世界需要新的戰爭規則
The two centuries since the Congress of Vienna have seen the gradual codification by the international community of the “rules of the game” for guiding interstate relations, even between unfriendly countries. Their basic premise has been the formula “don’t do to me what you don’t want me to do to you”. However, technological advances mean that today those rules are being dangerously undermined. The international system is at risk.
維也納會議(Congress of Vienna)以來的兩個世紀裏，國際社會逐漸發展出一套“遊戲規則”來規範國家之間、甚至包括敵對國家之間的關係。這些規則的基本前提是“己所不欲，勿施於人”。然而，技術進步意味着，如今這些遊戲規則正受到嚴重削弱。國際體系正面臨風險。After the age of Metternich, Talleyrand and Castlereagh, elaborate understandings developed about the transition from formal peace to war. These involved carefully scripted exchanges of diplomats, rules about the treatment of prisoners of war and eventually even a shared definition of war crimes. Implicit in all this was the notion that while war and peace are fundamentally different conditions, both still need rules of conduct.
在梅特涅(Metternich)、塔列朗(Talleyrand)和卡索瑞(Castlereagh)的時代之後，各方對於從正式的和平轉向戰爭的過程發展起高層次的理解。這一過程涉及外交官之間精心措辭的交涉、有關如何對待戰俘的規則，最終甚至達成了對戰爭罪的一致定義。所有這一切都隱含這樣一種觀念：雖然戰爭與和平是根本不同的兩種狀態，但是它們都需要行爲規則。In more recent times, the use of nuclear weapons has made the distinction between the two more dramatic. The destructiveness of these weapons was without precedent but paradoxically that encouraged more cautious behaviour on the part of the states that possessed them. The existence of such weapons also created a new global hierarchy with a few nuclear states at the top and the rest below.
在更近的時代，核武器的使用令兩者之間的區別更加明顯。核武器具有史無前例的毀滅威力，但矛盾的是，這推動核武國家在行爲上更加謹慎。核武器的存在還創建了一種新的全球等級制度：少數核武國家居於頂端，其餘國家則居於下面。
Today, the interstate rules of the game are degrading. Highly sophisticated capabilities for inflicting violence on remote targets, as well as cross-border state-sponsored terrorism, are undermining the clear demarcation of what is permissible and what is not. Scientific advances have also increased the potential scope of acts whose perpetrators may not be easily identified and which may not be intercepted in a timely fashion.
如今，國家間的遊戲規則正在失效。對遠程目標實施打擊的先進能力，以及由政府支持的跨境恐怖主義，正使“可爲”和“不可爲”之間的明確界線變得模糊起來。科技進步還擴大了某一類行爲的空間，此類行爲的肇事者更難辨認，也更難以及時阻止。Indeed, the world community is witnessing an increasing reliance by states on covert acts of violence without declarations of war. Leaders can now use long-distance air drones for lethal strikes across national borders against targeted individuals, occasionally killing civilians, too.
的確，國際社會正在見證的是：各國日趨依賴祕密暴力手段，而不公開宣戰。如今，領導人可以下令出動遠程無人機，越境對目標人員進行致命打擊，而這種打擊有時也會傷害到平民。The sophisticated dissemination of computer viruses can disrupt the military industrial assets of rivals. States can commission unacknowledged assassinations of foreign leaders and of scientists engaged in weapons development. They may back hacking of foreign institutions for intelligence purposes as well as of private business entities to gain commercial advantages.
使用尖端手段傳播計算機病毒，可以擾亂對手的軍工資產。各國還有能力對外國領導人和從事武器研發的科學家進行無人承認的刺殺。他們可能支持黑客侵入外國機構的電腦以獲取情報，或者侵入私營商業實體的電腦以取得商業優勢。Some states are also experimenting with more comprehensive cyber warfare designed to disrupt the operational infrastructure of targeted states, as in the case of the assault on Estonia and its banking institutions in 2007. A rogue but technologically sophisticated state can now gain the capacity to launch a non-lethal but paralysing cyber attack on the socioeconomic system and the most important state institutions of a target country.
有的國家還在試驗更全面的網絡戰爭模式，以擾亂目標國家的基礎設施，正如2007年愛沙尼亞及其銀行業機構受到的攻擊那樣。技術先進的流氓國家如今擁有足夠的能力，可以對目標國家的社會經濟系統和最重要的政府機構發動雖不致命、但足以導致全面癱瘓的網絡攻擊。The dangers inherent in the degradation of the already vulnerable international system cannot be overstated. Social chaos, with paralysing fear magnified by uncertainty as to its origins, could spread. Making matters potentially even worse, such degradation is not the product of one or another particularly menacing state. Rather, it is the consequence of the rising vulnerability of the global system to cumulative pressures: technological innovation, massive and increasingly impatient populist upheavals and a shift in the distribution of geopolitical power.
對於原本已經十分脆弱的國際體系，其退化過程中蘊含的危險怎麼強調都不過分。社會混亂可能蔓延，對於攻擊來源的不確定性將加劇人們的末日恐懼，導致社會癱瘓。潛在更加糟糕的是，國際體系的退化並非某一個咄咄逼人的國家的產物，而是全球體系在各種累積壓力（技術創新、大規模及越來越不耐煩的民粹主義騷亂，地緣政治實力的重新洗牌）下脆弱性日益加劇的後果。In that volatile context, competing states tends to be subjective in judgments of their own conduct. There are lessons to be learnt from the onset of the nuclear weapons age. After the end of the second world war in 1945, the US wisely abstained from a pre-emptive attack that would have exploited its atomic monopoly but would probably have had monstrous consequences. But self-restraint ushered in a Soviet effort to gain first nuclear equality then superiority. America’s admirably consistent determination to prevent the latter, as well as probably also the rise of a nuclear-armed but increasingly anti-Soviet China, compelled the Soviet Union to settle eventually for verifiable nuclear weapons parity.
在這種複雜多變的局面下，敵對國家傾向於對自己的行爲作出主觀的評判。在這方面，核武時代初期的情況可以提供啓示。1945年第二次世界大戰結束之後，美國明智地沒有利用其在原子彈方面的壟斷地位發動先發制人的攻擊，那種攻擊可能產生可怕後果。然而，美國的自制導致蘇聯先是努力獲得平等的核地位，後來又試圖超過美國。由於美國令人欽佩地堅決不讓蘇聯在覈武實力上超越自己，很可能加上擁有核武器並越來越反蘇的中國的崛起，蘇聯最終被迫滿足於可覈查的核武對等原則。
