美国政要第11课
The Progress and the Main Trends of RMA
--Interview with Dr. Martin C. Libicki, Senior Fellow of the Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS, National Defense University) (March 3, 1998) 访美国为防大学战略研究所高级研究员马丁•利比博士
MR. CHEN BOJIANG: Please give an overview of the progress and the main trends of the RMA.
DR. LIBICKI: To think about the history of the RMA, requires starting about twenty years ago and going thirty years into the future. Now, of course, we cannot predict the future, in that we can’t always predict what kind of innovations will come. If I were to look fifty years ago, I would be looking before the invention of the transistor. Without the transistor, we cannot imagine the computer that can sit next to my desk. No one anticipated the transistor. Yet, when it came, it led to everything else. So, to give you a practical example, how good are high energy lasers going to be? If you think that higher energy lasers will be cheap and effective, that’s going to change the conventional battlefield very greatly. If you think high energy lasers are going to be expensive and ineffective, then they’re not very important. My hunch1 is that they’re going to be ineffective and expensive. But I may be wrong. That’s one reason why it’s difficult to project out too far.
Another is more fundamental. Military equipment tends to evolve very quickly in wartime. In get four years between 1941 and 1945 military advanced greatly partly because new weapons were brought into production by 1945, and partly because we learned how to use weapons in 1945 that we didn’t know how to use in 1941. once war ends, the pressure to innovate drops off. Furthermore, without war, you have a tendency to hang on to things that don’t make much sense anymore. Colonel David Johnson (former had of academic affairs at NDU), said that the U.S. Navy’s RMA took place on December 7, 1941. Until Pearl Harbor the United States maintained battleships2, and the U.S. maintained aircraft carriers3. And it wasn’t clear which of the two were going to dominate naval warfare, as the U.S. contemplated waging war with Japan across the Pacific. But when the battleships were sunk, we were left with aircraft carriers, and the aircraft carriers were so effective in the Battle of Midway that nobody thought that battleships had much of a future and we pored our money into aircraft carriers. I suspect that most of the philosophy that we brought to war in the European Front in the 1980s was already obsolete. But we didn’t know that because we didn’t have a war and because we didn’t have a test of those concepts. So therefore we keep extending these concepts out into the future.
Should a war take place in thirty years and we get to test concepts, a lot of things will change. It will accelerate matters. By the same token4, if the U.S. finds itself in a competition with another power, it will be forced to question its own technological development. If the world stays as benign as it is today, chances in military technology will move more slowly. So, I can talk about the last twenty years, because it happened. But I can’t talk about the nest thirty years, except to speculate5.
What do we see over this fifty-year period (e.g., 1978～2028)? First is the refinement and development of precision ammunition, to where if you can get a signature on a target, you can probably kill it. Now, when you add to this the fact that the U.S. and many other advanced countries can now map the world very precisely, that means that you can now locate an object -you can also kill it. The combination of mapping and of GPS (global positioning system) means that, basically, if you can see something, you can kill it.
There are some qualifications to that statement. It doesn’t pay to kill up a $10,000 truck with a million dollar cruise missile-probably not if the U.S. does it, and certainly not if someone tries to do that to the United States. We can produce a $10,000 truck faster than anybody can produce a million dollar cruise missile. So, you have to take that equation into account. At any rate, some time in the next five to ten years, the United States will complete its evolution of PGMs (precision guided munitions).
The second half of the RMA is how do we illuminate6 the battlefield? How do we see everything worth seeing? And a lot of that answer seems to be sensors-electrooptical, microwave, imaging sensors, acoustic sensors. You name it, we have it. We can put in every medium and we can somehow fuze all this information together so we can get a real fine picture of the battlefield. Exactly what sensors, exactly how we do it, is yet to be determined.
DOD will spend a great deal of thought in the early 21st century defining a constellation7 of sensors, that can survive attack by the other side. For instance, we now put our most capable sensors on Boeing 707 platform, which are not stealthy, which are not maneuverable-which have to generate energy to get energy back. Right now we can do it safely. Can we do that safely 10, 20, 30 years from now? I don’t know. If not we’ve got to figure out a way to put these sensors on smaller platforms that do not require human beings.
That is why people are talking very excitedly about UAVs8, which (once we learn to fly them reliably) will have a considerable military effectiveness. If you take a look at Globalhawk, you’re talking a look at an extremely capable unmanned aerial vehicle that costs about $10 million. But you can also make UAVs that can be held with one hand and cost $1000-but they don’t fly as high, they don’t carry as complete a sensor package, they don’t have the endurance, and they probably crash a lot. But you use $5000 UAVs completely differently than you use $10 million UAVs. And the main thing about a $5000 UAVs is that no one’s going to shoot at it with a $100,000 missile-the result is that these things are much more survivable.
We are in a confluence9 of two trends. The first trend is toward the dispersion of things, making a lot of small things. Consider the personal computer business. Mainframe computers are dead, but personal computers are thriving. There are a lot of other analogies as well. The second thing is that we want to network everything together. One sensor may see something using one mode, and another sensor sees it using another mode-and one wants to bring these readings together to start correlating things. I hear a tank. Do you see a tank? Are we getting the radar reflection of the tank? Does it sound like a tank? Etc. When we put these things together-called data fusion10 -we can learn a good deal more about the battlefield. If we can get that kind of information very quickly, then we’ll want to take advantage of that information very quickly. We have at the same time dispersion and integration. And that’s something with which we’re going to be occupied for the next thirty years.
WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS 词汇提示
1.hunch [] n.预感
2.battleship [] n.战列舰
3.aircraft carrier 航空母舰
4.by the same token 由于同样的原因
5.speculate [] v 推测
6.illuminate [] v.照明，透亮
7.constellation [] n.星系
8.UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) 无人驾驶航空器
9.confluence [] n.汇合
10.fusion [] n.熔合
QUESTIONS AFTER LISENING 听后答题:
1. What did Colonel David Johnson say?
A.The U.S. Army’s RMA took place in 1951.
B.The U.S. Navy’s RMA took place on December 7, 1941.
C.The U.S. Air Force was founded on September 1,1914.
D.The U.S. military’s reform took place in 1989.
2. When did the U.S. Navy decided to pour the money into aircraft carriers instead of battleships?
A.After the Battle of Midway.
B.After the end of World War Ⅱ.
C.After the incident of Pearl Harbor.
D.After the end of World War Ⅰ.
3. What does the precision ammunitions mean?
A.It means if you can see something, you can destroy it.
B.It means if you can see something, you can locate it.
C.It means if you can see something, you can take a picture.
D.It means if you can see something, you can acquire it.
4. Why did Dr. Libicki say that you have to take the equation into account?
A.Because it doesn’t pay to use precision weapons in a border conflict.
B.Because it doesn’t pay to use a nuclear weapons in a mutual crisis.
C.Because it doesn’t pay to kill up a $10000 truck with a million dollar cruise missile.
D.Because it doesn’t pay to destroy a car with a smart missile.
5. What’s the meaning of illumination of the battlefield?
A.It means that you can see everything worth seeing in the battlefield.
B.It means that you can destroy everything in the battlefield.
C.It means that you can target everything in the battlefield.
D.It means that you can locate everything in the battlefield.
6. What will DOD do for sensors in the early 21st century?
A.It will spend a lot of money purchasing new sensors.
B.It will spend a great deal of time training a new army for the use of sensors.
C.It will spend a lot of material experimenting sensors.
D.It will spend a great deal of thought in defining a constellation of sensors that can survive attack by the other side.
7. What is Global-hawk?
A.It is a big bird.
B.It is a manned aircraft.
C.It is an extremely capable unmanned aerial vehicle that costs about $10 million.
D.It is a new satellite.
8. Why did Dr. Libicki think that a $5000 UAV was much more survivable?
A.Because it was too difficult to target it.
B.Because it was too difficult to destroy it.
C.Because it was too difficult to find it out.
D.Because it was so cheap that no one would shoot at it with a precise missile.
9. Dr. Libicki said: “we are in a confluence of two trends.” What is the first trend?
A.It is the information network.
B.It is the multipolarization.
C.It is the dispersion of things.
D.It is the globalization.
10. Along the lines of the previous question, what is the second trend?
A.It is the integrity of market.
B.It is the data fusion.
C.It is the economic group.
D.It is that we want to network everything together.
【参考译文】
军事革命的发展与主要趋势
陈伯江：请您综述一下这次军事革命发展的情况以及今后的趋势。
利比奇：谈论军事革命的发展历史需要从20年前开始并展望未来30年的情况。当然，我们目前无法预言未来，因为我们无法完全预见会出现哪些技术创新。如果我向前追溯50年，那时晶体管还没有发明。如果我向前追溯50年，那时晶体管还没有发明。没有晶体管，我们无法想象在我们桌子旁边会有电子计算机。当时没有人预见到晶体管的发明，然而，它一旦发明出来，便导致各种其它的发明。让我举一个具体的例子：高能激光器的发展前景会多好？如果你认为高能激光器将会便宜和有效，那么它将带来常规战场的巨大变化。如果你认为高能激光器将会是昂贵的并且作战效能不好，那么它就无足轻重。我的预感是高能激光器将会是功效不高且又昂贵，但我可能是错的。长远的未来很难预测，就是这个原因。
另一点更为重要。军事装备在战时趋于以更快的速度发展。在1941年至1945年的四年间，军事装备之所以会有很大的进步，一是因为到1945年新武器已经投入生产；二是因为我们在1945年已学会如何使用1941年时尚不会使用的新武器。一旦战争结束，改进武器的压力就减少了。另外，没有战争，人们趋向抓住旧东西不放，尽管旧东西已经过时。美国国防大学前学术事务负责人戴德•约翰逊说过，美国海军的军事革命始于1941年12月７日。在日本轰炸珍珠港之前，美国既有战列舰，也有航空母舰，当美国设想在太平洋与日本开战时，并不清楚到底是战列舰还是航空母舰将在海战中居主导地位。但当战列舰炸沉之后，我们只剩下了航空母舰。航空母舰在中途岛之战中是如此出色，以致再也没有人认为战列舰会有多大的发展前途，因此我们投入巨资发展航空母舰。我认为80年代提出的有关欧洲前线战争的多数思想已经过时。但我们并不知道这一点，因为没有出现一场战争，那些思想也没有得到检验。因而我们仍把这些思想用到未来。
如果今后30年内将发生一场战争，使我们有机会检验那些思想，那么许多东西都将改变。它将使许多变革加速发展。由于同样的原因，如果美国发现自己在与另一个强国竞争，那么它将不得不加快技术发展。如果世界保持今天这样的良性状态，军事技术的发展就会更加缓慢。所以，我可以谈论过去20年的情况，因为它已经发生，但我除了推测之外，无法谈论今后30年的情况。
那么，在1998～2028年期间，我们从这场军事革命中会看到什么？首先是精确攻击弹药的改进和发展，已达到了相当高的水平，只要能发现目标，基本上就能击毁它。现在，美国和其他一些发达国家已能非常精确地绘出全世界的地形图，那就意味着现在你不仅能够对一个目标定位，而且也能击毁它。这就是把测绘能力与全球定位系统相结合，只要能看到，就能击毁。
对上述说法应有一些限制条件。用一枚价值百万的巡航导弹去击毁一辆价值万元的卡车是不合算的－美国这样做也许是不合算的问题。总而言之，在未来５年至10年的某个时间，美国将完成其精确制导弹药的改进。
军事革命的第二个方面，是我们如何使战场变得透明？我们怎样才能看到所值得看的一切？许多答案似乎都与传感器有关：包括光电、微波、成像传感器、声学传感器等。你能说出名字的，我们都有。我们可能将其放入每一种媒体，并能以某种方式将信息熔合到一起，从而获得战场的实时图像。我们正在确定如何正确地选择和使用这些传感器。
21世纪初，国防部将花费大量精力确定什么样的传感器系统可在对方的打击下生存下来。例如，我们现在把最有用的传感器置于波音707飞机上，该机没有隐形性能，机动性也不好，还必须向外发射能量才能获得能量。现我们使用波音707还是安全的。但是10年、20年、30年以后，我们继续使用还会是安全的吗？我不知道。如果不安全，我们就得设法将这些传感器置于无需人员驾驶的更小的作战平台上。
这就是眼下人们正非常兴奋地谈论无人驾驶航空器的原因。一旦我们掌握如何可靠地操纵它们飞行，将产生显著的军事效果。如果你看一看“全球鹰”系统，你会发现它是一个耗资上千万美元的性能卓著的无人驾驶航空器。但你也能制造一架只花1000美元、一只手就可拿起来的无人驾驶航空器。只是这样的航空器飞得不那么高，携带不了那么多种类齐全的传感器，续航能力差，还会经常落地坠毁。然而，你使用造价5000美元的无人驾驶航空器的方式与造价千万美元的无人驾驶航空器截然不同。最主要的差别是不会有人愿意以造价10万美元的导弹去打造价只有5000美元的无人驾驶航空器。最后廉价的无人驾驶航空器反而具有好得多的生存能力。
我们处在两种趋势发展的交汇点上。第一种趋势是分散化，正在发展更多的小东西。以个人计算机市场来说，大型计算机主机已无人问津，但个人计算机却蓬勃发展，其它类似情况也很多。第二个趋势是我们想以网络方式把所有东西联成一体。一种传感器使用一种模式发现了某种东西，另一种传感器使用另一种模式也发现了某种东西，于是有人就想把这些发现综合起来得到互相关联的情况。我听到了一辆坦克的声音，那么你是否看到了一辆坦克？我们收到了一辆坦克的雷达反射信号，你听到了坦克的声音吗？等等。当我们把这些结果放在一起（称之为数据融合），我们就能非常清楚地了解战场。如果我们能很快地获得这种信息，那么我们就想很快地利用这种信息。我们同时面临着分散化和一体化两种趋势，这是未来30年我们将忙于应付的变化。
KEYS TO THE QUESTIONS 参考答案：
1.b 2.a 3.a 4.c 5.a 6.d 7.c 8.d 9.c 10.d
