[2023-01-20]华尔街日报 - 社论:谁会赢得台湾战争?
Good news: The Chinese military can’t easily seize Taiwan by force. That’s the gist of the headlines about a recent war game from a Washington think-tank. But that’s not the full story, and the details in the 160-page report show that even a victorious fight for Taiwan would be a ruinous affair, and the U.S. is still showing little sense of urgency in deterring it. 好消息:中国军队不能轻易武力夺取台湾。 这就是华盛顿智囊团最近关于一场战争游戏的头条新闻的要点。 但这还不是全部,这份长达 160 页的报告中的细节表明,即使打赢台湾也将是一场毁灭性的事件,而美国仍然没有表现出遏制台湾的紧迫感。
The Center for Strategic and International Studies set out to test what would happen if China attempted an amphibious invasion of Taiwan. Analysts played the war game 24 times, and in most instances U.S. intervention beat back the invasion. Taiwan remained an autonomous democracy, albeit as a ravaged island without basic services like electricity. 战略与国际研究中心着手测试如果中国试图两栖入侵台湾会发生什么。 分析家玩了 24 次战争游戏,在大多数情况下,美国的干预击退了入侵。 台湾仍然是一个自治的民主国家,尽管它是一个饱受蹂躏的岛屿,没有电力等基本服务。
War games are a product of choices and assumptions, but there were four preconditions to defeating an invasion, none of them guaranteed. First the Taiwanese have to fight. The island is ramping up its spending on defense but its conscription and readiness are underwhelming. Condition two: Arms need to be pre-positioned; the U.S. can’t pour in weapons over friendly borders after the fight starts a la Ukraine. American weapons deliveries to Taiwan now lag years behind orders. 战争推演是选择和假设的产物,但击败入侵有四个先决条件,没有一个是可以保证的。 首先,台湾人必须战斗。 该岛正在增加国防开支,但其征兵和战备情况却不尽如人意。 条件二:军队需要预先就位; 在乌克兰开始战斗后,美国不能将武器倾倒在盟友的边界上。 美国向台湾交付的武器现在比订单晚了数年。
Three: The U.S. must be able to rely on its bases in Japan. American fighter jets lack the range to commute to the war without Japan’s outer islands, one more reason Tokyo is America’s most important Pacific ally. The fourth condition? The U.S. “must be able to strike the Chinese fleet rapidly and en masse” with long-range weapons. 第三:美国必须能够依靠其在日本的基地。 如果没有日本的外岛,美国喷气式战斗机无法飞抵战场,这也是东京成为美国最重要的太平洋盟友的另一个原因。 第四个条件? 美国“必须能够使用远程武器快速、大规模地打击中国舰队”。
The cost in blood of U.S. sailors and airmen would be enormous. “In three weeks,” the report notes, the U.S. would suffer “about half as many casualties as it did in 20 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.” Commanders would have to “move forward despite a high level of casualties not seen in living memory.” 美国水手和飞行员的鲜血代价将是巨大的。 报告指出,“三周内,美国的伤亡人数将是伊拉克和阿富汗战争 20 年的一半左右”。 “尽管有生以来从未见过如此多的伤亡人数”,但指挥官们将不得不“继续前进”。
The American public has no experience since World War II of enduring dozens of lost ships, including two U.S. Navy aircraft carriers (crew: 5,000) badly damaged or lost in most scenarios. The casualties and equipment losses compound the longer the U.S. waits to intervene, a warning about the costs of political indecision in a crisis. It’s also worth asking if a U.S. President in his 80s would have the stamina and concentration to manage the flood of difficult decisions coming at him. 自第二次世界大战以来,美国公众没有经历过损失数十艘的战舰,包括在大多数情况下严重损坏或丢失的两艘美国海军航空母舰(船员:5,000 人)。 美国等待干预的时间越长,人员伤亡和设备损失就越严重,这是对危机中政治优柔寡断代价的警告。 同样值得一问的是,一位 80 多岁的美国总统是否有毅力和专注力来应对涌入他的大量艰难决定。
The weapons that can help win faster are available, yet the U.S. is making little progress in acquiring them in sufficient numbers. In the war game, American attack submarines “wreaked havoc” on the Chinese fleet. The U.S. Navy now has a fleet of about 50 attack subs and a goal of 66, but the shipbuilding plan doesn’t hit 60 boats until 2045. Congress wants to buy three hulls a year but the U.S. industrial base delivers about 1.2. 能帮助更快获胜的武器有是有的,但美国在获得足够数量的武器方面进展甚微。 在兵棋推演中,美军攻击潜艇对中国舰队“大开杀戒”。 美国海军现在拥有一支约 50 艘攻击潜艇的舰队,目标是 66 艘,但造船计划要到 2045 年才会达到 60 艘。国会希望每年购买三艘船,但美国工业基础只能提供每年大约 1.2 艘。
Another war-winner: Long-range anti-ship weapons, known as LRASMs. Bombers could fire these weapons without having to enter contested airspace, which significantly reduces U.S. casualties. One problem: “The United States expended its global LRASM inventory within the first few days in all scenarios.” The Pentagon should run a public campaign to buy a LRASM to save American pilots, and procure them in the thousands. 另一个战争赢家:远程反舰武器,称为 LRASM。 轰炸机无需进入有争议的空域就可以发射这些武器,这大大减少了美军的伤亡。 一个问题是:“在所有的推演中,美国都会在头几天内就耗尽了其全球 LRASM 库存。” 五角大楼应该开展一场公众活动,以购买 LRASM拯救美国飞行员,并采购数以千计的 LRASM。
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One known unknown is how well the Chinese military would perform, a warning to the Communist Party. A contested amphibious assault, across about 100 miles of ocean, is a varsity operation, much harder than rolling over a land border as Vladimir Putin did in Ukraine. The last time a Chinese combat plane shot down a manned aircraft was 1967. 一个已知的未知数是中国军队的表现如何,这是对共产党的警告。 跨越约 100 英里海洋的有争议的两栖攻击是一项校队行动,比弗拉基米尔·普京 (Vladimir Putin) 在乌克兰所做的翻越陆地边界要困难得多。 中国战机上一次击落有人驾驶飞机是在1967年。
Missile defenses may work well in peacetime testing but fail at higher rates in combat. One question Chinese President Xi Jinping might ask himself, after watching Mr. Putin’s travails in Europe, is whether the reports he’s receiving on his military’s prowess are accurate. 导弹防御系统在和平时期的测试中可能运作良好,但在战斗中失败率更高。 在目睹了普京在欧洲的艰辛之后,中国国家主席习近平可能会问自己一个问题,他收到的有关其军队实力的报告是否准确。
Some readers may conclude the answer to all this is to let Taiwan fall, but that would end America’s status as a credible global power. U.S. allies would recalibrate their alliances, and rogues would take more risks. All the more reason to spend the money and energy on demonstrating to China that it will lose a Taiwan war. CSIS has done a service in putting out an unclassified document that can educate the public on what is required. 一些读者可能会得出结论:让台湾输就没这些问题了,但这将终结美国作为可靠的全球大国的地位。 美国的盟友会重新调整他们的联盟,而流氓会冒更多的风险。 这更说明耗费金钱和精力向中国表明它会输掉台湾战争的重要性。 CSIS 在发布一份非机密文件方面做出了贡献,该文件可以就所需内容对公众进行教育。标红字体均为楼主更改,与原文作者无关。
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