美国政要第20课
Overview of RMA Research
--Interview with Dr. Michael J. Mazarr, Senior Researcher at CSIS访华盛顿战略与国际问题研究中心高级研究员米切尔•马扎尔博士
MR. CHEN BOJIANG: After the Gulf War, there has been an ongoing discussion of the Revolution in Military Affairs in the defense community. Two of the earliest research results that I read which caught my attention were a CSIS1 report on military technological revolution and an article titled “Is There Military Technological Revolution in the future of the U.S.”, published in CSIS’s, The Washington Quarterly2, Fall 1993. Based on these two publications and from references I gathered from other materials, I wrote a summary of the U.S. defense community's views on the military revolution which was published in China Military Sci¬ence, in the Spring 1995 issue3. You were the main author of the CSIS report as well as the editor of the article. Therefore, I have reason to believe that CSIS and your¬self are among the earliest to research the subject of a military revolution in the Unit¬ed States. This is also the reason I'd like to interview you today.
Could you give me an overview of your process and that of CSIS's process in researching the RMA?
MR. MICHAEL MAZARR: We did come to this subject fairly early, when the U.S. defense establishment was trying to get an early understanding of what it was all about. So our work was fairly theoretical. This was an issue that was not very well defined at the time.
And so mostly, in that initial4 report we were just trying to lay out, as the title suggested, a framework for understanding what the RMA was, how you could define it, and what future issues for research there would be. It was too early to have any final answers for ultimately what the Revolution in Military Affairs would mean in all of its details for U.S. policy. Our goal at that time was just to gather a vari¬ety of information. We worked with people in the U.S. Defense Department, and we were working on new technology to try to get a comprehensive idea of the different areas of technology, and doctrine, and strategy that were being discussed in con¬nection with the Revolution in Military Af¬fairs. We then wanted just to sort of orga¬nize them, and put out a review that would start a dialogue, not provide the final an¬swer, but begin a dialogue in the U.S. de¬fense community, which really had not started very much at that time.
MR. CHEN: I have noticed that in your report and article, the term used is “Military Technology Revolution.” But in later articles, “Revolution in Military Af¬fairs” was used instead. Is there a differ¬ence in using these two terms?
MR. MAZARR: There's not a big difference. Basically, military technological revolution was a term that U.S. analysts first borrowed from the Soviet Union. Be¬cause, as you know, a lot of these ideas originated5 in Soviet thinking about ad¬vanced maneuverable warfare6 and armored warfare7. So it was just a borrowed term.
And then eventually as the idea began to take more shape in the United States, people began to realize that there was a broader context for a more radical change in warfare than the initial Soviet analysts were talking about.
There is a difference, in that the Rev¬olution in Military Affairs is a much broad¬er term, much more encompassing8. The military technical revolution, at least early on, generally was referring to much more advanced precise ways of waging the same old kind of warfare. The Revolution in Military Affairs refers to, possibly, com¬pletely new forms of waging war that would be unrecognizable to generals of the old style.
MR. CHEN: You argued that “scien¬tists, policymakers and military leaders have been relatively poor assisting the mili¬tary implications of revolution and tech¬nologies forecasting9 their effects on future battlefields.” Why do these things hap¬pen? How do you assess the military impli¬cations of revolutionary technologies at the present time?
MR. MAZARR: Well, the biggest problem in the U.S. system in thinking about this issue has been the problem of bureaucracy10; that the Defense Depart¬ment has certain services, and offices, and soon, that are organized based on the way that the United States military has waged war for 50, 60, 70 years now.
And so when new technologies come a-long the bureaucracy tends to take them and put them into categories11, based on its traditional understanding, and to view them as ways of waging the same old kind of war more efficiently, rather than as po¬tential indications that the nature of war is changing.
So, the U.S. military has been very good at developing technology, good at pushing the technology into operational forces, and using it; but not as good at seeing the broader implications of precision technologies, or perhaps moving too slowly.
That process has begun to accelerate a little bit. Within the U.S. military there's a lot more discussion today of, for exam¬ple, changing the way military units oper¬ate on the battlefield because of new pre¬cise technologies, because of the need to have very small, decentralized12 units, those sorts of things.
So that is happening more, but for a long time, for a decade or more, these technologies would come into the U.S. bu¬reaucracy, one at a time, and would be plugged into13 the conventional14 way of do¬ing business. And the broader implications of those were not seen very well.
MR. CHEN: Could you give me a brief introduction of the process of the CSIS report on “Military Technological Revolution?” What was the influence of this report?
MR. MAZARR: Well, the process we used to come to the conclusion was, in a way, a series of meetings, really. We did some initial research here at CSIS. Then, we had somewhere around 50 or 70 people drawn from the different military ser¬vices15, from other research institutes around town, and from CSIS. We would do some initial research, get some ideas, present the ideas at these meetings, have a lot of feedback16, conversation.
And then after we had a series of ses¬sions like that, we here at CSIS drafted a rough draft report; and sent it out for commentl7. I'm not sure exactly how many people sent comments back, but quite a few18, a couple dozen at least. We did a fi¬nal draft, based on their comments, and that ultimately became the report. So all the writing was done here within the CSIS, but with a great deal of input from other folks19 around town. And this was really a group of people who were interest¬ed in the RMA, people who were following it at the time.
There's kind of a group of people within the military services who in many cases know each other fairly well, because they're part of this group that follows this issue on a regular basis. So, at that time those were the sorts of people that we were bringing together.
And as far as influence, I don't know that the report really changed any thinking about the RMA at the time, because it was still fairly early. It was too early to make sort of a comprehensive argument for changing the U.S. military in the direction of the RMA, which is something we couldn't have done anyhow.
But what I think it did do was help to organize the thinking early on, and get people talking about the same issue or is¬sues as part of the RMA. Because one of the problems at that early stage was all sorts of people had different ideas of what it was. So I think it helped to clarify20 the debate a little bit, and just push it along. But we were certainly not trying to come up with any final answers at that time. That wasn't the influence we hoped out of the report.
Practise Listening to Words 词汇听力练习:
1.CSIS:Center for Strategic& International Studies华盛顿战略与国际问题研究中心
2.Washington Quarterly《华盛顿季刊》
3.issue [] n.（报刊）期号
4.initial [] adj. 最初的
5.originate [] vt. 起源于
6.maneuverable warfare机动战
7.armored warfare装甲战
8.encompass [] vt. 包含
9.forecast [] vt. 预见
10.bureaucracy [] n. 官僚主义
11.category [] n. 分类
12.decentralize [] vt. 分散
13.plugged into纳入
14.conventional [] adj. 常规的
15.military service军种
16.feedback [] n. 反馈
17.comment [] n. 评论
18.quite a few 相当多
19.folk [] n. 人们
20.clarify [] vt. 澄清
【参考译文】
军事革命研究简况
陈伯江：海湾战争之后，美国防务界就军事革命展开了持续的讨论。我读到并关注的最早的两个研究成果，是华盛顿战略与国际问题研究中心于1993年出版的《关于军事技术革命的研究报告》和1993年秋季号《华盛顿季刊》刊登的一篇题为“美国的未来是否面临一场军事技术革命”的文章。基于这些报告和文章，并参考其它材料，我曾写过一篇关于美国军事技术革命讨论的观点综述的文章，刊登在《中国军事科学》1995年春季号上。你是《关于军事技术革命的研究报告》的主要作者，又是“美国的未来是否面临一场军事技术革命”文章的编辑，因此，我有理由认为华盛顿战略与国际问题研究中心和你本人是在美国较早从事军事革命问题研究的机构和学者，这也是我今天采访你的原因。
首先，我想请你谈一谈华盛顿战略与国际问题研究中心与你本人研究军事革命的简要情况。
马扎尔：我们确实较早开始了这一问题的研究，当时美国防务界正试图展开对这一问题的初步研究，我们的研究完全是理论性的。这是一个在那时尚未很好界定的问题。
所以，在那个最初的报告中，我们只是试图提出一个理解军事革命的框架：什么是军事革命？怎样定义军事革命?以及有哪些将来要研究的问题？那时要想就军事革命对于美国政策的详尽意义提出最后答案还为时过早，当时的目标只是收集各方面的信息。我们与国防部的人在一起进行研究，我们研究新技术，力求全面了解当时正在讨论的与军事革命有关的技术、军事理论和战略的不同领域。然后，我们只是对材料进行整理，并提出了一种全面的看法，以期引起讨论。我们在报告中没有提供最后的答案，而只是想在美国防务圈引起讨论。这一讨论在那时确实尚未很好开展起来。
陈：我注意到在你们的报告和文章中，使用的术语是“军事技术革命”。但在后来的文章中却代之以“军事革命”。这两个术语有什么区别？
马扎尔：没有大的区别。军事技术革命是美国分析人员早先从苏联借用的术语。如你所知，这类观点大量源自苏联当时对于先进的机动战和装甲战的思考。所以说“军事技术革命”只是一个借用的术语。
随着这一术语在美国越来越频繁地出现，人们开始认识到，应该有一个比原先苏联分析人员所用的“军事技术革命”涵义更广的术语，来说明战争所发生的巨大变化。
“军事革命”与“军事技术革命”的区别在于，军事革命是一个宽泛得多、内涵大得多的术语。军事技术革命，至少在早期一般是指以先进得多的精确方式，进行的与老式战争相同的战争，而军事革命指的是以全新的方式进行的与老式的战争完全不同的战争。旧式的将军们可能根本认不出这样的战争。
陈：你在文章中指出：“科学家们、政策制订者和军事领导人总是相对消极地看待革命性技术的军事意义，并缺乏对它们对未来战争影响的预见”。为什么会出现这种情况?你怎样评价当今时代革命性技术的军事意义?
马扎尔：从这个问题看，美国体制上的最大问题是官僚主义。国防部有不同的军种、有各种办公室等等，这些机构是以美国军队50、60、70年来所进行战争的方式建立起来的。因此当新技术出现时，官僚机构倾向于按照传统的理解接受它们并对其分门别类，把它们看作能更加有效地进行与老式战争相同的战争的方式，而不是看作战争的性质要发生变化的标志。
所以，美国军队一直非常善于发展技术，善于促进技术在作战部队的运用，但却不善于发现各种精确技术的更加广泛的影响，或者说这方面进展太慢。
现在进展已开始加快了一点。在美军内，目前有许多讨论。例如，由于新的精确技术的发展，由于对非常小而分散的部队的需要，进行了改变部队战场作战方式的讨论，以及诸如此类的事情。这种讨论开始多了起来。但长时间以来，10年或10多年来，这些新技术每次进入美国的官僚机构，都被纳人常规的使用方式，而不能很充分地看到这些技术的更为广泛的影响。
陈：请你介绍一下华盛顿战略与国际问题研究中心《关于军事技术革命的研究报告》研究的过程，以及这一报告发表后的影响。
马扎尔：在研究过程中，我们召开了一系列会议，以这种方式得出结论。我们在华盛顿战略与国际问题研究中心进行了一些初步的研究，然后，我们从各军种、其它的研究机构以及我们中心请了50或70人左右参与讨论。我们将初步研究得出的观点提交会议讨论，得到了很多反馈意见。
在经过一系列如上所述的讨论之后，我们起草了一个报告的初稿，然后又寄出去征求意见。我不能确切地说有多少人寄回了他们的评论意见，但相当多，至少有几十人。基于这些看法，我们写出了最后的稿子并最终形成了这个报告。因此，尽管这一报告的所有撰稿工作都是在华盛顿战略与国际问题研究中心进行的，但它吸收了许多其他人的意见，这些人确实对军事革命很感兴趣，并在那时就开始跟踪研究这一问题。
现在各军种都有一批人，他们定期参加对这一问题的讨论，所以彼此非常熟悉。他们就是在那时被我们的讨论带到一起的。
就这一报告的影响来说，我不知道这一报告在当时是否真的改变了人们对军事革命的想法，要全面说服美国军队朝着军事革命的方向变化当时还为时过早。不管怎样，我们当时也不可能做到这一点。
但我认为它确实有助于使人们从一开始就对军事革命的想法条理化，使人们开始谈论相同的话题或成为军事革命组成部分的各个问题。因为在军事革命讨论的初期阶段，各种各样的人对什么是军事革命有各不相同的观点。因此，我认为该报告有助于澄清争论中的思路，并推动进一步展开讨论。当然在那时，我们也并没想拿出最后的答案，那也不是我们期待该报告会有的影响。
