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Factors of conflict in the early 21st century
Army, Jan 2003 by Leonhard, Robert R

21世纪初期冲突的要素
作者 罗伯特.R.里恩哈德，发表于2003年1月刊的《陆军》杂志

Reading through any general military history of the world, you can see that scholars have categorized various time periods not just chronologically, but qualitatively. We think of 17th-century warfare as the period of the musket and pike, while the early 19th century was all about Napoleonic warfare. In ancient China, we associate the fifth through third centuries B.C. as the period of the warring states-a time in which warfare was dominated by conflict between similarly organized states. A decidedly different dynamic began to unfold over the next century as the first of many Mongoloid invaders, the Hsiang-nu, began to invade China. In place of symmetrical, ritualistic campaigns against another organized state, this latter threat pitted the steppe against the city. In a similar fashion, we tend to view periods of military history in terms of their qualitative distinctiveness.

翻阅任何一本讲述世界军事历史的著作，你会发现学者们不是按年代的顺序，而是按战争的实质来将不同的时期分门别类。我们认为17世纪的战争是毛瑟步枪和长矛的时期，而19世纪早期则完全是关于拿破仑的战争。在古时候的中国，也就是我们公元前5世纪到公元前3世纪这一段时间被称为战国时期——这是一个由组织结构相似的几个政权之间爆发的以冲突为主要形式的战争时期。当最早的蒙古人种入侵者，也就是匈奴，开始入侵中国时，一种完全不同的战争面貌在此后的一个世纪揭开了面纱。组织结构不同的政权之间的对阵取代了原先相似政权之间的交战，这也就是日后留下深刻印记的草原对城市的威胁。在与之相似的方式指导下，我们致力于从军事历史特有的本质来看待不同的历史时期。

What, then, will historians say of the early 21st century? Pundits and practitioners of modern warfare agree that things have changed significantly over the past several decades. The technological, cultural and political contexts of war are quite different from those of even 30 years ago. When future scholars look back on the early years of the 21st century how will they characterize military art and science? The purpose of this article is to suggest the dominant factors of early 21st century warfare from an American perspective. The key issue for these factors is whether each is truly an enduring characteristic of modem warfare, or simply a temporary anomaly. In my view, the following factors are likely to persist for the foreseeable future, but on this there is clearly room for debate.

那么，历史学家们又将如何来讲述21世纪初期呢？现代战争的评论家和实践者都同意在过去的几十年里状况发生了十分明显的变化。战争中技术、文化还有政治的内容与30年之前完全不一样了。当未来的学者们回顾21世纪初期他们将如何评论现在的军事艺术和军事科学？本文的目的是从美国的视角提出21世纪战争的若干明显要素。这些要素的关键话题在于它们是否是真的就是现代战争的内在特性，或者仅是一个偶然的个例。在我看来，下面的几个要素很可能会在可以预见的未来继续存在，但也存在讨论的余地。

In my book, Fighting by Minutes: Time and the Art of War, I suggested a model for thinking about frequency in war. Frequency is simply the rate at which events happen. In high-frequency warfare, individual events such as decisive maneuvers, battles and invasions happen very rapidly in succession. In low-frequency warfare, significant events are separated by long periods of relative inactivity.

在我的一本书里，《按分钟战斗：战争的时间与艺术》，我提出了一个关于战争频度的思考模型。频度简单说来就是事情重复发生的速率。在高频度的战争中，诸如决定性的机动，战斗以及入侵等这样的独立事件将不断地快速涌现。在低频度的战争中，重大事件被长时间的、相对而言不活跃的时期间隔开来。

The amplitude of conflict refers to the combat power associated with a given event. High-amplitude events are very destructive and significant. Low-amplitude events by themselves are not significant. Obviously, the detonation of a nuclear warhead is a high-amplitude event. Amplitude, however, does not depend simply on the yield of destructive power. A single assassin's bullet striking down an important political or religious leader can have far-reaching consequences and can thus be considered a high-amplitude event.

冲突的烈度指的是给定事件相关的战斗规模。高烈度事件具有相当的破坏性且十分重大。低烈度事件本身并不引人注目。很明显，核弹头的引爆是一个高烈度事件。然而，烈度并不是简单地从破坏力大小来衡量。一颗刺杀了重要政治人物或者是地区领导人的暗杀子弹将产生深远的影响并将因此而被认为是高烈度事件。

This simple metaphor for the power and tempo (amplitude and frequency) of conflict is useful for characterizing a given period of warfare. While any period can experience various degrees of frequency and amplitude, the period from 1914 through the end of the Cold War is best characterized as high-frequency, low-amplitude conflict. Warfare, both conventional and unconventional, tended to unfold in campaigns of predictable and relatively short duration. Many such campaigns together composed wars.

这种对于冲突的影响和节奏（即烈度和频度）的简单比喻对于某个给定时期的战争进行描述来说是很有用的。任何一个时期都具有不同程度的频度和烈度，从1941年到冷战这段时期最合适于用高频度，低烈度冲突来描述。战争，包括传统的和非传统的，趋向于沿着持续时间可以预见的和相对较短的战役模式展开。许多这样的战役合在一起组成了战争。

By way of contrast, early 21st-- century conflict will tend in the opposite direction. Conflict will be, with some exceptions, lowfrequency, high-amplitude affairs. There are many reasons for this, but the chief one is that American dominance in conventional fighting-on the seas, in the air and on the land-make such conflicts an unappealing option for our adversaries. Instead, crafty opponents are much more likely to prosecute unconventional campaigns that unfold over long periods of time. During any given period, such events will be few but will have great political, economic, cultural and societal impact (hence, high-amplitude).

与之形成对比的是，21世纪初期的冲突将趋向于相反的方向发展。出乎一些人的预料，冲突将成为低频度、高烈度的事件。之所以会这样有许多原因，但首要的一个原因是美国在传统战斗中的主宰地位——在海上，在天上，以及在陆上——使得此类冲突成为了对我们的对手来说毫无吸引力的选择。取而代之的是，狡猾的对手将更喜欢发动沿着相当长时期展开的、非传统的攻势，这类的事件可能较少但将具有很大的政治、经济、文化和社会影响（正因为如此，我们将其称为高烈度）。

The implications of a switch from high-frequency/low-- amplitude warfare to its converse, low-frequency/high-- amplitude warfare, are many. Force structure, doctrine, materiel and training must all adapt to the change. Armies that succeed in the new warfare will not be optimized for high-speed tactical momentum, but rather for operational and strategic mobility and adaptability. During the long periods of relative inactivity, armies will have to rely on robotics, surveillance systems and a close integration of intelligence operations.

从高频度／低烈度战争到其相反的低频度／高烈度战争的转换，其背后的有许多的关联。武装力量的结构，作战条令，军需物质还有军事训练都必须来适应这种变化。面向未来战争的军队从高速战术打击力来说可能不是最优的，但对于作战行动、战略机动、适应性而言却是最好的。在长时间的相对不活跃期，军队将依赖于机器人技术，监视系统以及情报行动的紧密综合。

Among the many brilliant thinkers who wrestled with Napoleonic warfare in the early 19th century, writers like Henry Lloyd, Adam Heinrich Dietrich von Bulow and Antoine Henri Jomini gave the Western world a construct for thinking about modern ground operations. Jomini's paradigm for modern warfare has continued as the norm down to the present. His constructs included the base of operations, from which an army drew supplies and reinforcements, and the objective, the (usually) geographical point that the attacking army must reach in order to be victorious. Between the base of operations and the objective stretched the line of operations along which the army had to advance, often fighting sequential engagements against the enemy's defending army. Finally, from the rear of the army back to the base of operations was the indispensable line of communications, along which supplies and reinforcements would flow.

在许多研究19世纪初期拿破仑战争的有才华的思想者当中，诸如亨利·劳埃德，亚当·亨利·迪崔·冯·布罗和安东尼·亨利·约米尼等，这些作家为西方世界总结出了关于现代地面作战行动的一个架构。约米尼关于现代战争的范例如今依然在继续沿用。他的架构包含了作战行动的基本内容，即一支军队要获取补给和增援，要有目标，进攻方（通常）要有获胜所必须占领的地理位置。在作战行动的大本营和沿军队前进方向展开的所要夺取的目标点连线上，通常会与敌人的防御部队展开连续不断的战斗。其中很重要的一点是，从军队身后到作战行动大本营之间的通讯、给养以及增援的联系渠道必须保持通畅。

All these ideas are familiar to planners today, and they still characterize conventional ground warfare. Recent operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere, however, suggest that we are moving toward post-Jominian warfare-when each of these ideas will be laid to rest. Massive armies enjoying huge, relatively secure bases in a theater are becoming rare. In their place are relatively small, high-speed joint forces operating from dispersed bases that are not in-theater. These joint forces do not fight along a line of operations, but rather move to and fight throughout the theater in distributed operations. Secure lines of communications supporting endless convoys of trucks are giving way to pulsed logistics that feature short-term, self-sufficient joint forces resupplied by precisely organized push packages. These changes are relative rather than absolute, and some of the ideas are still making the transition from the drawing board to the battlefield, but they all point to a withering away of Jominian constructs.

所有的这些观点都与今天策划人员所关注的非常相似，它们依然代表着传统地面战争的特点。但是，最近以来在阿富汗和其它一些地方的作战行动表明我们正在迈向后约米尼战争时代，战争的上述这些观念正在消亡。大规模的军队集结，建立相应的可集中驻扎的安全基地的场景正在变得越来越少。取而代之的是相对较小的，从分散基地高速机动而来非集中驻扎的联合行动部队。这些联合行动部队并不是沿着战线进行战斗，而是在遍及整个战场的作战行动中出击并作战。由可靠的通讯线路保障的漫无尽头的运输车队将让位于脉动型的后勤，即由经过精心组织的物资投送实现的以短期自给自足为特征的联合作战保障。这种变化几乎可以说是相当彻底的，其中的一些想法还处在从图板到战场的转换过程中，但它们都显示出了约米尼体系的消亡。

One of the most dramatic changes in warfare that has unfolded over the past few decades is the move toward formationless warfare. One could argue that until recently, military art and science has aimed at building, training and using tactical formations as the primary expression of ground combat power. From the phalanx to the legion, from the tercio to l'ordre mixte, from the panzer division to fronts in echelon, conventional warfare has featured coherent formations, each trying to break the other.

在过去几十年里战争最为戏剧性的变化之一就是朝着无阵形作战的演化。有人可能争辩说，直到最近军方和学者都还在把组建、训练和使用战术队形作为地面作战力量的主要训练科目。从希腊方阵到罗马军团，从西班牙方阵（译注：由火枪兵和长枪兵混编而成的方阵，攻防兼备）到法国混合方阵（译注：拿破仑时代法军使用的一种阵形，战线正中的部队列横队，战线两侧的部队列纵队，这种阵形可以在战斗中形成持续而密集的射击火力），从装甲师到梯形锋面，传统战争中已经深深打上了阵形的烙印，两者的关系密不可分。

Early 21st-century warfare is witnessing the death of the formation, and this revolutionary demise is the product of two factors. First, Western military forces (and Americans in particular) have demonstrated the ability to destroy virtually any formation through overwhelming joint fires. Given the right circumstances, it is almost inconceivable that a modern armored formation could attack and maintain momentum against a robust U.S. joint force. Our ability to sense and destroy targets both with long-range fires (air, artillery) and in close battle render enemy armored formations as useless as a cavalry charge. Ground formations, once so powerful and coherent, now represent convenient targets, especially when they move.

21世纪早期的战争可以证明阵形作战的灭亡，这种革命性的过渡是两方面要素的产物。首先，西方军事力量（特别是美国人）已经证明具有了可以通过压倒性的联合打击火力从根本上摧毁任何阵形的能力。假定在正常的情况下，一支现代化的装甲编队向一支战斗力完备的美军联合作战部队发起进攻并保持冲击势头几乎是不可想像的。我们所具有的通过远程火力（空军、炮兵）以及近距离作战进行目标探测和摧毁的能力将使得敌人的装甲编队跟骑兵冲锋一样毫无用处。曾经如此强大和密不可分的地面阵形，现在成为了便捷的打击目标，尤其是在它们移动的时候。

The other factor that gives rise to formationless warfare is modern communications. U.S. joint forces and those of our allies continue to advance the art and science of networking. Where once commanders had to bark out orders across small battlefields and men advanced shoulder-to-shoulder, modern commanders collaborate over a network, and joint forces synchronize lethal effects from distributed locations. The enemy likewise takes advantage of modern communications to plan and coordinate operations. What is conspicuously absent in these activities is any hint of a battlefield formation. In place of physical formations are cybernetic organizations capable of tapping into combat power on a global scale.

促使无阵形作战异军突起的另一个要素是现代化的通讯。美国联合作战部队和我们的一些盟国正在继续朝着网络的科学化和艺术化前进。以前的指挥官通过吼叫在一个小型战场上传递命令战士肩并肩前进，现在的指挥官通过网络协同联合作战部队从分散的位置形成致命的打击效果。敌人同样具有通过现代化通讯手段计划和同步作战行动的优势。在这些活动过程当中最不应该出现的就是任何的战场阵形的踪影。取代实际阵形的是在全球范围内投送战斗力量的组织控制能力。

Warfare has always expedited military technology. In the future, however, the pace of technological development, particularly within the fields of weapons, communications, sensors and protection systems, will increase. More important, we will begin to see warfare which is characterized by prototypes rather than by mass production. This will be a challenge for American warfighting culture, because mass production was one of our greatest strengths-one that contributed no small part to our superpower status. The ability of American factories to crank out Sherman tanks and aircraft carriers was key to our victory in World War II.

战争总是在促进军事科技的进步。无论如何在将来，技术发展的步伐，特别是在武器、通讯、探测和保护系统的领域，将大大提高。更为重要的是，我们将开始看到以原型而不是大规模生产为特征的战争。这对于美国的战争文化来说将是一个挑战，因为大规模生产是我们最强大的力量之一——它对我们的超级大国地位作出了不小的贡献。美国工厂生产谢尔曼坦克和航空母舰的能力是我们赢得第二次世界大战的关键。

In the future, however, technological innovations will graduate much faster and it will not be mass production capability but rather the capability to field and adapt to prototype technology that will win the day. There will be no technological end state to build to a treasured ideal of mass production thinking. Instead, each contingency will see military technology in a state of flux and sensitive to each particular permutation as technologies combine and clash in battle. Prototype warfare will demand an unprecedented level of innovation and flexibility among warfighters.

但是在未来，技术创新将更新的更为快速，到了那一天取得胜利的将不是大规模生产的能力而是对原型的实用化以及进行改造的能力。这个世界不存在大规模生产思维里那种可以理想化地加以珍藏的终极科技。与之相反，每一种技术可能都可以在技术综合的情况下影响各自的重要程度并融合到军事科技当中，并应用于战场。原型战争将对战斗人员提出一种空前级别的创新与灵活要求。

For much of military history, battle was a continuous struggle between weaponry and protective systems: spear and shield, sword and mail, shell and armor. In the future it is likely that the destructive potential of weaponry will outstrip most protective systems. Warfare will be more about detecting than destroying, because the latter will be a trivial matter compared to the former. Land warfare will become analogous to submarine warfare -it is all about finding and tracking the submarine. Once we have fixed the location of an enemy submarine, the battle is over; the destruction is a secondary matter. Likewise, land warfare, absent easily templated formations, will be about finding, identifying and tracking the enemy, rather than penetrating his armor. Seeing through the shield of noncombatants, being able to identify warriors who wear no uniforms and identifying hidden weapons caches will consume the energies of commanders.

对于大部分的军事历史来说，战场就是攻击武器与防卫系统持续不断的斗争：长矛与盾牌，利剑与盔甲，炮弹与装甲。到了将来很有可能是攻击武器的破坏能力会压倒最好的防卫系统。战争中的探测能力将比摧毁能力更为突出，因为后者与前者相比将不再是一个问题。陆战将变得象是潜艇战——围绕的主题将是发现和追踪敌人的潜艇。一旦我们确定了敌人潜艇的位置，战斗就结束了；毁灭对方是一个次要问题。与之相似，不再会出现模式化阵形的陆战，将围绕发现、确认以及追踪敌人展开，而不是去撕裂他的装甲。看穿非战斗人员的伪装，能够确认不穿军装的战士以及找到隐藏的武器库将耗尽指挥官们的精力。

The implications are obvious: we must invest in information, surveillance and reconnaissance systems. Gaining information superiority will not be a convenient add-on to tactical warfare, but will be the sine qua non of defeating the enemy.

隐藏在这后面的含意是显而易见的：我们必须在情报，监视以及侦察系统上加以投入。收集情报的优先权不再是战术行动级的辅助手段，而应该是击败敌人的先决条件。

Operational art-at best an ill-defined term-will wither away in the future. At any rate it will become so synonymous with strategy that the two will be indistinguishable. The essentials of operational art-theaters of operations and regional commands-will still exist, of course. Campaign planning, however, once easily confined to military operations in a given theater, will become so intermixed with political, economic, informational, societal and cultural factors as to quickly exceed the grasp and authority of regional combatant commanders and their staffs. The battlespace, when it grew beyond the Napoleonic battlefield, gave rise to operational art. It will now continue to grow beyond the capacity of operational art into the realm of grand strategy.

作战艺术——这个最缺乏清晰定义的词语——将在未来消失。在任何一个方面它所要表达的内容都与战略是如此的相似以致于两者几乎没有区别。当然，作战艺术的本质——掌握全局与局部指挥——将仍然存在。但是战役规划这样一个曾经是一个在给定战区中很容易确定的的军事行动，将因为政治、经济、消息报导、社会以及文化等因素使得规划内容迅速超出作战地区指挥官及其参谋人员的掌控与授权。当战场空间从拿破仑的战场上走出来时，它就已经上升成为了作战艺术。它还将继续向前走，走出作战艺术的怀抱，走进大战略的殿堂。

Within the American warfighting community there has been an enduring argument about what operational art really is. Some view it as something akin to grand tactics-- the maneuvers that precede and follow battles and that strive to ensure tactical success. Others have viewed it as the inevitable expression of industrialized warfare. Still others have argued that it is inextricably tied to strategic objectives and includes nonmilitary factors. In the end, we know where operational art is (between tactics and strategy), but not really what it is. These arguments have helped to shape and direct operational thinking, but what remains to be seen is if these same pundits will be able to perceive the demise of this precious art in favor of early 21st-century grand strategy.

在美国的作战研究领域里有一个关于什么是真正的作战艺术的长期争议。一些观点认为它应该是与高级战术相类似的东西——先机动，接着开始战斗，并且努力赢得战术成功。其它一些人认为它是作为工业化战争的必然表达方式。还有一些人争论说它应该是与战略目标紧密关联的并且包括了一些非军事因素。总而言之，我们知道作战艺术的位置在哪里（在战术和战略之间），但不知道它究竟是什么。这些争论有助于勾勒和指导作战思维，但接下来我们将关注是同样的这些理论家是否能够洞察到这一宝贵的艺术将在21世纪大战略的影响下消亡。