by Agence France-Presse  January 1, 2021

法新社 2021年1月1日

 

NATO RQ-4D Phoenix Drone

北约RQ-4D型凤凰无人机

 

Should the German army be equipped with killer drones? With less than a year to go before a general election, it’s a question that has bitterly divided Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition government, testing NATO’s patience.

德军是否应该装备杀手无人机？距离大选还有不到一年的时间，这个问题让默克尔总理的联合政府产生了严重分歧，考验着北约的耐心。

 

German armed forces have so far only been allowed to use reconnaissance drones as part of military missions in Mali and Afghanistan, leaving it to other international partners to deploy armed drones.

德国武装部队到目前为止只允许在马里和阿富汗的军事任务中使用侦察无人机，让其他国际伙伴部署武装无人机。

 

In 2018, Germany signed a contract to lease five new Heron TP drones from Israeli manufacturer IAI with the initial purpose of using them only for surveillance, although they can be equipped with missiles if desired.

在2018年，德国签署了一项合同，从以色列制造商IAI租赁五架新的HeronTP无人机，最初的目的是只将它们用于监视，尽管如果需要的话，它们可以配备导弹。

 

Merkel’s conservatives and their centre-left Social Democratic (SPD) coalition partners agreed at the time that parliament would have the final say on any future arming of the drones.

默克尔的保守党和他们的中左翼社会民主党（SPD）联盟伙伴当时同意，议会将对未来任何武装无人机拥有最终决定权。

 

Any kind of military action remains a sensitive issue in Germany, a nation scarred by its past as the instigator of two world wars.

在德国，任何形式的军事行动都是一个敏感的问题，因为德国过去曾是两次世界大战的发起者，给这个国家留下了伤痕。

 

But calls have also grown louder in recent years for Germany, as a major European country with considerable political and economic clout, to take on more international responsibility in matters of defence and security.

但近年来，要求德国作为一个具有相当政治和经济影响力的欧洲大国，在防务和安全问题上承担更多国际责任的呼声也越来越高。

 

Merkel’s CDU/CSU conservatives have backed arming the remote-control drones, along with some SPD members. The liberal FDP and far-right AfD opposition parties are also in favour.

默克尔领导的德国基督教社会联盟(CSU)和基督教民主联盟(CDU)与一些社民党成员一起支持武装遥控无人机。自由派的自民党（FDP）和极右翼反对党德国的选择（AfD）也表示赞成。

 

The opposition Greens and the far-left Die Linke are fiercely opposed.

反对党绿党（Greens）和极左的德国左派党(Die Linke）强烈反对。

 

The debate came to a head in mid-December when SPD co-leader Norbert Walter-Borjans and the chairman of SPD’s parliamentary group, Rolf Muetzenich, unexpectedly spoke out against the arming of the unmanned aerial vehicles.

在12月中旬，当社民党联合领导人诺伯特·沃尔特·博尔詹斯（Norbert Walter Borjans）和社民党议会小组主席罗尔夫·穆特泽尼奇（Rolf Muetzenich）出人意料地公开反对武装无人机，辩论变得十分尖锐。

 

A vote in the German parliament has now been postponed indefinitely.

德国议会的投票现已无限期推迟。

 

‘Killing by joystick’

‘操纵杆杀人'

 

“The line between defending the lives and limbs of our soldiers and killing with a joystick is very thin,” Walter-Borjans said.

沃尔特·博尔詹斯说：“保卫我们士兵的生命和四肢与用操纵杆杀人之间的界限非常狭窄。”。

 

But the chairman of the prestigious annual Munich Security Conference, Wolfgang Ischinger, disagrees.

但著名的慕尼黑安全年会主席沃尔夫冈·伊斯钦格不同意这种说法。

 

“What does a pilot (of a fighter plane) do, if not kill by joystick, by pressing a button 50 kilometres away, without seeing his target, and firing an air-to-ground missile?”

“如果不是用操纵杆杀人，飞行员在50公里外按下按钮，看不到目标，然后发射空对地导弹，他会怎么做？”

 

Muetzenich said he wants a comprehensive ethical debate on “automated killing” by the Bundeswehr armed forces, which he says half of Germans oppose.

穆特泽尼奇说，他希望就德国国防军的“自动杀戮”展开全面的道德辩论，他说，半数德国人反对这种做法。

 

“It disturbs me that almost only the military — those responsible for armaments and defence — have a say, but never doctors or Church representatives,” he said.

他说：“让我不安的是，几乎只有军方——负责军备和国防的人——有发言权，却从来没有医生或教会代表发言权。”

 

Andre Wuestner, the head of Germany’s armed forces union, said there had been several years “of discussions on five, I stress, five armed drones”.

德国武装部队联盟负责人安德烈·伍斯特纳（Andre Wuestner）说，已经有好几年“讨论了五架，我强调，五架武装无人机”。

 

The blockage has been criticised even within the SPD. The party’s defence spokesman, Fritz Felgentreu, resigned in protest at the SPD’s decision.

这种障碍甚至在社民党内部也受到批评。该党的国防发言人弗里茨·费尔根特勒（Fritz Felgentreu）辞职，以抗议社民党的决定。

 

‘Cowardice’

‘懦弱’

 

German Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, a close Merkel ally, has accused the junior coalition partner of “cowardice”.

默克尔的亲密盟友、德国国防部长卡伦鲍尔（annegretkramp-Karrenbauer）指责默克尔这个小联盟伙伴“懦弱”。

 

“We have drawn up operational principles, which stipulate that armed drones can only be used defensively by the Bundeswehr — to protect its own people,” she said.

她说：“我们已经制定了作战原则，其中规定武装无人机只能被德国国防军用于防御——以保护自己的人民。”。

 

Other conservatives, including the CDU’s defence expert Henning Otte, have accused the SPD of trying to score points with left-wing voters in the run-up to the elections.

包括基民盟国防专家亨宁·奥特在内的其他保守派人士指责社民党在选举前夕试图与左翼选民一道得分。

 

Secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg of the NATO military alliance has also waded into the spat.

北约军事联盟秘书长斯托尔滕贝格（Jens Stoltenberg）也卷入了这场口角。

 

“These drones can support our troops on the ground and, for example, reduce the number of pilots we put at risk,” Stoltenberg told German news agency DPA, pointing to the use of the technology against the jihadist Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq.

斯托尔滕贝格对德国DPA通讯社说：“这些无人机可以支持我们在地面的部队，例如，减少我们面临危险的飞行员数量，”他指的是对叙利亚和伊拉克的伊斯兰国圣战组织使用这种技术。

 

NATO members France and Turkey are among those already using armed drones.

北约成员国法国和土耳其都已经在使用武装无人机。

 

Armed drones, manufactured by Israel or Turkey, were also deployed by Azerbaijan against Armenia in the recent conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.

在最近的纳戈尔诺-卡拉巴赫冲突中，阿塞拜疆还向亚美尼亚部署了由以色列或土耳其制造的武装无人机。

 

Weaponised drones are also a key part of a cross-border project, led by France, Germany and Spain and known as FCAS, to develop a new air-combat system for European forces by 2026.

武器化无人机也是一个由法国、德国和西班牙牵头、名为“未来空中作战系统”（FCAS）的跨国项目的关键部分，该项目旨在2026年前为欧洲部队开发一种新的空战系统。

 

In Germany, the issue won’t be settled “during this parliamentary term”, Walter-Borjans said, setting the stage for months of heated discussions between the warring parties before Germans head to the polls in September.

沃尔特·博尔詹斯说，在德国，这个问题不会在“本届议会任期内”得到解决，这为分歧各方在9月德国大选前进行数月的激烈讨论奠定了基础。