回归地理特性 探讨海权本质

凝聚社会共识、辅助政治决策者们制定国家政策方针,在这样的目标牵引之下,各个地缘政治学派从诞生至今的一百多年来,对国际政治格局的发展产生了深远的影响,然而它们也总是陷入到备受推崇与饱受批判的两极评价之中。马汉在19世纪末提出的海权论同样无法摆脱这样的命运。同时从另一方面来看,与陆权和空权不同,海权从理论诞生的初始至今,就是一个超越了单纯的军事范畴,而更加广泛地涵盖了经济、政策、社会等各种因素的地缘政治概念。因此,海权虽然成为了一个人人嚷嚷上口的地缘政治概念,但是其具体的概念定义却在众口纷纭的争议之中,一直没能够在理论上得以清晰。作者从回归海洋地理特性的角度出发,分析了海洋所具有的不可分割、不可人居、不可据守、不可筑防、隔陆成岛的地缘广阔性、连续性、单一性和媒介性,在厘清海洋这些不同于陆地的独特地缘特性之后,进而指出所谓海权,从本质上来说是指一个国家跨洋联结大陆的意志和能力,具体表现为三个方面互相支撑的内容:一是一个国家自身在开放经济上的组织、发展能力和政策意志,二是在军事斗争上以海军为主轴的战略支撑能力和政策意志,三是国家和社会公众对于信息资源的开发、利用能力与政策意志。

Understanding the Conceptual Nature of Sea Power with Maritime Geographic Features

Unlike land power or air power, sea power was born to be a geopolitical notion that transcends military meanings, and it never received a clear and well-accepted definition of what sea power should be. This article points out that better understandings on the conceptual nature of sea power should be based on further emphasis on maritime geographic features. Contrary to the land, the sea has distinct geographic features of being indivisible and homogeneous. Fortification, fence or drawing a boundary, these are what people easily and always do on the land but there is no way to make these things happened on the sea. People live on the land, not on the sea. However, what significantly dominates the earth system is the ocean not the land. All these geographic features together fashioned one geopolitical reality for the world system: continents in the world, no matter big or small, are just islands separated by big seas. Therefore, sea power can be defined as the will and ability of one state to connect the ocean-isolated continents, which includes three mutually supported contents: the state’s will and ability to develop an open economy, the navy-led military’s will and ability to support strategic decision-makings in both war and peace, and the society’s will and ability to absorb and utilize oversea information and communication.