When Russia and China announced a $400 billion deal last month for Russia to supply China with 38 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually for three decades, some analysts heralded it as a tectonic geopolitical shift.

当俄罗斯和中国上个月宣布达成一项总价4,000亿美元、由俄罗斯在30年内每年向中国提供380亿立方米天然气的合同时，一些分析人士预计，地缘政治版图将发生变化。

Instead, Vladimir's Putin's haste to sign a deal that had been in the making for more than a decade confirmed his country's political weakness. Despite being buoyed by high energy prices in the first decade of this century, Russia is in decline. Demographically it is shrinking; it has severe health problems (the average Russian male dies in his early 60s); and it is a 'one-crop economy' heavily dependent on energy exports. Russia needs reforms to build a diversified, entrepreneurial economy, but its actions in Ukraine have brought on sanctions that weaken its access to Western ideas and technology. Becoming China's gas station does nothing to reverse this trend.

不过，普京(Vladimir Putin)急匆匆地签署一项已经酝酿了10多年的合同反而确证了俄罗斯在政治上的弱点。尽管受到本世纪头10年能源价格高涨的提振，俄罗斯的国势却每况愈下。从人口统计的角度来看俄罗斯在走下坡路；俄罗斯存在严重的健康问题（该国男性平均寿命不过60出头）；俄罗斯走的是“单一作物经济”路线，严重依赖能源出口。俄罗斯需要推行改革来打造一个多元化、鼓励创新的经济体，但俄罗斯在乌克兰的行动引发了制裁，这使得该国与西方的观念和技术更加隔阂。成为中国的加气站并不能逆转这一趋势。

The real geopolitical shift is the shale-energy revolution that took off in the past decade. While the technologies of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing are not new, their pioneering application to shale rock is largely a product of American entrepreneurship in the past decade.

真正的地缘政治转变在于在上一个10年当中开始爆发的页岩气革命。尽管水平钻井和水力压裂的技术已经不算新鲜，但这两种技术在页岩气开采方面的开创性应用主要是上一个10年当中美国人的创新精神产物。

Ten years ago, many experts were speaking of 'peak oil'-the idea that even reserves in Saudi Arabia had topped off. The U.S. was regarded as increasingly dependent on energy imports and was building terminals to import high-priced liquefied natural gas. Instead, North America is now building terminals to export its low-cost LNG, and the continent is expected to be self-sufficient in energy in the 2020s, according to a broad consensus of energy experts. The Energy Department estimates that the country has 25 trillion cubic meters of technically recoverable resources of shale gas, which when combined with other oil-and-gas resources could last for two centuries.

10年前，很多专家都在谈论“石油峰值”(peak oil)，这种理论声称，就连沙特的石油储量也已经见顶。那时人们认为，美国将越来越依赖于能源进口，而且正在建造终端设施，进口高价液化天然气。但实际上，如今北美洲正在建设用于出口低成本液化天然气的终端设施，而且能源专家已经形成广泛共识，北美大陆预计将在21世纪20年代实现能源自足。美国能源部估计，美国可开采的页岩气储量达25万亿立方米，这些天然气加上其他油气资源足够美国用上200年。

The shale revolution has a number of implications for American foreign policy. Shale-energy production boosts the economy and produces more jobs. Reducing imports helps the balance of payments. New tax revenues ease government budgets. Cheaper energy makes industry more competitive internationally, particularly energy-intensive industries like petrochemicals, aluminum, steel and others.

对于美国的外交政策而言，页岩气革命带来了一系列影响。页岩气的开发提振了经济，并增加了就业。进口减少也有助于实现收支平衡。新增税收收入缓解了政府预算压力。自身能源价格的下降也令美国能源业在全球市场中更具竞争力，在石化、铝、钢铁等对能源价格较为敏感的行业尤其如此。

There are also domestic political effects. One is psychological. For some time, many people at home and abroad have bought into the myth of American decline. Increasing dependence on energy imports was often cited as evidence. The shale revolution changes that dependence and demonstrates the combination of entrepreneurship, property rights and capital markets that are this country's underlying strength.

页岩气革命也给美国国内政治带来了影响，其中之一是心理上的。在一段时间中，美国国内外的许多人士都认为美国正在衰落，对于能源进口的依赖度增加则被常常认为是证据之一。不过，页岩气革命改变了美国对于能源的依赖，并且显现出创业精神、财产权利以及资本市场才是美国真正的力量所在。

Skeptics have argued that lowered dependence on energy imports will cause the U.S. to disengage from the Middle East. This misreads the economics of energy. A major disruption such as a war or terrorist attack that stopped the flow of oil and gas through the Strait of Hormuz would drive prices to very high levels in America and among our allies in Europe and Japan. Moreover, the U.S. has many interests other than oil in the region, including nonproliferation of nuclear weapons, protection of Israel, human rights and counterterrorism.

怀疑论者认为，对能源进口依赖的降低将令美国从中东脱离。但是这种观点是对能源经济的误解。战争或恐怖袭击等重大干扰事件可以令途经霍尔木兹海峡的油气运输中断，并将美国和欧洲、日本等其盟友的油气价格推升到非常高的水平。除此以外，美国在中东除了石油还存在许多其他利害关系，包括防止核武器扩散、保护以色列、保护**以及反恐等。

As for the costs of maintaining our Fifth Fleet in the region, many bases are paid for by host countries, and the marginal costs of keeping naval resources there instead of elsewhere do not add greatly to the budget. The U.S. may be cautious about overextension in the Middle East, but that is more the product of experience with the costly invasion of Iraq and the general turmoil of the Arab revolutions rather than illusions that shale produces political 'energy independence.' The ability of the U.S. to use oil sanctions to bring Iran to the bargaining table on nuclear issues depended not only on Saudi willingness to make up the million barrels of oil per day that Iran lost, but also on the general expectations that were created by the shale revolution.

对于驻扎于此的美国第五舰队来说，许多相关基地均由所在国国家政府出资，而维持驻扎在当地的海军资源的边际成本并没有令预算大幅增加。美国可能对于自己在中东的触角延伸过广较为谨慎，但这更多是代价高昂的入侵伊拉克，以及阿拉伯革命造成的大范围动荡的产物，而不是页岩气带来的政治上的“能源独立”所造成的。美国之所以可以利用石油制裁来令伊朗回到核问题谈判桌前，这不仅在于沙特阿拉伯愿意弥补伊朗制裁带来的每日百万桶的石油产量减少，同时也得益于页岩气革命引发的普遍预期。

Other benefits of the shale revolution for American foreign policy include the diminishing ability of countries like Venezuela to purchase votes in the U.N. and regional organizations of small Caribbean states by shipments of oil, and, if the government will approve more exports of liquefied natural gas, the eventual reduction of Russia's ability to coerce its neighbors by threats to cut off gas supplies. In short, there has been a tectonic shift in the geopolitics of energy, but it was not the Russia-China gas pipeline deal.

页岩气革命还给美国外交政策带来了其他好处。委内瑞拉等国家通过提供石油在联合国以及加勒比地区小型国家结成的组织中拉拢投票，但是页岩气革命使得这些国家通过这种方法拉拢投票的能力被削弱。此外，如果美国政府批准增加液化天然气的出口，那么最终可以削弱俄罗斯通过威胁切断天然气供应而对其邻国施加压力的能力。简而言之，能源市场的地缘政治构造已经发生了改变，但这一改变并非源于俄罗斯与中国的天然气合约。