处理对华关系，痴迷武力是误导
2023-12-09 13:29阅读：
华盛顿在讨论五角大楼的开支时常忽略一个事实：明年军事预算将达8860亿美元，这是二战以来的最高水平之一。遗憾的是，五角大楼、军工产业以及他们在国会的盟友，都没有对美国的国防需求进行认真评估。相反，他们正推行一项考虑不周的计划，以牺牲其他紧迫的国家需求为代价来扩大武器生产基地。
五角大楼预算推动者的主要理由是，美国在开发和部署下一代系统（如由人工智能控制的无人驾驶运载工具）方面有落后于中国的危险。未来几年内，五角大楼的预算可能远超1万亿美元。这是巨大且不必要的过度开支，并将使我们的经济进一步军事化。
美国防部副部长凯瑟琳·希克斯在国防工业协会的一次演讲中公布五角大楼的新方针。她称：“为了保持领先于（中国），我们将创造一种新状态……用自己的大规模系统来对抗解放军的系统。”短时间内打造能大量生产的新系统是一项艰巨任务，这将与五角大楼和军工产业过去50年的表现相矛盾。五角大楼即将发布的一份关于“国防工业战略”的报告建议，解决方案是资助规模更小、更灵活的军工企业，因为传统国防承包商将面临挑战，无法以必要的速度、规模和灵活性应对现代冲突。
然而，无论谁来接受建造下一代系统的挑战，新技术能解决美国面临的一系列安全挑战的说法，都是成问题的。每一代人都寄希望于一种新的、奇迹般的技术解决方案。但这并没使美国真正赢得战争——在越南、伊拉克或阿富汗。以武力彻底改变世界的目标本来就不切实际。那种认为新兴技术会更好、更有能力“打赢”对华战争的想法，充其量只是误导。与中国开战，对所有相关方来说都将是一场空前的灾难，美国政策的目标应该是防止冲突发生，而不是为“打赢”一场与核武大国的战争而设想各种方案。
此外，与五角大楼和军工产业的说辞相反，中国的军队和军工产业并非强大无比。无论如何衡量，美国的军
费开支都是中国的两到三倍。美国在核武器、航母、先进战机、核动力潜艇和运输机等系统的数量上也拥有巨大优势。
事实上，正如（独立监督机构）“政府监督项目”的丹·格拉泽所指出的，中国的军事战略“本质上是防御性的”。在新兴军事技术方面，中美两国的相对实力更难评估。但最好的办法不是在人工智能驱动的机器人武器研发方面与中国展开军备竞赛。避免美中因台海问题开战的最大希望在于明智的外交，而非“智能”武器。继续遵循一个中国原则是个良好开端。
扩大美国的武器生产基地，加速开发危险的下一代武器系统，如此行事的理由并不充分。但除非（美国）国会和公众尽快采取行动加以限制，否则我们可能很快就会进入一个（危险的）新世界——与之相比，当前安全形势还算是好的。
Hyped China fears are driving a high-tech arms
race
Washington wants you to believe we're being outpaced in budget and
weapons. That's not true.
William D. Hartung
Discussions of Pentagon spending in Washington routinely ignore the
fact that at $886 billion for next year, the military budget is
already at one of the highest levels since World War II. With
better management and a more realistic strategy, that sum would be
far more than is needed to provide an effective defense of the
United States and its allies.
Unfortunately, the Pentagon, the arms industry, and their allies in
Congress have failed to make a careful assessment of America’s
defense needs. Instead, they’re pushing an ill-considered plan to
supersize the weapons production base at the expense of other
urgent national needs.
The main argument used by Pentagon budget boosters is that the
United States is in danger of falling behind China in developing
and deploying next-generation systems, like unpiloted vehicles
controlled by artificial intelligence. This approach would also
include taxpayer subsidies for the building of new weapons
factories, which could lead to a permanent expansion of the arms
sector. Doing all of this could push the Pentagon budget well over
$1 trillion in the next few years, a huge and unnecessary spending
binge that would further militarize our economy at the expense of
investments in addressing major challenges like climate change and
outbreaks of disease.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks unveiled the Pentagon’s
new approach in a speech to the National Defense Industrial
Association in August of this year:
“To stay ahead [of China], we’re going to create a new state of the
art… leveraging attritable, autonomous systems in all domains which
are less expensive, put fewer people at risk, and can be changed,
upgraded, or improved with substantially shorter lead times,' she
said. 'We’ll counter the PLA’s [People’s Liberation Army’s] with
mass of our own, but ours will be harder to plan for, harder to
hit, and harder to beat.”
Building new systems, based on complex new technologies, able to be
produced in large numbers in short order would be a daunting task.
It would run counter to the record of the Pentagon and the arms
industry over the past five decades, which is rife with examples of
cost overruns and schedule delays. The Pentagon’s dream of new
high-tech systems that are affordable and quick to produce is
unlikely to be fulfilled.
A forthcoming reportfrom the Pentagon on the nation’s “defense
industrial strategy” suggests that the solution is to fund smaller,
more nimble arms firms, because “the traditional defense
contractors in the [defense industrial base] would be challenged to
respond to modern conflict at the velocity, scale, and flexibility
necessary to meet the dynamic requirements of a major modern
conflict.”
Regardless of who takes up the challenge of building next
generation systems, the notion that new technology can solve the
array of security challenges facing America is a dubious
proposition. Every generation brings hopes of a new, miracle
technological fix that will allegedly dramatically increase U.S.
military capabilities. From the “electronic battlefield” in Vietnam
to the “revolution in military affairs” that was touted in the
1990s, this approach has produced some systems that are more
accurate and better networked.
But the existence of this technology has not enabled the United
States to actually win wars — in Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan.
That’s because technology cannot overcome a determined adversary
engaged in irregular warfare on its home turf, and that the goal of
reshaping entire societies by force was wildly unrealistic in the
first place. The idea that emerging technologies will do any better
and increase the ability to “win” a war with China is misguided at
best. War with China would be an unprecedented disaster for all
concerned, and the goal of U.S. policy should be to prevent such a
conflict, not spin out scenarios for “winning” a war against a
nuclear-armed power.
In addition, contrary to the claims of the Pentagon and the arms
industry, China’s military is not 10 feet tall, nor is its arms
industry. As I note in a new paper for the Brown University Costs
of War project, however one chooses to measure it, the U.S. spends
two to three times what China spends on its military. The U.S. also
has large advantages in numbers of basic systems, including nuclear
weapons, aircraft carriers, advanced combat aircraft,
nuclear-powered submarines, and transport aircraft.
In fact, as Dan Grazier of the Project on Government Oversight has
noted, China’s military strategy is “inherently defensive.” When it
comes to emerging military technology, the relative strengths of
the U.S. and China are harder to assess given a lack of
transparency on research into these areas. But the best course is
not to run an arms race with China in the development of AI-driven
robotic weapons. As Michael Klare has noted in a report for the
Arms Control Association, there are real concerns that “AI-enabled
systems may fail in unpredictable ways, causing unintended human
slaughter or uncontrolled escalation.”
The best hope of fending off a war between the U.S. and China over
Taiwan rests with smart diplomacy, not “smart” weaponry. A good
start would be to revive the “One China” policy, which calls, among
other things, for China to commit itself to a peaceful resolution
of the question of Taiwan’s status, and for the U.S. to forswear
support for Taiwan’s formal independence and maintain only informal
relations with the Taiwanese government.That approach has kept the
peace in the Taiwan Strait for five decades.
There is no good reason to expand the U.S. arms production base to
accelerate the development of dangerous, next generation weapons
systems. But unless Congress and the public act soon to rein in
these efforts, we may soon enter a brave new world that will make
the current security landscape look benign by comparison.
