩序的分界线
The Nomos of the Earth is divided into four chapters. The first, entitled “Introduction,” is very short, comprising five brief essays and running to approximately 40 pages in the Chinese translation. Yet the question it raises and discusses is important: how to distinguish the law of nations before the global age from international law after its advent. Beginning with an overview of “pre-global law of nations” (Vor - globales Völkerrecht), and tracing back through Christian and ancient Greek conceptions of the world, Schmitt sets out his understanding of the original meaning of “nomos”:
《大地的法》全书分四章，题为“引论”的第一章篇幅很短，由五篇短文构成，约 40页（按中译本计算），但提出并讨论的问题颇为重要，即如何区分全球时代之前的万民法与全球时代之后的国际法。从“前全球时代的万民法”（Vor - globales Völkerrecht）概观入手，通过回溯基督教和古希腊的天下观，施米特提出了他对“法”的原初含义的理解：
For us, nomos is the fundamental process of spatial distribution, a process of great importance in every historical period. For peoples living together on this earth, now measured by modern science, it signifies the achievement of a structurally orienting convergence of order and location. (p. 46)
对我们来说，法是关于空间分配的基本进程，在每一个历史时期都非常重要，对于共同生活在这个业已被现代科学测量过的地球上的人民来说，它意味着实现了秩序与场域的结构导向性汇合。（页46）
Clearly, the “global [perspective]” (global) is the key to distinguishing the ancient from the modern world order. Understanding what a “global [perspective]” means is therefore the key to understanding Schmitt’s subject.
显然，“全球[视野]”（global）是区分天下秩序的古今之变的关键。从而，理解何谓“全球[视野]”，乃是理解施米特论题的关键。
The final section of Chapter One is entitled “On Appropriation as a Constitutive Element of International Law.” “Appropriation” is the key term, while “international law” refers to the axiomatic principles upon which the European order formed after the “rise of Europe” in the sixteenth century. In other words, the formation of European international law was based on “the great movement of appropriation in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries” (p. 47).
第一章最后一节题为“论占取作为国际法之建构性因素”，“占取”是关键词，而“国际法”指 16世纪“欧洲崛起”以来的欧洲秩序赖以形成的公理性法则。换言之，欧洲国际法的形成基于“ 16 - 17世纪的大占取运动”（页 47）。
In Chapter Two, which follows, Schmitt presents us with a title whose wording is familiar, though its meaning may not be fully understood: “The Appropriation of the New World.” The “New World” here refers to the American continents. Clearly, from a world-historical standpoint, the “global [perspective]” was born of Europe’s historical movement of “appropriating the New World” in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
接下来的第二章，施米特就让我们看到一个耳熟但未必能详的标题：“占取新世界”。这里的“新世界”指美洲大陆。很清楚，从世界史角度讲，“全球 [视野]”诞生于 16至 17世纪的欧洲“占取新世界”的历史运动。
Chapter Two contains three sections and is in fact also not very long, at approximately 60 pages. It, too, is introductory in character, especially its first section, “The First Global Lines.” Here, the birth of the “global [perspective]” is defined more concretely as the geographical division of global spheres of influence by the European great powers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
第二章含三节，篇幅其实也不长（约 60页），同样具有引论性质，尤其是第一节“最初的地球分界线”。在这里，“全球[视野]”的诞生被更为具体地界定为 16至 17世纪的欧洲大国对全球势力范围的地理划分。
Schmitt’s central argument rests on two points. First, the European Christian monarchies’ “appropriation” of the Western Hemisphere after the great geographical discoveries intensified interstate conflicts within Europe, and European international law emerged in response. Second, with the rise of the United States in the Western Hemisphere, European international law entered into decline. We must recognize that the United States was the product of the European Christian kingdoms’ “appropriation” of American land and was thus an extension of the European order: the great European powers fought fiercely in the Americas to contend for American territory. The ambivalent relationship with the European order of the independent state established in North America by Europeans in the British colonies, namely the United States, is the key to the transformations, or the rise and fall, of European international law. The end of “Eurocentrism,” or the rise of “globalism,” may very well mean the rise of Americentrism.
施米特提出的关键论题基于如下两个要点：第一，欧洲的基督教君主国在地理大发现之后对西半球的“占取”加剧了欧洲内部的国家间冲突，欧洲国际法应运而生；第二，随着西半球的美国崛起，欧洲国际法便走向衰落。我们必须意识到，美国是欧洲的基督教王国“占取”美洲陆地的结果，从而是欧洲秩序的延伸：为了争夺美洲地盘，欧洲大国之间在美洲大打出手。英属殖民地的欧洲人在北美洲建立的独立国家即美国与欧洲秩序若即若离的关系，乃是欧洲国际法嬗变或兴衰的关键。“欧洲中心主义”的终结或“全球主义”的兴起，很可能意味着美国中心主义的兴起。
Thus, as we can see, the following two chapters, Three and Four, form the main body of the book and account for two-thirds of its length, approximately two hundred pages. Chapter Three, entitled “European Public Law,” discusses the formation of the nomos of the world in the European Era; Chapter Four, entitled “Questions Concerning a New Nomos of the Earth,” corresponds to the second argument above, the rise of the United States. The so-called “new nomos of the earth” is tantamount to the law of America’s world order. If America’s new “nomos of the world” has an intrinsic connection to Mackinder’s world-historical political geography, then even “defenses” could not effectively protect Schmitt’s historical inquiry grounded in “factual evidence.”
因此我们看到，随后的第三和第四章是全书主体，占全书三分之二篇幅（约两百页）：第三章题为“欧洲公法”，即讨论欧洲纪元的天下之法的形成；第四章题为“关于新大地法的诸问题”，对应上述第二个论题即美国的崛起。所谓“新大地法”，无异于指美国的天下秩序之法。如果美国的新“天下法”与麦金德的世界历史政治地理观有内在的连带关系，那么，施米特凭靠“事实依据”的史学探究即便“设防”也不可能有效。
The title of the first essay in Chapter Three is “The State as the Leading Force in a New Interstate, Eurocentric Global Spatial Order.” In other words, the “appropriation” of the Western Hemisphere could only be an act of states. The first essay in Chapter Four is entitled “The Last Appropriation by Europe as a Whole.” Schmitt writes:
第三章第一篇的标题是“国家成为新的国家间欧洲中心主义全球空间秩序的主导力量”，换言之，对西半球的“占取”只会是国家行为。第四章第一篇的标题是“整个欧洲的最终占取”，施米特写到：
The waning of European public law coincided with the loss, from the hands of the European powers, of the last land appropriated outside Europe. This was also the farewell performance of a common European international law. Its stage was the soil of Africa. At the same time, between 1870 and 1900, Japan, as Asia’s leading power, gradually entered the international arena: first entering into treaty relations, then joining administrative organizations such as the Universal Postal Union, and finally being admitted as an equal member of the common order of European international law. On African soil, however, competition among the European states continued over colonial societies undergoing development or newly established. (p. 196)
欧洲公法的花落时节，也正是欧洲以外的最后一块占取之地从欧洲强国们的手中失落之日，这也是共同欧洲国际法的谢幕演出。演出的舞台在非洲的土地上。与此同时，从1870到1900这段时期，作为亚洲的领先者日本逐步走上国际舞台，首先进入条约关系中，继而加入像万国邮政联盟这样的管理组织，并最终被接纳为欧洲国际法共同秩序中的平等一员。但是，在非洲大地上，仍然上演着欧洲国家之间为了开拓中的和新建立的殖民地社会而展开的竞争。（页196）
The European powers’ struggle for Africa was merely the “waning of European public law.” The next section is entitled “The End of European Public Law.” We see that the “factual evidence” Schmitt provides here is that the Spanish-American War of 1898 marked the starting point of the rise of the United States. Schmitt says that this war demonstrated:
欧洲强国争夺非洲不过是“欧洲公法的花落时节”，接下来的第二节题为“欧洲公法的终结”。我们看到，施米特在这里给出的“事实依据”是， 1898年的美西战争成为美国崛起的起点。施米特说，这场战争表明：
American foreign policy had already turned toward an era of overt imperialism. This war did not adhere to the traditional continental conception of the Western Hemisphere, but reached deep into the Pacific and even into the regions of the ancient East. (p. 274)
美国的外交政策已经转向了一个开放的帝国主义时代。这次战争没有遵守西半球的传统的大陆概念，而是深入太平洋地区，甚至深入到古老的东方区域。（页274）
From then on, “intervention was legitimized, and the United States could intervene in all important world affairs, whether political, social, or economic” (p. 290). The end of “Europe as the center” thus by no means signifies the end of state-centeredness. Rather, it means only that the United States succeeded in pushing the European great powers out of the Americas, making itself the sole dominant great power in the Americas, and then participating in that capacity in the competition to repartition global spheres of influence. Gilbert’s dating of the historical moment of “the end of the European Era” to the period beginning in 1890 is entirely consistent with Schmitt’s view.
从此，“干涉被正当化了，美国可以插手政治、社会、经济等所有重要的世界事务”（页 290）。因此，“欧洲中心”的终结绝非意味着国家本位的终结，毋宁说，它仅仅意味着美国成功将欧洲大国挤出美洲，让自己成为独霸美洲的大国，然后以此大国身份参与重新划分全球势力范围的竞争。吉尔伯特把“欧洲纪元的终结”的历史时刻确定为 1890年以来，与施米特的看法完全一致。
Seen in this light, the final section of Chapter One and the first section of Chapter Two form the pivot of The Nomos of the Earth, especially the latter. Here Schmitt briefly sets out the central point of the following three chapters. To see this point clearly, however, we need to compare it with the main tenets of Mackinder’s world-historical geography.
由此看来，《大地的法》的第一章最后一节和第二章第一节乃全书枢纽，尤其后者。施米特在这里扼要阐述了随后三章的核心要点，但要看清这一要点，我们需要对比麦金德的世界历史地理观的要点。
In Mackinder’s view, before the discovery of the New World in the sixteenth century, humanity’s struggle for living space unfolded only in two regions of the Eurasian-African landmass, which he called the “World - Island.” Two-thirds of the world’s population was settled in the “Crescent” of peripheral lands along the ocean-bounded eastern, southern, and western edges of Eurasia. The Eurasian “interior” (heart - land, also translated as “Heartland”), namely the central and northern parts of this landmass, was immensely extensive but very sparsely populated. Yet its steppe tribes long maintained a strategic advantage over the political entities of the Crescent. It was only through the great geographical discoveries of the generation of Columbus and other great navigators, which enabled the peoples of Western Europe to connect Eurasia’s eastern and western coasts by sea, that the strategic advantage of the Eurasian “Heartland” was neutralized (The Pivot, p. 64).
在麦金德看来， 16世纪发现新大陆之前，人类争夺生存空间的斗争仅在地球上的欧亚非大陆——他称之为“世界岛”（World - Island）——的两个区域展开。全世界三分之二的人口定居在欧亚大陆被海洋包围的东、南、西面的“新月形”（Crescent）边缘地带，欧亚大陆“腹地”（heart - land，又译“心脏地带”）即这块陆地的中部和北部，地域极为广阔，人口却十分稀少，但这里的草原部族却对新月形地带的政治体长期保持战略优势。凭靠哥伦布一代伟大的航海家们的地理大发现，西欧民族通过航行把欧亚大陆东西海岸连接起来，才解除了欧亚大陆“心脏地带”的战略优势（《枢纽》，页 64）。
The classical geographical relationship between Eurasia’s peripheral regions and its continental interior thus underwent a reversal of world-historical significance. The key to this historical change was that “when the seafaring peoples of Western Europe controlled the oceans with their fleets, settled along the outer rims of the continents, and, to varying degrees, turned the maritime fringes of Asia into dependencies,” they opened up a new Crescent, which Mackinder called the “Outer Crescent” (The Pivot, p. 68).
欧亚大陆边缘地带与大陆腹地的古典地理关系因此而发生了具有世界历史意义的颠倒，这一历史变化的关键在于：“当西欧的航海民族以他们的舰队控制海洋，在各大陆的外缘定居，并在不同程度上把亚洲的海洋边缘变成属地时”，就开辟出一个新的新月形地带——麦金德称为“外新月形地带”（《枢纽》，页 68）。
Thus Mackinder states at the very beginning of The Geographical Pivot of History that the geographical discoveries of the Columbian epoch had extended over a history of four hundred years. Following close on the heels of explorers, travelers, and missionaries came the “political appropriation” of the newly discovered lands by the monarchical states of Western Europe. By 1900, however, the Columbian epoch had ended, and on the earth’s surface “hardly a piece of land remained whose claims to ownership required confirmation” (The Pivot, p. 44).
因此，麦金德在《历史的地理枢纽》中一开始就说，哥伦布纪元的地理发现经历了长达四百年历史，紧随探险家或旅行者或传教士的脚步而来的，是西欧王权国家对地理新发现的“政治占取”（political appropriation）。但是，到 1900年的时候，哥伦布纪元已经结束，全球地表上已经“几乎没有留下一块需要确认所有权申明的土地”（《枢纽》，页 44）。
The process of “political appropriation” lasting more than three hundred years, which Mackinder did not discuss in detail, is precisely the “factual evidence, including certain specific questions” that Schmitt wishes to examine closely: the subject of Chapter Three. On the basis of this historical fact, Schmitt advances a view of the history of the modern world entirely different from Mackinder’s. Mackinder keeps his gaze fixed on the threat posed by the continental Heartland to the maritime great powers and the New World, a threat that he believes to be world-historical. Schmitt, by contrast, keeps his gaze fixed on the relationship between Europe, including Britain, and the “New World,” namely the Western Hemisphere revealed by the great geographical discoveries.
麦金德没有细说的长达三百多年的“政治占取”过程，恰恰是施米特要细说的“事实依据，包括某些具体问题”，即第三章的内容。依据这一历史事实，施米特提出了与麦金德截然不同的现代世界的历史观。麦金德的目光牢牢盯住大陆心脏地带对海属大国以及新世界的威胁——如他相信的那样，这是一种世界历史性的威胁，施米特则把目光紧紧盯住包括英国在内的欧洲与“新世界”即地理大发现所发现的西半球的关系。