--- author: Dwarkesh Patel date: '2024-04-06' guest: '' layout: post.njk source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3tuS9bgBfo speaker: Dwarkesh Patel tags: - death-ground - wwii-strategy - national-identity - military-morale - historical-analysis title: 历史的韧性：从“死亡地面”概念透视战争中的国家意志与民族认同 summary: 本文深入分析了“死亡地面”这一战略概念在解析历史冲突中的作用，从二战俄德战争的俄罗斯韧性，到现代俄乌冲突中乌克兰民族认同的形成。文章对比了不同国家的战争策略、文化背景如何影响军队士气与国民心态，并探讨了日本在二战中的复杂决策及其历史反思，以及一个关于日本联合中国国民党对抗共产主义的引人深思的“反事实”设想。 insight: '' draft: true series: '' category: geopolitics area: geopolitics project: [] people: [] companies_orgs: [] products_models: [] media_books: [] status: evergreen --- ### 俄罗斯的二战韧性：“死亡地面”下的国家意志 俄罗斯在二战中为何能承受数千万士兵的损失，国家却未崩溃，反而能生产出先进坦克？这引发了关于中央计划经济有效性、**斯大林**高压统治下政府为何未倒台等诸多谜团。与此相对，**希特勒**虽也残暴，但其统治的帝国内部并未出现类似沙皇俄国在一战中的瓦解。问题的核心在于，在极端压力下，一个国家或民族是否被推至了“死亡地面”。 Samuel Griffith 对孙子兵法的翻译引入了“死亡地面”这一概念：当敌人将你逼入绝境，你别无选择，只能殊死搏斗，即便胜算渺茫，这是唯一的生存之道。
Original English why was Russia so robust against not initially but eventually so robust against pushing back against the Germans despite losing tens of millions of soldiers the government doesn't collapse like the Zars did in World War I and not only that but a communist country is able to produce these really Advanced tanks in large and reliable numbers there's so many Mysteries are like why central planning worked why the government didn't collapse despite the fact that Stalin you know killed all so many people he would have been hated right so ah but Hitler killed more and was more hated uh what you're thinking about is what did the Russians do I'm going to flip it what do the Germans do a useful concept comes from the Samuel Griffith translation of sunzo which talks about death ground what's death ground it's when your enemy puts you on death ground which means they're going to kill you and therefore you have no choice but to fight because if you don't fight you're dead and even if you fight your odds are poor but at least that's the only way you're going to get out
### 乌克兰的抵抗与民族认同的锻造 乌克兰人民在二战初期曾因斯大林强加的饥荒而对德国入侵者抱有复杂态度，认为“再糟糕也比不过过去的苦难”。然而，纳粹的暴行——强迫乌克兰人挖掘万人坑——彻底改变了他们的看法，将德国变成了必须抵抗的敌人。这种因外部极端压迫而激发的强大反抗力量，不仅体现在俄罗斯身上，也正被乌克兰经历。回溯至2014年克里米亚危机前，腐败的乌克兰政府使民众在“乌克兰化”与“俄罗斯化”之间摇摆不定。但时至今日，俄罗斯军队对东部地区民众的毁灭性打击，迫使乌克兰人认识到与俄罗斯“共存”的可能性已不复存在。讽刺的是，**弗拉基米尔·普京**的行动正在无意中锻造出一个前所未有的、坚定的乌克兰民族认同，正如历史上美国独立战争促成了北美十三殖民地的联合国家认同。
Original English the ukrainians initially welcomed the Germans why because Stalin and friends had imposed the uh terrible Famine of the early 1930s on them and they couldn't imagine that anything would be worse than that until they met Nazis who then had them dig their own Mass Graves the ukrainians rethought that whole thing and if you do this to people you will conjure a formidable enemy so that's what happened to Russia you can see it happening to Ukraine now before your eyes go back uh before the invasion of Crimea in 2014 you got Ukraine which has very corrupt government and people were sixes and sevens about whether they want to do Ukrainian things or Russian things okay fast forward to now where you have Russians blowing away the people who were most loyal to them in the eastern part of the country who didn't leave their apartment buildings are being leveled by Russians ukrainians think aha you know this idea that we can coexist with these people is over and and our irony is Putin's forging Ukrainian national identity and Wars often do this in the United States uh we start out with our 13 colonies and they're all very different after the Revolutionary War that starts forging a national identity and by the time you get to the end of the Civil War where you have northern armies at least those people have been all over the country they have a real sense of nature
### 比较战争策略：“无条件投降”与文化驱动的士气 美国在二战及内战中奉行的“无条件投降”策略，与轴心国在乌克兰或中国提出的极端政策目标存在本质区别——美国并未进行种族灭绝。那么，为何美国的策略未导致其对手国家（如德国、日本）出现与俄国在二战初期类似的崩溃？关键在于，美国并未将对手国的民众置于“死亡地面”。相反，在许多情况下，是对手国的领导层（如**东条英机**）将自身推入了“职业生涯的死亡地面”，因为任何退让都意味着政治生命的终结，甚至可能面临处决。尽管如此，日本民众最终并未感受到“死亡地面”的绝望，其社会结构因战争长期消耗而濒临破碎。美国也从未像俄罗斯屠杀波兰人那样，大规模屠杀德国平民。然而，1945年东京经历的毁灭性火烧（一晚造成8.4万人死亡）等惨剧，为何未能使日本人陷入“死亡地面”的绝境？
Original English by the end of that one it's interesting because the strategy we pursued with Germany and Japan was unconditional surrender now do you think of that is different than obviously we didn't commit genocide or anything but you think that is different than the sort of um total unlimited policy objectives that for example Germany had in Ukraine or Japan had in China or we also pursued unconditional surrender against the south in the Civil War right so how do you think about because that's also something where your back is up against the wall why did that not result in the same kind of morale because because the United States did not put the people of these countries on death ground the leadership had self- put themselves on death ground by where the basically the problem for Tojo hiedi is if he backs down on anything he's out of office and then he doesn't know what happens after that so he personally is on Career death ground and possibly he thinks uh well we would we we were planning to that he would get executed at the end of the war but the Japanese people eventually figured out that they weren't on J death ground and in fact the Japanese people were so exhausted by the whole thing that they the society shattered um but the United States was never uh going to put the German people start massacring them in the way that the Russians massacred the poles when they moved in the Germans massacred the poles how do you wind up with eight or nine million polish deaths in World War II think about that's a large number it's because they're massing they're being massed but there was a fire bombing you know Tokyo and Dron and Berlin I think it was in your book that 84,000 people died in that one night fire bombing in Tokyo it's terrible why did that not make them put them in the mind frame of a sort of total uh death ground well a I don't know but B Japan had been at War since
### 日本的文化、战争疲惫与天皇的角色 日本的战争状态自1931年起就已持续，其军队在中国战场消耗巨大。在二战后期，日本国内已承受了长期战争的重压，经济产值远低于美国，且面临严峻的粮食和资源短缺，社会几近崩溃。尽管如此，日本军队却以极高的士气闻名，拒绝投降。这背后深层原因是日本独特的文化——强调对“内团体”（ingroups）的忠诚与义务，而非西方强调的“自由”和“权利”。士兵们在战场上并非考虑战略，而是对行动单位的成功负有义务。一旦战败，他们将为自己、家庭乃至所属团体带来耻辱，投降意味着彻底的失败。 这种文化背景也体现在内部管理上：日本指挥官曾命令士兵处决受伤同袍，以避免“残疾士兵”回国带来的耻辱。在战争的最后关头，**裕仁天皇**（Emperor Hirohito）介入，打破了内阁的僵局。此前，他因缺乏相关专业知识（其兴趣在于研究后院的鱼类）而未干预日本对外扩张的决策。然而，当面临原子弹威胁时，他挺身而出，避免了可能导致的最大规模的种族清洗。
Original English 1931 in China uh they had been sending large armies this isn't like recent us Wars the counterinsurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan this is their sending hundreds of of thousands of troops to occupy Manchuria the Chinese don't give up it goes on and on and on so by the time you're getting to 1945 it's a long time also they had committed atrocities in China and they knew all about it and the atrocities got even better when there were wounded Japanese soldiers their commanders ordered their fellow soldiers to execute them because they didn't want cripples going home they couldn't deal with them there and so rather than have the pick them up they executed them in place you can you imagine how Japanese soldiers felt about this how do we explain the high morale the famously High morale of the Japanese military where they would refuse to surrender even after given orders by their superiors despite knowing about um these things that you were talking about uh it's true um it's because it's a different culture so in Japanese culture you belong to ingroups or out groups so the biggest ingroup the Japanese belong to was Japanese people and everybody else but within Japan you come from a province a locality Etc you go school education various places you belong to a job wherever you have and there are various units within your job and you owe loyalty it's obligations in the west it's all about Liberties and my rights in the East it's about obligations to other people and so you owe obligations to all of these uh organizations and when they soldiers are thinking about war they're not thinking about Grant strategy they're thinking about operational success so the moment you as a soldier start losing a battle instead of in the west where you can Retreat you can surrender and it's not dishonorable because you're going to live to fight another day in Japan you're a failure and therefore if you go come home back as a failed Soldier you bring dishonor to yourself your family uh your locality anyone you are associated with so that's why it is so difficult to for them to surrender however by the time you get to the end of the war they are so exhausted think about it their economy is I don't know I can't remember the statistics exactly something like a tenth of our economy they have something like a 13th of our I can't remember was coal or steel production and they don't have any um local oil production uh they're importers of food and they're not getting that food so by the time you get to 45 they're exhausted and it's um it's a shattering that occurs and um finally at the very end you have emperor hero who knew full well earlier if he disagreed and he didn't disagree for a long time that he would be assassinated or be proclaimed deranged and he had a perfectly good underage son to be used as a figure head he knew that he couldn't do much about it uh at the very end when he decided he was about to get nuked that's when he intervenes to break the deadlock and at the cabinet meetings and there are a variety of people at the very top who realizes it's over could heroo have intervened earlier I doubt it
### 日本的扩张主义与中国的民族觉醒 日本曾以为其极度残暴的侵华政策能助其征服“落后”的中国，却未料到正是这种极端暴行，最终促使中国人民团结起来，将日本人视为共同的敌人，从而成为中华民族崛起的强大动力。这种侵略行为最终适得其反。当前，**普京**在乌克兰的行动也存在类似的讽刺效果，他正在“加冕”**泽连斯基**，并为乌克兰锻造出一种前所未有的、坚强的国家认同，永不会忘记当下事件。
Original English let's go back more than five years if he intervenes um when Japan is overextending in China is there any chance that he could have succeeded I doubt he uh thought of Japan overextending in China what expertise does he have he liked Guppies he likes studying fish in his backyard he has no expertise and then of course there's the Hubers of it all that we're going to dominate this place and they look at the Chinese as an absolutely feckless backward place that's had all these warlord things going on and it doesn't Dawn on them that by their extreme brutality in China the Chinese finally get it going uh we're not the problem the Japanese are the problem and it is uh what the Japanese do that superlu China and is the great impetus to n nation building you can see parallels with Hitler doing the same thing in Russia and and also right now um uh Putin's busy canonizing uh zalinski and uh creating a real Nation out of Ukraine that's never going to forget these ongoing events yeah well
### 反事实设想：日本联合国民党对抗共产主义的可能 从您著作中受到的一个深刻且略带悲剧色彩的启示是，日本本可以采取一种“大陆强权”的战略思维，联合中国的**国民党**，共同对抗俄国的**共产主义**势力。这种三线作战（德国、国民党、日本）的策略，或许能阻止共产主义在中国和俄罗斯的崛起。考虑到共产主义在两国造成的巨大生命损失，若能实现这一目标，将挽救无数生命。然而，日本最终选择了与德国结盟，这一决策在如今看来，若采取了另一条路径，例如与国民党合作，则可能意味着**希特勒**的永恒统治，并可能导致欧洲发生历史上最浩大的种族清洗。
Original English what I learned from your book that I thought was really interesting and also tragic because of the counterfactual was one of the strategies you suggested what could have been that Japan could have if it thought like a continental power it could have allied with the Nationalist to beat the Communist in Russia maybe waged almost a three- front war with Germany the Nationalist and Japan beat the Communist and prevented the Communists from taking hold in China and given the consequences of Communism in Russia and China and how many lives could have been saved if you know I guess Hitler was beaten and the Communists are beaten that Japanese choice just seems so tragic let's say they do it uh that means Hitler forever and that means if you're anything but a nice Aran uh your days are numbered certainly it would be the have been the most massive ethnic cleanse ever in Europe