美国要不要削减国防预算？ - 双语阅读

美国要不要削减国防预算？ - 双语阅读 - FT中文网 2011年03月14日 发布

Military: A question of scale

作者：英国《金融时报》 马利德 丹尼尔•董贝

High above the Pacific en route to Beijing in January, Robert Gates let slip he was travelling to China bearing gifts – not for the country’s rulers, with whom he soon squared off, but for US commanders in the region. 今年1月，在飞往北京途中的太平洋上空，罗伯特•盖茨(Robert Gates)透露说：他此行是带着礼物的——不是要给他很快将要打交道的中国领导人，而是要给该地区的美军指挥官。

Mr Gates’ staff soon fleshed out details of the plans – a new nuclear-capable bomber able to reach east Asia from the US, modernised radar for the F-15 fighter jet, a launch vehicle for sending satellites into space, and seaborne drone aircraft – aimed at countering China’s own military advances. 盖茨手下的人员接着说明了计划的细节——可搭载核弹头、并从美国直接飞到东亚执行任务的新型轰炸机，为F15战斗机配备的现代化雷达、将卫星送至太空的运载火箭，以及海上无人机——旨在对抗中国的军力发展。

All this – in parallel with $185bn to modernise America’s nuclear weapons systems over 10 years, increased spending on missile defence and more investments tailored for Afghanistan – forms part of President Barack Obama’s defence spending plans. 所有这些构成了美国总统巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)国防支出计划的一部分，计划的其它内容包括：在10年期间投入1850亿美元实现美国核武系统的现代化，增加导弹防御支出，以及增加面向阿富汗战争的投资。

Over the past decade, grand US defence budgets have faced little opposition, passed by Congress as part of the price for global leadership and the prosecution of the war on terror. But with Washington in a fever over the country’s record budget deficit and weary of foreign wars, Pentagon spending is now causing deep fissures across the political spectrum. 过去10年，美国的巨额国防预算几乎从未遭遇阻力，国会通过这些预算，将其视为全球领导地位和反恐战争代价的一部分。但鉴于华盛顿方面极度担忧美国的创纪录预算赤字，同时厌倦了海外战争，五角大楼的开支如今在政坛引发深刻分歧。

Prominent conservatives, long a bastion of support for military spending, have joined forces in recent weeks with 最近几周，长期支持军事开支的知名保守派人物加入左翼反对者的行列，支持削减五角大楼的预算，甚至投票支 left-leaning opponents to back cuts to the Pentagon budget and even voted to cancel entire programmes. The war against the Taliban is gradually being framed by its opponents as a fiscal issue. 持完全取消某些计划。打击塔利班(Taliban)的战争正逐渐被反对者框定为一个财政问题。

So vast is the Pentagon’s budget – one in five government dollars goes on defence – that the impact of any cuts will reverberate around the world, influencing everything from a possible pull-out of US troops from Europe to the response to China’s rise and whether to invest in 20th-century equipment such as aircraft carriers or 21st-century cyberwar technology. 五角大楼的预算规模很大（五分之一的美国政府预算拨给国防领域），以至于任何削减都将在世界上引起反响，牵涉面极广：从美军可能从欧洲撤出，到针对中国崛起的回应，以及是投资航空母舰等20世纪的装备，还是21世纪的网络战争技术。

More profoundly, the debate over the military is a symbol of the evolving new world order, in which US power is enfeebled at home by deficits and checked abroad by rising rivals. Two decades after historian Paul Kennedy coined the phrase “imperial overstretch” to describe a superpower committed beyond its means, the theory is fast approaching reality. 更具深远意义的是，有关美军发展方向的辩论，是世界新秩序不断演变的象征；在这个新秩序中，美国实力在国内正因赤字而遭到削弱，在海外正因竞争对手日益崛起而受到遏制。在历史学家保罗•肯尼迪(Paul Kennedy)用“帝国过度扩张”(imperial overstretch)一词来描述实力超支的超级大国20年后，这一理论正快速变成现实。

“In 2000, we were responsible for one-third of the global economy and one-third of defence spending. Now, we have a quarter of global GDP [gross domestic product] and 46 per cent of defence spending,” says Loren Thompson, of the Lexington Institute, a Washington think-tank. 华盛顿智库——莱克星顿研究所(Lexington Institute)的劳伦•汤普森(Loren Thompson)表示：“2000年，我们的经济规模是全球的三分之一，国防支出为三分之一。现在，我们占全球国内生产总值(GDP)的四分之一，而国防支出为全球的46%。”

US defence spending has almost doubled since the attacks of September 11 2001 and the invasions of Afgh-anistan then Iraq – even as the budget deficit rose under President George W. Bush then soared in the wake of the financial crisis. The Pentagon is seeking $540bn in the still-unresolved budget for the current fiscal year, in addition to $159bn on the two wars and the $7bn being spent by the Depa-rtment of Energy 自2011年9/11恐怖袭击以及美国先后入侵阿富汗和伊拉克以来，美国国防支出已增加近一倍，即便预算赤字在乔治·W·布什(George W. Bush)主政期间增加，并在金融危机爆发后飙升。除了花在两场战争上的1590亿美元以及能源部花在核武上的70亿美元以外，五角大楼希望在本财年尚未敲定的预算中获得5400亿美元。 on nuclear weapons. The Pentagon’s spending on health alone, which rose from $19bn in 2001 to a budgeted $53bn for 2012, amounts to the sixth-largest military budget in the world, just behind Russia and ahead of Germany. But rather than take on the system, Mr Obama has entrenched it, spending more on defence than Mr Bush did. 仅仅是五角大楼的健康支出，就从2001年的190亿美元增至2012年预算中的530亿美元，相当于世界上第六大军事预算，位列俄罗斯之后，德国之前。但是，奥巴马没有对抗这一体系，而是巩固了该体系，其国防支出超过布什。