A major war in the Indo-Pacific is probably more likely now than at any time since the Second World War.
在印度太平洋地区爆发大规模战争的可能性现在比第二次世界大战以来的任何时候都大。
The most probable spark is a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. President Xi Jinping of China has said unifying Taiwan with mainland China “must be achieved.” His Communist Party regime has become sufficiently strong — militarily, economically and industrially — to take Taiwan and directly challenge the United States for regional supremacy.
最有可能的引爆火花是中国入侵台湾。中国国家主席习近平已表示，台湾与中国大陆的统一“一定要实现”。他的中共政权已在军事、经济和工业上变得足够强大，有能力攻下台湾并直接挑战美国在亚太地区的霸主地位。
The United States has vital strategic interests at stake. A successful Chinese invasion of Taiwan would punch a hole in the U.S. and allied chain of defenses in the region, seriously undermining America’s strategic position in the Western Pacific, and would probably cut off U.S. access to world-leading semiconductors and other critical components manufactured in Taiwan. As president, Joe Biden has stated repeatedly that he would defend Taiwan.
对美国极其重大的战略利益面临风险。中国成功入侵台湾会打断美国及其盟友在该地区的防御链，严重削弱美国在西太平洋的战略地位，还可能切断美国获得世界上最先进的半导体和台湾生产的其他关键部件的渠道。拜登总统已多次表示，他会保护台湾。
But leaders in Washington also need to avoid stumbling carelessly into a war with China because it would be unlike anything ever faced by Americans. U.S. citizens have grown accustomed to sending their military off to fight far from home. But China is a different kind of foe — a military, economic and technological power capable of making a war felt in the American homeland.
但华盛顿的领导人也需要避免不慎卷入一场与中国的战争，因为这将不同于美国人曾经面临过的任何战争。美国公民已经习惯于将军队派到远离家乡的地方去打仗。但中国是个不同类型的敌人，它是一个军事、经济和技术大国，能够让美国本土尝到战争的滋味。
As a career strategic analyst and defense planner, including for Australia’s Defense Department, I have spent decades studying how a war could start, how it would play out and the military and nonmilitary operations that China is prepared to conduct. I am convinced that the challenges facing the United States are serious, and its citizens need to become better aware of them.
作为一名以战略分析和国防规划（包括为澳大利亚国防部做规划）为职业的人，我已花了几十年的时间研究战争可能如何开始和怎样展开，以及中国准备采取的军事和非军事行动。我深信，美国面临的挑战是严峻的，其公民需要对这些挑战有更好的认识。
The military scenario alone is daunting: China would probably launch a lightning air, sea and cyber assault to seize control of key strategic targets on Taiwan within hours, before the United States and its allies could intervene. Taiwan is slightly bigger than the state of Maryland; if you recall how quickly Afghanistan and Kabul fell to the Taliban in 2021, you start to realize that the takeover of Taiwan could happen relatively quickly. China also has more than 1,350 ballistic and cruise missiles poised to strike U.S. and allied forces in Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and American-held territories in the Western Pacific. Then there’s the sheer difficulty the United States would face waging war thousands of miles across the Pacific against an adversary that has the world’s largest navy and Asia’s biggest air force.
单是军事上可能出现的情况就很可怕：中国很可能会在空中、海上和网络空间发动闪电般进攻，在美国及其盟友来得及介入之前，在数小时内夺取台湾关键战略目标的控制权。台湾的面积略大于美国的马里兰州；如果还记得2021年，阿富汗和喀布尔是如何迅速落入塔利班之手的话，你会开始意识到，拿下台湾可能会以相对快的速度发生。中国还拥有逾1350枚弹道导弹和巡航导弹，时刻准备着打击美国及其在日本、韩国、菲律宾的盟军，以及西太平洋中的美国领地。美国还会面临在跨越太平洋数千公里的地方与对手作战的巨大困难，这个对手拥有世界上最大的海军和亚洲最大的空军。
Despite this, U.S. military planners would prefer to fight a conventional war. But the Chinese are prepared to wage a much broader type of warfare that would reach deep into American society.
尽管如此，美国的军事规划师们更愿意打一场常规战争。但中国人准备打的是一场范围更广、深入美国社会的战争。
Over the past decade, China has increasingly viewed the United States as mired in political and social crises. Mr. Xi, who likes to say that “the East is rising while the West is declining,” evidently feels that America’s greatest weakness is on its home front. And I believe he is ready to exploit this with a multipronged campaign to divide Americans and undermine and exhaust their will to engage in a prolonged conflict — what China’s military calls “enemy disintegration.”
中国已在过去十年里越来越多地将美国视为一个深陷政治和社会危机的国家。喜欢说“东升西降”的习近平显然觉得美国最大的短板在国内。我相信他已准备好利用这一点，展开多管齐下的攻势分裂美国人，削弱和耗尽他们与中国长期交战的意愿——中国军方把这种做法称为“瓦解敌人”。
Over the past two decades, China has built a formidable cyberwarfare capability designed to penetrate, manipulate and disrupt the United States and allied governments, media organizations, businesses and civil society. If war were to break out, China can be expected to use this to disrupt communications and spread fake news and other disinformation. The aim would be to foster confusion, division and distrust and hinder decision-making. China might compound this with electronic and probably some physical attacks on satellites or related infrastructure.
中国已在过去二十年里建立起难以对付的网络战能力，目的是渗透、操纵和破坏美国及其盟国政府、媒体组织、企业和民间社会。一旦爆发战争，中国无疑会利用这一能力来破坏通信，传播假新闻和其他虚假信息。目的是制造混乱、分裂和不信任，阻碍决策制定。中国可能会对卫星或相关基础设施进行电子攻击，可能还会进行某种形式的实际攻击，使情况变得更糟。
These operations would most likely be accompanied by cyber offensives to disrupt electricity, gas, water, transport, health care and other public services. China has demonstrated its capabilities already, including in Taiwan, where it has waged disinformation campaigns, and in serious hacking incidents in the United States. Mr. Xi himself has championed such subterfuge as a “magic weapon.”
这些行动很可能会与破坏电力、天然气、水、交通、医疗和其他公共服务的网络攻击同时发生。中国已展示了自己的这些能力，包括在台湾发动散布假消息的信息战，对美国进行后果严重的黑客攻击。习近平本人已把这些秘密手段视为“法宝”。
China could also weaponize its dominance of supply chains and shipping. The impact on Americans would be profound.
中国还可以将其在供应链和海运方面的主导地位武器化。这会给美国人造成深远的影响。
The U.S. economy is heavily dependent on Chinese resources and manufactured goods, including many with military applications, and American consumers rely on moderately priced Chinese-made imports for everything from electronics to furniture to shoes. The bulk of these goods is transported aboard ships along sea lanes increasingly controlled by Chinese commercial interests that are ultimately answerable to China’s party-state. A war would halt this trade (as well as American and allied shipments to China).
美国经济严重依赖中国的资源和制成品，包括许多具有军事用途的产品，美国消费者依赖价格适中的中国制造的进口产品，从电子产品到家具再到鞋子无所不有。这些产品的大部分从海上运到美国，运输船只使用的航线已越来越多地受中国商业利益的控制，而这些利益集团最终将向中国的党国政府负责。一场战争将打断这种贸易（以及美国和盟友运往中国的东西）。
U.S. supplies of many products could soon run low, paralyzing a vast range of businesses. It could take months to restore trade, and emergency rationing of some items would be needed. Inflation and unemployment would surge, especially in the period in which the economy is repurposed for the war effort, which might include some automobile manufacturers switching to building aircraft or food-processing companies converting to production of priority pharmaceuticals. Stock exchanges in the United States and other countries might temporarily halt trading because of the enormous economic uncertainties.
美国许多产品的供应会很快变得不足，导致大量企业陷入瘫痪。恢复这些产品的交易可能需要几个月的时间，而且需要对一些物资采取紧急定量配给政策。通货膨胀和失业率会出现飙升，尤其是在为战争努力重新安排经济的时期，这可能包括一些汽车制造商转向制造飞机，或食品加工厂转向生产重点药品。由于巨大的经济不确定性，美国和其他国家的证券交易所可能会暂时停止交易。
The United States might be forced to confront the shocking realization that the industrial muscle instrumental in victories like that in World War II — President Franklin Roosevelt’s concept of America as “the arsenal of democracy” — has withered and been surpassed by China.
美国可能会被迫面对一个令人震惊的现实，那就是，对取得第二次世界大战那种胜利至关重要的美国工业力量——那种让罗斯福总统将美国视为“民主制度的军火库”的力量——已经萎缩，并已被中国超越。
China is now the dominant global industrial power by many measures. In 2004 U.S. manufacturing output was more than twice China’s; in 2021, China’s output was double that of the United States. China produces more ships, steel and smartphones than any other country and is a world leader in the production of chemicals, metals, heavy industrial equipment and electronics — the basic building blocks of a military-industrial economy.
从许多方面来看，中国现在是占主导地位的全球工业强国。美国2004年的制造业产出是中国的两倍多，到2021年时，中国的制造业产出已是美国的两倍。中国生产比其他任何国家都多的船舶、钢铁和智能手机，中国的化学制品、金属、重工业设备和电子产品的生产处于世界领先地位，这是军工经济的基本组成部分。
Critically, the United States is no longer able to outproduce China in advanced weapons and other supplies needed in a war, which the current one in Ukraine has made clear. Provision of military hardware to Kyiv has depleted American stocks of some key military systems. Rebuilding them could take years. Yet the war in Ukraine is relatively small-scale compared with the likely demands of a major war in the Indo-Pacific.
至关重要的是，美国在战争所需的先进武器和其他物资的生产上已不再有能力超过中国，乌克兰目前的情况已表明了这点。向基辅提供军事硬件已耗尽了美国一些关键军事系统的库存。重建库存将需要数年时间。然而，乌克兰战争的规模与印太地区一场重大战争的可能需求相比要小得多。
So what needs to be done?
因此需要做些什么呢？
On the military front, the United States should accelerate programs already underway to strengthen and disperse American forces in the Western Pacific to make them less vulnerable to attacks by China. At home, a concerted effort must be made to find ways to better protect U.S. traditional and social media against Chinese disinformation. Supply chains of some critical goods and services need to be reconfigured to shift production to the United States or allied nations, and the United States must pursue a longer-term strategic drive to restore its dominance in global manufacturing.
在军事方面，美国应该加快已在进行的加强和分散美国在西太平洋部队的项目，使他们不那么易受中国的攻击。在国内，需要进行同心协力的努力，以更好地保护美国传统媒体和社交媒体免受中国虚假信息的影响。某些关键商品和服务的供应链需要重新配置，将生产转移到美国或盟国，美国必须致力于更长期的、有组织的战略努力，以恢复其在全球制造业的主导地位。
Building a stronger deterrence by addressing such weaknesses is the best means of averting war. But this will take time. Until then, it is important for Washington to avoid provocations and maintain a civil discourse with Beijing.
通过解决这些弱点来建立更强大的威慑力是避免战争的最佳手段。但这需要时间。在那之前，华盛顿避免被激怒并与北京保持文明对话很重要。
The high-altitude balloon that drifted across the United States this month was seen by many Americans as a shocking Chinese breach of U.S. sovereignty. It may turn out to be child’s play compared with the havoc China could wreak on the American homeland in a war.
本月飘越了美国的高空气球被许多美国人视为中国对美国主权的惊人侵犯。但与中国在战争中可能对美国本土造成的破坏相比，这也许是一场儿戏。