。上周，伦敦防务会议第二次来到华盛顿。该会议成立于2022年，旨在应对俄罗斯入侵乌克兰，致力于“在专制政权不断演变的威胁面前加强国防”。今年的主题是赢得未来战争，而未解的问题依然存在。西方和美国能否在当前和未来的冲突中获胜？除了赢得冷战——如果那真算赢了，或者苏联是在米哈伊尔·戈尔巴乔夫推行的改革努力下解体的——战绩并不令人印象深刻。
The West must win its future wars and not just battles Last week, the London Defense Conference came to Washington for a second year. Founded in 2022 in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the event “is committed to strengthening defense in the light of evolving threats from authoritarian regimes.” This year’s topic was winning future wars, and the unanswered questions remain. Can the West and the U.S. prevail in current and future conflicts? The record beyond winning the Cold War — if it was really won, or if the Soviet Union imploded under the reform efforts imposed by Mikhail Gorbachev — is unimpressive.
伊朗战争正证明对美国而言是一场灾难。尽管表现出非凡的英勇和毅力，但2900万乌克兰人能否抵挡住俄罗斯的进攻？俄罗斯人口超过1.4亿，迄今已伤亡150万人。
The war in Iran is proving disastrous for the United States. Despite extraordinary heroism and endurance, can 29 million Ukrainians stave off the assaults of Russia, which has a population of over 140 million and has so far sustained 1.5 million killed and wounded?
西方唯一真正的胜利是英国在1982年福克兰战争中击败阿根廷。首相玛格丽特·撒切尔下令实施“法人行动”，舰队航行6000英里，重新占领南大西洋上一小群被阿根廷占领的岛屿。
The West’s only real victory was Britain’s defeat of Argentina in the 1982 Falklands War. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher ordered Operation Corporate to sail 6,000 miles to reoccupy a relatively small collection of islands in the South Atlantic that had been seized by Argentina.
当然，世界已经变了。战争形式已发生转变，无人机、导弹和人工智能使战场趋于均势。军事弱势国家和团体如今拥有强大能力，迄今为止只能用极其昂贵的武器来应对。例如，一枚相对便宜的弹道导弹可以被美国海军的“标准"-3导弹拦截摧毁。但那枚导弹的成本超过2700万美元。
Of course, the world has changed. Warfare has been transformed, and the battlefield has been equalized by drones, missiles and artificial intelligence. Militarily weak states and groups now possess formidable capabilities that, so far, can only be countered by very expensive weapons. For example, a relatively cheap ballistic missile can be destroyed by the U.S. Navy’s SM-3 missile. But that missile costs over $27 million.
为应对不分地域的战场，更廉价的武器和无人系统已成为重中之重。秉承“能用子弹解决的地方绝不派人去”的老话精神，无人水面、水下和航空单位将挽救生命。
To deal with battlefields irrespective of locale, cheaper weapons and uncrewed systems have assumed a high priority. In the spirit of the old saying, never send a man where you can send a bullet; unmanned surface, sub-surface and aviation units will save lives.
但当无人武器系统的成本逼近有人系统时，会发生什么？虽然无人机能挽救生命，但这些系统也是乌克兰战场上最致命的杀手。
But what happens when uncrewed weapons systems approach the costs of manned systems? And while unmanned drones can save lives, these systems are also Ukraine’s most dangerous battlefield killers.
这次会议开启了一场美国必须正视的对话。我曾撰文分析为何美国自二战结束以来发动的每一场战争都以失败告终。无论哪个政党执政，根本原因如出一辙。
The conference began a dialogue that the U.S. must consider. I have written before about why the U.S. has lost every war it started since the end of World War II. No matter the political party in charge, the causes were the same.
虽然两党都有责任，但失败源于缺乏关于军事力量如何实现战略目标的知识与理解。盲目自信美国军事优势必将获胜，将己方预设的敌人行动强加于敌人实际行动之上，政治权宜之计与令人瘫痪的官僚主义，皆为祸因。
While each party was a contributor, defeat arose from a lack of knowledge and understanding about how military force can achieve a strategic outcome. Hubris in the belief that American military superiority would prevail, transposing our views on what we believed an enemy would do instead of what they actually did, political expediency and crippling bureaucracy all contributed.
从越南战争——林登·约翰逊称美国在对抗共产主义的迫在眉睫的威胁，到伊拉克战争——萨达姆·侯赛因并未拥有大规模杀伤性武器，开战理由被证明完全错误。
From Vietnam, where Lyndon Johnson said the U.S. fought an imminent threat from communism, to Iraq, where Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, the reasons for going to war proved dead wrong.
在阿富汗，猎捕奥萨马·本·拉登演变为国家建设——一项不可能完成的任务。而在攻击伊朗的设想中，政府未能预见伊朗近乎必然会封锁霍尔木兹海峡，或德黑兰会袭击美国在海湾的盟友并将战火延烧至也门。
In Afghanistan, hunting Osama bin Laden became nation building — a mission impossible. And in attacking Iran, the administration did not anticipate the near-certain threat of Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz, or Tehran attacking U.S. allies in the Gulf and expanding the war to Yemen.
共和党和民主党政府均难辞其咎。我们如何降低未来政府重蹈覆辙的风险？当前，中国是美国的主要对手。美国的目标是在其战略模糊政策下捍卫台湾免受入侵。
Both Republican and Democratic administrations were guilty of errors. How can we reduce the chances that future administrations do not repeat these blunders? Currently, China is the main U.S. adversary. America’s aim is to defend Taiwan from an invasion despite its policy of strategic ambiguity.
欧洲担心，在乌克兰之后，弗拉基米尔·普京可能会向西进攻，夺取波罗的海国家之一或附近岛屿，甚至挪威海岸外的斯瓦尔巴群岛。但这些担忧是否被夸大了，就像20世纪60年代单一共产主义威胁论、伊拉克大规模杀伤性武器，以及可能还有伊朗追求核武器的威胁一样？虽然我们可能永远无法得到绝对答案，但分析各种可能性至关重要。
Europe is fearful that after Ukraine, Vladimir Putin may attack west, seizing one of the Baltic states or a nearby island, even Svalbard off Norway’s coast. But are these fears exaggerated, like the threat of a monolithic Communist threat in the 1960s, Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and possibly Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons? While we may never have absolute answers, analyzing the possibilities is essential.
正如罗纳德·里根所说：“信任，但要核实。”让我们在采取任何日后可能后悔的行动之前，核实中国和俄罗斯确实是我们认为的那些威胁。
As Ronald Reagan said, “trust, but verify.” Let us verify that China and Russia are indeed the threats we believe they are before taking any future action we may regret.
哈兰·乌尔曼是一家私营公司的董事长，也是“震慑与震惊”理论的主要作者。他与英国前国防参谋长、陆军元帅大卫·理查兹勋爵合著的新书是《谁想得最好谁就赢：果断的战略思维如何防止全球混乱》。
Harlan Ullman is chairman of a private company and principal author of the doctrine of shock and awe. His next book, co-written with Field Marshal The Lord David Richards, former United Kingdom chief of defense, is “Who Thinks Best Wins: How Decisive Strategic Thinking Will Prevent Global Chaos.“