英文部分選自經濟學人Obituary版塊
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言必有中
Andrew Marshall, the Pentagon's longest-serving military strategist, died on March 26th,aged 97
美國五角大樓任職最長的戰略大師安德魯•馬歇爾於3月26日逝世,享年97歲。
註:
2015年安德魯·馬歇爾辭職時TE曾發表過一篇關於馬歇爾的文章謎一般的未來學家,原文連結:
https://www.economist.com/united-states/2015/01/08/the-quiet-american
At the heart of many a large and ambitious empire sits one man who is not the ruler, though the ruler often listens to him; and who runs no department, though his faithful followers are found all through government. He is rarely seen in public, publishes very little, avoids journalists, sits silently through meetings, and yet steers the country. For more than four decades, America’s version of this inscrutable figure was Andrew Marshall.
在許多龐大且雄心勃勃帝國的中心,都有著這樣一個人:他不是統治者,但統治者的很多決策實際上是受到了他的影響;他不掌管任何部門,但他的忠實信徒遍布政府。他鮮有公開露面,幾乎不怎麼發表文章,迴避記者,參加會議也一言不發,但是其實他實際上掌控著這個國家。在過去40多年的時間裡,美國版的這位「藏鏡人」就是安德魯•馬歇爾。He looked the part, small and benign, with a bald dome of a head, wire-rimmed glasses and a bureaucrat’s bland suit. He also inhabited the part, hidden behind thick buzzer-locked doors in the innermost A ring of the Pentagon in an office buttressed with papers and books on every branch of knowledge. There from 1973 he ran the Office of Net Assessment (ONA), a tiny independent think-tank whose remit was to compare the capabilities of the United States and its enemies in weaponry, troop training, efficiency, spending, deployment, planning, decision-making, readiness and any other point of variance. These painstaking assessments, highly classified, sparingly distributed and compiled at a rate of only six a decade, gave America as much detail about its adversaries as could be had. Then it could plan how to counter them.
馬歇爾的外貌符合這樣的角色定位:他身材矮小、面相和善,禿頂,戴著金絲邊眼鏡,身著一件政府官員常穿的最普普通通、平淡無奇的西裝。他的辦公環境也符合這樣的角色定位:在五角大樓最向裡A座的一道道銅牆鐵壁後有一間擺滿了涉及世界上各個領域知識和信息文件和書籍的辦公室,馬歇爾就隱匿在此。就是在這裡,他自1973年便開始執掌淨評估辦公室(ONA)。淨評估辦公室是一個小型獨立智庫,職責是比較美國和其敵對國在武器、軍事訓練、效率、開支、部署、計劃、決策、戰備等任何一方面的能力。這些費時費力的評估,屬於高度機密,只在極小範圍發布(譯者註:據說只有淨評估辦公室主任、國防部長和總統三個人有資格看到),且以十年只出六期的速度編纂。它給美國政府提供了關於競爭對手最詳實的信息。如此,美國政府就可以據之規劃如何防範應對反擊他們。
注釋:1.ONA 淨評估辦公室
美國國防部淨評估辦公室及淨評估特徵
http://www.knowfar.org.cn/html/zhanlue/201411/19/420.htm
美國防部淨評估辦公室的前世今生
http://m.sohu.com/a/114509800_465915?from=groupmessage&isappinstalled=0
2. 安德魯•馬歇爾——淨評估智慧之旅
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?src=11×tamp=1555644234&ver=1555&signature=*kcm2D2F6QLwzpZ5D3qvZnxPo*F-OuWBgFRrJ-HIZiRBAeJCJVKwAa9Wj5n7H7ugHA9XBegKy6C59f60BFDBrTr*csp26JEMjgAEbeai5vcIgMbovs-yAz9O43COwwmB&new=1
3. Look the part 看上去樣子像那種人
ONA, as he set it up and ran it (originally at Henry Kissingergere capabilities of tnsc, but the Department of Defence was a much neater fit) was not a problem-solving place for times of crisis. Like him, it took the long view. Ten years ahead was his preferred span, with many longer backward reflections, influenced by his lifelong love of Toynbee’s 「A Study of History」, to see how states amassed power and how, often foolishly, they lost it. He was no futurist, a word he disliked, since the non-rationality of humans, especially in war, made prediction impossible; if people wanted their fortune told, they should visit a gypsy. And his office was not there to give answers, offer bland-bunkum analysis or follow Pentagon fads, but to ask the right questions and provide true information. After that, there was only so much stupidity one man could prevent.
淨評估辦公室由馬歇爾一手創辦和負責(它隸屬於亨利•基辛格執掌的國家安全委員會(NSC),但就職能而言,它適合國防部,也很快就轉隸到了國防部)。它不是一個危急時刻解決眼前問題的地方。和馬歇爾一樣,它的著眼點,非常的長遠。馬歇爾喜歡放眼向前看十年。受到他終生所愛的湯因比《歷史研究》的影響,他會對過往更長跨度的歷史進行反思,以便理解歷史上那些國家是如何一步步形成霸權,而又是如何「愚蠢地」失去了往日的榮光。他不但不是「未來主義者」甚至反感這個詞彙,因為人類的非理性,尤其是面對戰爭時的非理性,使得預測未來是一件不可能完成的任務;那些想要知道未來的人,應該去找吉卜賽人,而不是他。他的部門不是來提供答案的,不是來提供廢話連篇的分析或者跟著五角大樓階段熱點來打轉的,他的部門是提出關鍵問題、提供真實的信息。畢竟這世界上愚蠢的事太多,不是一個人能完全阻止的。
注釋:
1.NSC 國家安全委員會
https://baike.baidu.com/item/NSC/10940117
2. 地道說法:There was only so much stupidity one man could prevent.
畢竟一人之力有限,他也不可能憑藉一己之力杜絕所有高層犯愚蠢錯誤的可能。
There's only so much fortune a man really needs and the rest is just for showing off.
財產不用太多,一個人用不了多少,多餘的錢只是用來炫耀。
For years all defence strategy centred on the Soviet Union, and there his chief questions were: could it afford its military machine? And was the government as ruthlessly monolithic as American officials supposed? His assessments, contrary to the cia’s, answered no to both. (His estimate for the percentage of Soviet gdp going to military spending was almost triple the spooks』, for whom he had little time.) Once these facts were known, it made sense to deploy 「competitive strategies」, borrowed from the business strategy he had studied at rand in the mid-1960s, and make the weaker competitor overspend until it was driven out of the market. Hence the b2 Stealth bomber programme, to force the ussr to modernise its air defences, and Ronald Reagan’s strategic defence initiative (「Star Wars」), to strain to the utmost Soviet investment in its missile shield. These had the desired effect even when merely talked about; they hardly needed deploying.
多年來,所有的國防戰略都圍繞著蘇聯。而在這個方面,他的主要疑問是,蘇聯能負擔得起它的軍事武器嗎?蘇聯政府真的像美國官員們認為的那樣思想堅定而統一嗎?他的評估結果對於這兩個問題都給出了否定回答,這與中情局結論相違(他對於蘇聯軍事開支佔國內生產總值比例的估算是中情局那幫傢伙的三倍;他對中情局那幫人沒什麼好感)。當這些真實情況被明了後,部署「競爭戰略」(這個詞借用自20世紀60年代中期他在蘭德公司學習到的商業策略)促使較弱的競爭對手開支過度直到被逐出市場,這種做法就講得通了。於是就有了B-2隱形轟炸機計劃,來迫使蘇聯將其空防現代化;也有了隆納·雷根的戰略防禦計劃(又稱「星球大戰」計劃),以便把蘇聯對飛彈防禦的投資逼到極限。因為有了正確的信息和評估,所以僅僅煞有其事地談論這些計劃就可以達到預期效果,甚至都不需要真正部署。
All this gave him a hawkish reputation, and certainly he had consorted with hawks at rand, where from 1949 he spent two decades considering the nuclear threat. Never having fought in a war himself, since a heart murmur had kept him out of military service, he was shaken when, witnessing a nuclear test in the Nevada desert, he saw his bones through the palms of his hands. An arms race was not just about weapons, but about psychology: let us show you what we could do to you. The Pentagon did not fully appreciate that. He did, because he spent hours each day reading anthropology, economics and behavioural studies as well as war books, and instructed his recruits, whom he commissioned to write ONA’s studies, to do the same. To his trainees he was Yoda (the bald, benign Jedi Master of 「Star Wars」, whom he had never heard of) and they were his Jedi Knights or alumni of 「St Andy’s Prep」, sitting at his feet and, more usefully, lobbying fiercely for him when cutpurse or unpersuaded presidents tried to close ona down. Thanks to these acolytes, as they moved on to think-tanks or government jobs, he kept his methods running through eight administrations.
所有這些給了他一個強硬派的名聲。確實,在蘭德公司期間,他結交過鷹派分子。他從1949年開始便在蘭德公司,此後的二十年間一直都在該公司探索核威脅解決方案。因為他心臟有雜音不能入伍,他本人從沒有親自打過一場仗。但當他親眼見證內華達州沙漠的核試驗時,他感受到了掌間骨血的澎湃,頗為震撼。軍備競賽不僅僅是比拼武器,更是心理戰:讓我們展示一下我們能對你們做什麼。五角大樓並不完全認同他這一點看法。他這樣認為是因為他每天花費大量時間研讀人類學、經濟學、行為學方面的研究和戰爭方面的書籍,並且要求他招募的、撰寫淨評估辦公室研究報告的那些新成員們也這麼做。對他的追隨者而言,他就是尤達(《星球大戰》裡光頭而和善的「絕地大師」,不過他本人從未聽說過這個人物)。他們就是他的「絕地武士」或者「聖安迪預備學校」的校友,圍繞在他身邊,而更給力的是,當總統想要削減淨評估辦公室的開支甚至是多方溝通沒有效果,想要關閉淨評估辦公室時,這些「校友」們就去為他使勁遊說。也是多虧了這些信徒們遍布美國各個智庫和政府機構,他才能保持他的行事風格歷經整整八屆政府輪替,兀自巋然不動。Prominent among them was his seven-page memo, on to think-tanks or government jobs, he kept his methods running through eight administrations.ethods running through eignology, coupled with operational changes, might radically alter warfare and sharpen America’s edge. As a free element in the Pentagon, disliking the grandiose talk of big platforms and one-or-two-theatre wars and the numbing inter-service rivalry, he relished a type of combat that would be nimbler and quicker, with sensor-fitted precision weapons, robotic devices and it co-ordination between forces. This new thinking, the Revolution in Military Affairs, was adopted in 2001 by the Bush administration, only to be sideswiped by 9/11; but his points remained, and permeated.
而其中尤其突出的是他在1993年撰寫的七頁備忘錄《對軍事革命的一些思考》。裡面是他從20世紀80年代以來就一直斟酌的觀點,關於科技進步和軍事實操方式上的轉變是如何能從根本上改變戰爭形勢和突出美國優勢。作為五角大樓裡的自由角色,他反感對於一些大而空的話題的高談闊論、反感那種區域戰爭和大型作戰平臺的高談闊論、反感頻繁繁瑣令人厭煩麻木的內部軍種間攀比較量。他青睞一種更為靈活、更為快速的戰鬥:將配備傳感器的精確武器、智能化的武器系統和部隊之間的信息科技協調結合在一起。這種命名為「新軍事變革」的思想,在2001年被布希政府所採用,卻因911事件而遭受抨擊;但他的觀點保留了下來,並且滲透進了美國國防政策布局的方方面面。
注釋:
1.新軍事變革思想:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_in_Military_Affairs?from=groupmessage&isappinstalled=0
2.theatre war
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatre_War?from=singlemessage&isappinstalled=0
The terrorist attacks did not surprise him; America had been wide open. What did surprise him—apart from the speed with which the ussr fell apart—was the Pentagon’s new fixation on fighting terror, jumping from crisis to crisis. His mind was still set on the long view and the next great-power rival, and from the mid-1990s, too early for everyone else, he turned his gaze on China. Its sheer size implied that it must begin to compete for hegemony. As he had done with the Soviet Union, he watched its mindset and bureaucracy as well as its weapons, and ran war games encouraging officials to contemplate a sudden Chinese attack in the Pacific. Others thought that unlikely, but his question was: what if it did?
恐怖襲擊並未使他感到吃驚;美國過去一直門戶大開,反恐意識不足。真正使他感到吃驚的除了蘇聯的解體速度之外反而是五角大樓新出現的對於打擊恐怖主義的痴迷,馬不停蹄地趕著陷入一場又一場的危機。馬歇爾卻依然著眼於長遠的未來和下一個潛在的實力強勁的對手。自20世紀90年代中期開始,他就將視線對準了中國;而那個時候,其他人還遠沒有這個意識。僅僅是中國的廣袤的疆域就意味著它勢必將對美國的世界霸權發起挑戰。正如他對蘇聯做過的一樣,他在密切關注中國武器製造的同時,還密切關注它的輿情變化和政治局勢。他還設計運行戰爭類遊戲,來鼓動官員構想中國在太平洋地區如果發動突然襲擊的情形和應對策略。其他人認為這不大可能發生,而他提出的問題是:萬一呢?Appropriately for one so hidden, he revealed almost nothing about his private life: his love of French food and sports, a first marriage that had lasted longer than his time in the Pentagon, and a flat in Alexandria even more piled with good reading than his office in the A ring. Among all those books and papers, however, there was no laptop or iPad; e-mails were read to him, and he never went on the internet. For him the world of strategic threats was tactile and physical, a matter of geography and the clash of forces. Cyberwarfare, of which he knew nothing, he left to the equally unknown master who, he hoped, would follow him.
與他這樣一個行事隱蔽的人相符合的是,他幾乎從不透露任何私人生活:他從不展現他對法式食物和運動的熱愛,也從不提及他那跨時甚至超過在五角大樓工作的第一段婚姻,更鮮少透露他在亞歷山大擁有的那所公寓——那裡的好書數目之多,甚至遠超他在五角大樓A座的辦公室。然而,在所有那些書籍和文件之外,卻沒有任何筆記本或平板電腦;電子郵件是別人讀給他聽的,他也從不上網。於他而言,湧動著戰略威脅的世界是真實可感的,是具體有形的,它關乎地緣和武裝力量衝突。至於網絡戰這個他幾乎一無所知的領域,他只能留給下一位同樣不被世人所知的高人。他希望那個人可以認同他的思想,追隨他的腳步。翻譯組:
Alex,不務正業的理工男
Rachel,愛吃火鍋的處女座翻譯生
Yao,英專本科生,準上外小碩,只讀不背的經濟學人愛好者
校核組:
Qianna,教育民工,英倫搖滾迷
Vicky,少兒英語老師,筆譯新人