西方正在失去军事优势.

　　在大英帝国巅峰时期，有首流行歌曲这么唱道：“我们不想打仗，但是天哪，如果我们想打仗，我们有战舰，我们有人，我们也有钱。”详细请看下面的双语信息：

　　马克.厄本(Mark Urban)篇幅短小、措辞尖锐的新书《优势》(The Edge)的主题是，现代西方缺少人力、资金和装备来维持其传统的军事主导地位。

　　Urban writes: “The size of western armed forces, their stocks of weaponry and their readiness for combat, all continue to decline?.?.?.? The Edge, the west’s advantage, and along with it the ability to deter people in parts of the world from doing desperate things, is going, if it has not already disappeared.”厄本写道：“西方军队的规模、他们拥有的武器以及他们的战备质量，都在持续下降……西方的优势，以及随之而来的在世界上某些地区阻止有人做出疯狂之举的能力，正在消失，如果说还没有消失的话。”

　　Readers might be surprised that this hawkish call for more military spending has been written by a veteran correspondent for the BBC, an organisation rarely accused of militarism. But, as Urban makes clear, he has been fascinated by military affairs since childhood and as a young man even served a stint as a tank commander. His longstanding interest has helped make him one of Britain’s most insightful commentators on dence, and invests his book with confidence and authority.或许让读者感到意外的是，这本呼吁加大军事支出的鹰派论著出自英国广播公司(BBC)资深记者之手——BBC很少被指责为有军国主义观点。但是正如厄本坦承的那样，自孩提时代起他就是个军事迷，年轻时甚至还当过坦克指挥官。这种长期兴趣推动他成为英国最具洞察力的国防评论员，他在本书中倾注了自信和权威。

　　While the European part of his story is relatively well known, the statistics Urban deploys are still startling. Britain’s navy had more than 70 frigates and destroyers in the 1970s but now has just 19. The German army has shrunk from 545,000 soldiers to 180,000; the French are going down from 548,000 to 213,000; the British army is already below 100,000 troops, its smallest size since the early 19th century.尽管人们相对熟悉他在书中讲述的欧洲情况，但厄本引用的统计数据仍令人震惊。英国海军在上世纪70年代有逾70艘护卫舰和驱逐舰，但现在仅有19艘。德国陆军兵力从54.5万人缩减至18万人;法国陆军兵力从54.8万降至21.3万;英国陆军兵力已经不到10万，缩减至自19世纪初以来最小规模。

　　As Europe’s military capacity has shrunk, so the Nato alliance has grown more dependent on the US. But Urban argues US military power is also on the slide. The number of fighter jets deployed by the US Air Force, for example, has halved since the end of the cold war to about 2,000. The US Navy has also been reduced and is set to decline further.随着欧洲缩减军力，北约同盟越来越依赖美国。但厄本提出，美国也在缩减军力。例如，美国空军编入战斗序列的战斗机自冷战结束以来缩减一半，至2000架左右。美国海军规模也在缩减，而且还会进一步缩减。

　　It is possible, of course, that this does not matter. After the cold war, there was much talk of a “peace dividend” that would allow western nations to cut dence spending sharply. However, as Urban points out, others are flexing their muscles. Russia has spent heavily on its army and on nuclear weapons — a fact it has stressed as tensions over Ukraine have mounted. Chinese spending has soared in recent decades, raising questions over whether the US can continue to dominate the Pacific. As a result, the days in which the US alone accounted for almost half of the world’s military spending are long gone; by 2014, the Pentagon accounted for “just” 38 per cent.当然，这也可能并不重要。在冷战结束后，“和平红利”的言论不绝于耳，即西方国家可以大幅削减国防支出。然而，正如厄本所指出的，其他国家正在展示武力。俄罗斯近年大举投入其陆军和核武器——随着乌克兰危机引发的紧张局势加剧，该国已屡次强调这一点。中国在最近几十年的军事支出大幅飙升，引发美国能否继续在太平洋占据主导地位的问题。这一切的结果是，美国占全球近一半军事支出的日子早已远去;2014年，五角大楼军事支出在全球总额中“仅占”38%。

　　The figures tell only part of the tale. Urban also argues convincingly that the west has been wasting money by splurging on pricey weapons systems pushed by well-connected manufacturers. One reason the number of US fighter jets is falling is that each one is so costly. Each new F-22 Raptor fighter is so packed with expensive technology that it will cost more than $670m[IS THIS FIGURE FROM THE BOOK? SEEING VARIOUS FIGS BUT NOT THIS ONE. chking w gideon]. Therore “it is unlikely that the US could deploy more than a few dozen in any confrontation with China, with its hundreds of fighter jets”. As for the B2 bomber: “An aircraft of the same weight made of solid gold would have been cheaper.”这些数据只说明了故事的一部分。厄本还令人信服地辩称，在神通广大的制造商的推动下，西方采购价格昂贵的武器系统，浪费了有限的资金。美军战斗机数量减少的一个原因是战斗机的单价极为昂贵。新型F-22猛禽(Raptor)战斗机的技术含量如此之高，以至于每架耗资超过6.7亿美元。因此，“美国若与拥有数百架先进战机的中国发生任何对抗，不太可能出动超过数十架的此型战斗机”。至于B2轰炸机：“用黄金做成的相同重量的飞机也比B2轰炸机便宜。”

　　Alongside these cuts, however, the west has been pouring money into intelligence. Britain’s army and navy may be shrinking, but its domestic intelligence service, MI5, has doubled in size in the past 20 years. The size of the US intelligence “community” also soared in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001.然而，在削减军费支出的同时，西方在情报上投入巨资。英国的陆军和海军可能缩减了规模，但其国内情报机构MI5的规模在过去20年扩大了一倍。在2001年9月11日恐怖袭击之后，美国“情报界”的规模也大幅飙升。

　　Urban’s implication that countries are investing in the wrong priorities deserves to be examined. Most British citizens probably feel more threatened by domestic terrorism than by the Russian army and so would rather government money went on spooks than frigates. But as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant shows, the line between the threats posed by terrorism and by conventional warfare is increasingly blurred.厄本暗指各国在支出方面分配不当的说法值得研究。大多数英国公民可能觉得国内恐怖主义比俄罗斯陆军的威胁更大，因此宁愿政府把资金投到情报部门而不是护卫舰。但正如“伊拉克和黎凡特伊斯兰国”(ISIS)所展示的那样，恐怖主义和传统战争所构成的威胁之间的界限越来越模糊。

　　The next 20 years will show whether the west truly has lost its military “edge” and whether the political consequences will be as dire as Urban clearly fears. The rise in global tensions — from Syria to the Ukraine to the East China Sea — suggests his warnings are well founded.未来20年将会表明，西方是否真的失去了军事“优势”?政治后果是否会象厄本显然担忧的那样可怕?从叙利亚、乌克兰，到东中国海的全球紧张局势升温似乎表明，他的警告很有道理。