陶勇翻译 兰德智库报告 《大国战争的回归——美中之间系统性冲突模式》第一章（下）_风闻

Under conditions of a China nearing global primacy, the onset of U.S.-China hostilities could raise the risks of militarized crises and military clashes across many parts of the world. The risks of a global confrontation could be amplified by the advent of new, poorly under-stood civilian and military technologies and unprecedented historical developments. As one example, the ability of cybertechnologies to inflict massive damage and dislocation raises problematic new escalation risks. Chinese success in expanding a network of client states could also result in confrontations and crisis situations that appear implausible today.

在中国接近全球主导地位的情况下，美中敌对行动的爆发可能会增加世界许多地区发生军事化危机和军事冲突的风险。全球对抗的风险可能会因为新的、鲜为人知的民用和军用技术的出现以及前所未有的历史发展而增大。例如，网络技术造成大规模破坏和混乱的能力引发了新的升级风险。中国在扩大客户端网络（互联网根服务器源自美国，所以，其他国家网络均为客户端应用——译者注）方面的成功，也可能导致对抗和危机局势。尽管今天看来颇为不可思议。

Systemic U.S.- China conflict would clearly carry significant implications for the security of the United States, yet to date there has been little serious effort to analyze them. Key questions include: How might China’s national and security goals change in a systemic conflict with the United States? How might the PLA operate and modernize its forces in such a situation? Where might conflict involving Chinese and U.S. forces unfold? How might the two militaries fight each other? What distinctive features of the Chinese military might enable or impede their combat operations against U.S. forces? While the answers to these questions remain ultimately unknowable, this report aims to encourage a preliminary consideration of them.

系统性的美中冲突显然会对美国国家安全产生重大影响，但迄今为止，几乎没人认真分析过这些问题。相关关键问题包括：在与美国的系统性冲突中，中国国家安全目标可能发生怎样的变化？而中国人民解放军将如何应对并进行现代化建设？中国和美国军队可能在哪里擦枪走火、爆发冲突？中美两军将以什么样的形式交战？中国军方具有哪些明显的优劣势支撑或妨碍其对抗美军作战行动？虽然这些问题的答案目前仍不可知，但本报告旨在鼓励人们对这些问题进行初步的思考。

Sources and Methodology来源和方法学

The exploration of hypothetical conflict situations that do not exist today and may never happenposes important methodological challenges for research. What data can we draw on for such hypothetical reasoning? On what basis can we make our judgments? We acknowledge up front that such research unavoidably involves considerable conjecture, and we qualify our findings accordingly. This report aims to provide a form of informed speculation; it is not a prediction. It is designed to provoke thought and consideration of potential futures beyond the most immediate and obvious trends. Yet, to be valuable, such analysis should be as rigor-ous and data-informedas possible. We carried out our analysis through a methodology that synthesized current and historical data on relevant factors with research-grounded specula-tion. For this project, we considered academic findings regarding China’s approach to future warfare, key trends in international politics and warfare that will likely persist through the next few decades, and relevant experiences from previous great powers. Drawing from these findings, we then hypothesized how the Chinese military could fight in low and high inten-sity systemic conflicts.

探讨今天不存在甚至永远不会发生的假设性冲突情形，给研究提出了重大方法论挑战。对于这种假设性的推理，我们可以借鉴哪些数据？我们凭借什么基础做出判断？我们首先承认，此类研究不可避免地包含大量猜测，因此，我们对研究发现进行了相应的限定。本报告根据相关信息提供一种推测；但不是预测。它的目的是引发思考并透过现象看本质地关注未来的潜在不测。但是，报告的价值呈现在于，其分析尽可能严谨和依据客观数据。我们通过综合当前和历史数据相关要素的方法来研究并进行推测。在这个项目中，我们考虑了有关中国未来战争方式的学术研究结果、国际政治和战争可能持续到未来几十年之关键趋势和既往大国的相关经验。根据这些信息，我们推测中国军队在低强度和高强度的系统性冲突中的应对模式。We sought in particular to understand and represent Chinese perspectives as much as possible. However, the limitations of publicly available Chinese-language sources on these topics should be noted up front. Political sensitivities discourage Chinese scholars and experts from exploring in detail the possibilities of a broader, global U.S.-China war. To be sure, PLA scholars have discussed the operational challenges of fighting a “strong enemy,” which is usually a thinly veiled reference to the United States. However, such sourcestend to discuss more general imperatives for military readiness or to consider potential contin-gencies within the context of existing flash points such as Taiwan.28 To date we have found virtually no credible publicly available sources that examine more speculative scenarios of U.S.-China conflict, such as chronic, long-term war, wars of power transition, or U.S.-China conflict scenarios outside the first island chain. Some PLA scholars do acknowledge the pos-sibility of major war with the United States, but they do not examine the possibility in depth, perhaps owing to their judgment that such conflict is improbable or perhaps due to political constraints. In light of such limited sources, we have extrapolatedpossible Chinese political and military strategy precepts and directives to inform our analysis, but we acknowledge that such an approach must be treated as speculation, not fact.

我们力求做到尽可能地了解和呈现中国的观点。然而，我们必须首先指出，有关这些研究课题之公开中文资料信息的局限性。政治敏感性使中国学者和专家忌讳从细节上探讨广泛的、全球性的美中军事冲突的可能性。可以肯定的是，解放军学者已经讨论过与 “强敌 ”爆发冲突的挑战，“强敌”通常是对美国的含蓄指称。然而，这些资料倾向于讨论更普遍的军事准备的必要性，或在现有的热点如台湾的背景下考虑潜在的连续性。28 迄今为止，我们几乎没有发现任何可信的公开资料来研究美中冲突的更多猜测性情景，如长期的战争，权力过渡的战争，或第一岛链之外的美中冲突事件。一些解放军学者确实承认美中发生重大战争的可能性，但他们没有深入研究这种可能性，也许是由于他们判断这种冲突是不可能的，也许是由于政治限制。鉴于这些有限的信息来源，我们根据推断中国可能的政治和军事战略戒律和指令来为我们的分析提供信息，但我们承认，这种方法必须被视为猜测，而不是事实。

The first part of this report outlines a series of research findings regarding broad trends related to international politics and war, patterns of interstate conflict among rising great powers, and findings regarding the drivers of great power war. Chapter Two sets the context by outlining key geopolitical and military trends that experts have regarded as likely to per-sist for several decades. It explores how these trends could affect the prospect for U.S. China conflict under conditions in which China nears global primacy. In Chapter Three we exam-ine patterns in the conflict behavior of leading great powers for insight intothe potential forms that systemic U.S.-China conflict might take. We analyze in particular the experiences of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States as global powers. Although the Soviet Union never exercised hegemony on the scale of the United Kingdom or the United States, it did exert considerable influence over large swaths of Eurasia, and its role as the most

本报告的第一章概述了一系列与国际政治和战争有关的广泛趋势的研究结果，崛起的大国之间的冲突模式，以及有关大国战争爆发原因的研究结果。第二章通过阐述专家们认为可能持续数十年的关键地缘政治和军事趋势来确定背景。它探讨了在中国接近全球主导地位的情况下，这些趋势会如何影响美中冲突的前景。在第三章中，我们研究了主要大国的冲突行为模式，以深入了解系统性美中冲突可能采取的形式。我们特别分析了苏联、英国和美国作为全球大国的经验。尽管苏联从未成为像英国或美国那样的霸权大国，但作为世界上最有影响力的大国之一，它也发挥了相当大的作用，确实对欧亚大陆的大片地区施加了相当大的影响。

Introductiosuccessful communist state offers potential insight into how China’s military might behave in a moment of near global primacy as well. To more clearly illuminate the potential pathway to U.S.-China conflict and the characteristics it might manifest, we also consider the experience of past great power rivalries in Chapter Four. We highlight in particular key patterns that have recurred in similar situations of power transition, such as the tendency toward height-ened threat perceptions, issue spiral, arms races, alliance-building activity, and the multilat-eralization of conflict. We contend that similar developments would likely accompany the onset of U.S.-China hostilities.

成功的共产主义国家为中国军队在接近全球主导地位的时刻如何表现提供了潜在的洞察力。为了更清楚地说明美中冲突的潜在途径及其可能表现出的特点，我们在第四章还考虑了过去大国竞争的经验。我们特别强调了在类似的权力过渡情况下反复出现的关键模式，如威胁感增强的趋势、问题迭出、军备竞赛、联盟建设活动以及冲突的多元化。我们认为，类似的发展可能伴随着美中敌对行动的开始。

The second part of the report builds on this literature review to explore scenarios of hypo-thetical U.S.-China conflict under conditions of Chinese near primacy. In Chapter Five we explore how China’s military might position itself to fight a systemic war with the United States. Since the PLA would have to fight with the military it has built, we briefly review key features of the military’s mission, global footprint, and mode of operation before considering how these might affect the PLA’s ability to wage systemic war. Chapter Six focuses on a sce-nario characterized by low-intensity systemic conflict. Ranging from persistent cyberconflict and economic conflict to proxy conventional wars along the proposed routes of the BRI, it paints a picture of a conflict-plagued, yet paradoxically stable, U.S.-China relationship. In this relationship, some level of trade and cooperation could persist amid largely indirect war.

报告的第二部分在这一文献回顾的基础上，探讨了在中国近乎首要地位的条件下美中冲突的假想情景。在第五章中，我们探讨了中国军队如何定位自己与美国进行系统性的战争。由于中国人民解放军必须以其建立的军队进行战斗，我们在考虑这些因素如何影响中国人民解放军发动系统性战争的能力之前，简要回顾了军队的任务、全球足迹和行动模式的关键特征。第六章重点讨论以低强度系统性冲突为特征的情况。从持续的网络冲突和经济冲突到沿着拟定的BRI路线的代理常规战争，它描绘了一幅充满冲突但又矛盾地稳定的美中关系。在这种关系中，某种程度的贸易和合作可以在间接的战争中持续存在。

Chapter Seven analyzes a more escalatory possibility featuring conventional U.S.-China high-intensity war under conditions of Chinese near primacy. In this scenario, efforts to con-trol escalation below the threshold of conventional war have failed. To analyze this possibil-ity, we briefly consider how Chinese wars to gain territory, such as Taiwan, could rapidly expand into a larger-scale war of decision. We also consider more limited hypothetical con-flicts in other locations along China’s periphery and beyond the first island chain. As formu-lated by our analysis, these conflicts could take place along the Indian Ocean, in the Middle East, and in Southeast Asia. A major driver could be China’s desire to establish its credibility as a military power and as a security guarantor for clients. Its motives could overlap, perhaps, with resource concerns. Alternatively, China could seek to dominate rival Asian powers and decisively demonstrate China’s military superiority over the United States as part of its bid for leadership. In most conceivable scenarios, these wars would involve clashing coalitions. Any war involving the militaries of both China and the United States would carry a high risk of escalation extending to the nuclear, outer space, and cyberspace domains. A conven-tional high-intensity war could also occur alongside the continuation or aggravation of low-intensity conflicts around the world.

第七章分析了一种更加升级的可能性，即中国几乎占主导地位的情况下，美中之间发生高烈度的常规战争。在这种情况下，控制升级到常规战争门槛以下的努力已经失败。为了分析这种可能性，我们简要地考虑了中国为“收复”领土（如台湾）而进行的战争是如何迅速扩大为一场更大规模的决定性战争的。我们还考虑了在中国周边和第一岛链以外的其他地方发生的更为有限的假设性冲突。根据我们的分析，这些冲突可能发生在印度洋沿岸、中东和东南亚地区。一个主要的驱动力可能是中国希望建立其作为军事大国和客户安全保证人的信誉。其动机可能与资源问题相重叠。另外，中国也可能寻求支配亚洲的竞争对手，并果断地展示中国对美国的军事优势，作为其争夺领导权的一部分。在大多数可以想象的情况下，这些战争将涉及到联盟的冲突。任何涉及中国和美国军队的战争都会有升级到核、外太空和网络空间领域的高风险。在世界范围内的低强度冲突持续或加剧的同时，也可能发生一场高强度的战争。

The report concludes with some observations and implications in Chapter Eight. We also offer some recommendations based on our findings. The prospects for China gaining pri-macy in the Asia-Pacific region and as a global leader merit all the debate and analysis that they have garnered, and the fact that the possibility of such an outcome cannot be fully dis-counted underscores the importance of thinking through what such a future might mean for U.S. security. It is our hope that this report contributes to the stimulating of a deeper consid-eration of this important topic.

报告最后在第八章中汇聚了一些观点和意见。我们还根据我们的研究提出了一些建议。所有关于中国在亚太地区获得主导地位并成为全球领袖的前景都值得辩论和分析——这种结果的可能很难完全排除，它事实上证明了思考未来中国对美国安全的意味是多么的重要。我们希望这份报告有助于激发对这一重要议题的深入思考.