对《外交学者》China’s Deceptively Weak (and Dangero ...

我看了前半部分实在忍不住了，此君估计是战忽局高级特工，把PLA贬得一文不值，文中充满了对我兔军队的不屑于讽刺。满篇感觉都是在胡说八道，给我感觉是外国版的张菊在黑我PLA啊。翻译上来供大家讨论，感觉外交学者网站上大部分文章实在是乏善可陈，观点大多都很荒谬，甚至很牵强，又举不出很多有信服力的例子。尽请些quacks 和charlatans来写文章。真心还不如去看《经济学人》和《纽约时报》人家文章写得逻辑性更强，也更有文采。。。

文章链接http://thediplomat.com/2014/01/c ... dangerous-military/
China’s Deceptively Weak (and Dangerous) Military
意思是说 外表是欺骗性的，中国军队看似强大，其实很羸弱（因此就显得很危险）

-In many ways, the PLA is weaker than it looks – and more dangerous.
解放军在诸多方面并不如外表表现出那般强大-因此更加危险。



In April 2003, the Chinese Navy decided to put a large group of its best submarine talent on the same boat as part of an experiment to synergize its naval elite. The result? Within hours of leaving port, the Type 035 Ming III class submarine sank with all hands lost. Never having fully recovered from this maritime disaster, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is still the only permanent member of the United Nations Security Council never to have conducted an operational patrol with a nuclear missile submarine.
2003年4月中国海军决定汇聚各路精兵强将，并安排大批海军最优秀人才登上同一艘潜艇进行试验。结果呢？这艘035级（明级III型）潜艇在离港数小时之后就沉入了海底，艇上人员全部遇难。此后中华人民共和国再也没有从这次海难的阴影中彻底走出来，而且至今仍是联合国安理会中唯一一个还未能遂行战略弹道导弹核潜艇战备巡逻任务的常任理事国。

China is also the only member of the UN’s “Big Five” never to have built and operated an aircraft carrier. While it launched a refurbished Ukrainian built carrier amidst much fanfare in September 2012 – then-President Hu Jintao and all the top brass showed up – soon afterward the big ship had to return to the docks for extensive overhauls because of suspected engine failure; not the most auspicious of starts for China’s fledgling “blue water” navy, and not the least example of a modernizing military that has yet to master last century’s technology.
中国还是联合国五大巨头中唯一一个从未建造并使用过航母的成员。尽管2012年9月中国大张旗鼓地服役了一艘改装过的乌克兰航母———当时的国家主席HJT以及全部海军高级将领纷纷列席入役仪式———但是这之后不久，因为工程人员怀疑这艘大船的引擎出现了故障，不得不将其开回船坞进行全面检修；这样的开局对于羽翼未丰的中国“蓝水”海军来说不但显得很不吉利，而且还印证了这么一个尴尬事实：这支正经历现代化的海军连上个世纪的技术都还未掌握。

Indeed, today the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) still conducts long-distance maneuver training at speeds measured by how fast the next available cargo train can transport its tanks and guns forward. And if mobilizing and moving armies around on railway tracks sounds a bit antiquated in an era of global airlift, it should – that was how it was done in the First World War.
事实却确实如此，因为今日的中国人民解放军居然还以货运列车运输坦克和大炮的快慢来衡量远距离机动演习的行进速度。在这个以空中输送力量进行全球到达的时代，靠铁轨来调动部队听起来实在是有点古老，毕竟---这种做法还停留在第一次世界大战的时代。
Not to be outdone by the conventional army, China’s powerful strategic rocket troops, the Second Artillery Force, still uses cavalry units to patrol its sprawling missile bases deep within China’s vast interior. Why? Because it doesn’t have any helicopters. Equally scarce in China are modern fixed-wing military aircraft. So the Air Force continues to use a 1950s Soviet designed airframe, the Tupolev Tu-16, as a bomber (its original intended mission), a battlefield reconnaissance aircraft, an electronic warfare aircraft, a target spotting aircraft, and an aerial refueling tanker. Likewise, the PLA uses the Soviet designed Antonov An-12 military cargo aircraft for ELINT (electronic intelligence) missions, ASW (anti-submarine warfare) missions, geological survey missions, and airborne early warning missions. It also has an An-12 variant specially modified for transporting livestock, allowing sheep and goats access to remote seasonal pastures.
中国强大的战略火箭部队也就是第二炮兵部队跟其常规力量落后的状态相比也好不到哪里去，目前它仍然靠骑兵部队来对分散布置在中国广袤内陆深处的各个导弹基地进行巡逻。为什么会出现这种情况？因为二炮连一架直升机都没有。中国同样也缺乏现代化的军用固定翼飞机。因此解放军空军只能继续依靠20世纪五十年代苏联图波列夫设计局设计的TU-16飞机，来履行轰炸机（TU-16的老本行），战场侦察机，电子战飞机，目标指示飞机，空中加油机等角色。另外解放军还使用苏制AN-12军用运输机来进行电子情报搜集，反潜战，地质勘探，以及空中早期预警等任务。其还专门对AN-12进行了改装，研发出了一种专用于运输牲口的飞机，以将羊群输送到偏远季节性草原的地区。（最后突然来这句是来讽刺我兔人畜无害么）

But if China’s lack of decent hardware is somewhat surprising given all the hype surrounding Beijing’s massive military modernization program, the state of “software” (military training and readiness) is truly astounding. At one military exercise in the summer of 2012, a strategic PLA unit, stressed out by the hard work of handling warheads in an underground bunker complex, actually had to take time out of a 15-day wartime simulation for movie nights and karaoke parties. In fact, by day nine of the exercise, a “cultural performance troupe” (common PLA euphemism for song-and-dance girls) had to be brought into the otherwise sealed facility to entertain the homesick soldiers.
鉴于媒体们都在大肆渲染北京进行的大规模军事现代化计划，如果说中国连像样的硬件设备都匮乏让人感到有些意外之外，那么其“软件”方面的情况则真是让人惊掉大牙。在2012年夏季进行的一场军事演习中，解放军某战略部队由于长期在地下工事中与弹头打交道而不堪重压，不得不从十五天的模拟演练期间中专门抽出时间来晚上看电影，唱卡拉OK。实际上到了演习的第九天，部队甚至得把文工团（就是一群搞歌舞表演的女生，只不过这是PLA对她们的文雅叫法）请到封闭的战备设施内来犒劳这些患思乡病的士兵们。
Apparently becoming suspicious that men might not have the emotional fortitude to hack it in high-pressure situations, an experimental all-female unit was then brought in for the 2013 iteration of the war games, held in May, for an abbreviated 72-hour trial run. Unfortunately for the PLA, the results were even worse. By the end of the second day of the exercise, the hardened tunnel facility’s psychological counseling office was overrun with patients, many reportedly too upset to eat and one even suffering with severe nausea because of the unpleasant conditions.
解放军高层显然是对这些军人在高压环境下执行任务的精神意志产生了怀疑，于是在2013年的五月军事演习计划中，建立了一支全部由女性官兵组成的试验性部队，并进行了一次为期72小时（这个数字跟正常标准已经有所缩短）的可行性验证演练。不幸的是，这次试验的结果更加糟糕。到了演练的第二天，加固地道设施中的心理治疗室已经是人满为患，据报道，很多官兵心理压抑地连饭都吃不下，还有一人甚至因为恶劣的环境而感到极度恶心与不适。


While recent years have witnessed a tremendous Chinese propaganda effort aimed at convincing the world that the PRC is a serious military player that is owed respect, outsiders often forget that China does not even have a professional military. The PLA, unlike the armed forces of the United States, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and other regional heavyweights, is by definition not a professional fighting force. Rather, it is a “party army,” the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Indeed, all career officers in the PLA are members of the CCP and all units at the company level and above have political officers assigned to enforce party control. Likewise, all important decisions in the PLA are made by Communist Party committees that are dominated by political officers, not by operators. This system ensures that the interests of the party’s civilian and military leaders are merged, and for this reason new Chinese soldiers entering into the PLA swear their allegiance to the CCP, not to the PRC constitution or the people of China.
虽然近些年来中国煞费苦心地宣扬自己的军力建设，一心想让全世界相信中华人民共和国是一个值得尊敬且实力不容小觑的军事大国，但外界人士常常忽视这么一个事实，即中国甚至连支职业化的军队都没有。解放军不像美国，日本，韩国，台湾以及其他亚太地区强国的军队，按照严格的定义，并不能算是一支专业的战斗力量。它更像是一支“党的军队”即CCP组织下的武装分支。实际上解放军内所有的职业军官都是CCP党员，所有部队连级以及连级以上的单位都配备有政委以对部队进行党的管控。同样解放军的所有重大决策都是由政委占主导的党委确定，而非军事主官来一锤定音。这种体制能保证将文官和武官上下一心，因此中国的新兵们在加入解放军时宣誓效忠的是CCP，而不是中华人民共和国宪法。
This may be one reason why China’s marines (or “naval infantry” in PLA parlance) and other  amphibious warfare units train by landing on big white sandy beaches that look nothing like the west coast of Taiwan (or for that matter anyplace else they could conceivably be sent in the East China Sea or South China Sea). It could also be why PLA Air Force pilots still typically get less than ten hours of flight time a month (well below regional standards), and only in 2012 began to have the ability to submit their own flight plans (previously, overbearing staff officers assigned pilots their flight plans and would not even allow them to taxi and take-off on the runways by themselves).
或许这也是为什么中国陆战队士兵们（解放军术语称为陆军海战队）以及其它两栖作战单位在跟台湾西海岸风马牛不相及的宽阔白色沙滩上进行登陆训练（或者这样做是为了以后将他们派往东海或者南海地区）的原因。解放军空军飞行员的每月飞行训练时间依旧低于10小时（远低于东亚地区其他国家标准），而且直到2012年才开始具备自主提交飞行计划的原因也在于此吧。在此之前，飞行员的飞行计划都是由那些飞扬跋扈的参谋军官们来分配，这些人甚至都不允许他们自主在跑道上滑跑起飞。

Intense and realistic training is dangerous business, and the American maxim that the more you bleed during training the less you bleed during combat doesn’t translate well in a Leninist military system. Just the opposite. China’s military is intentionally organized to bureaucratically enforce risk-averse behavior, because an army that spends too much time training is an army that is not engaging in enough political indoctrination. Beijing’s worst nightmare is that the PLA could one day forget that its number one mission is protecting the Communist Party’s civilian leaders against all its enemies – especially when the CCP’s “enemies” are domestic student or religious groups campaigning for democratic rights, as happened in 1989 and 1999, respectively.
大强度且贴近真实战场环境的训练充满了危险，而美国人信奉的那句箴言——训练中多流血，战斗中就能少流血在奉行列宁主义的军队体制中是无法得到忠实地贯彻与执行的。实际情况只会恰恰相反。中国有意将军队设置成官僚化的组织就是为了避免下属们做出些冒险行为，因为一支将太多时间用于训练的军队就没有充足的精力去参与思想灌输式的政治教育。北京最大的心病就在于害怕解放军哪天会忘记自己的使命是捍卫党的文官领袖，抗击一切敌人。特别是当党的“敌人们”是那些国内的students或是为争取民主权利而发动运动的宗教团体时（后面的时间大家都了解的，就不点明了），解放军更是要一马当先。

For that reason, the PLA has to engage in constant “political work” at the expense of training for combat. This means that 30 to 40 percent of an officer’s career (or roughly 15 hours per 40-hour work week) is wasted studying CCP propaganda, singing patriotic songs, and conducting small group discussions on Marxist-Leninist theory. And when PLA officers do train, it is almost always a cautious affair that rarely involves risky (i.e., realistic) training scenarios.
因此，解放军不得不以牺牲战斗训练时间的代价来持续参与“政治工作”。这就意味着一名军官的职业生涯中有百分之30到百分之40的时间（按每周工作40小时计算，大约为15小时）都浪费在了学习CCP宣传材料，学唱爱国歌曲，参加马列主义理论学习小组讨论等方面。而且解放军军官在进行训练时，他们往往会采取小心谨慎的态度，不会冒险去真刀真枪地演练。
Abraham Lincoln once observed that if he had six hours to chop down a tree he would spend the first four hours sharpening his axe. Clearly the PLA is not sharpening its proverbial axe. Nor can it. Rather, it has opted to invest in a bigger axe, albeit one that is still dull. Ironically, this undermines Beijing’s own aspirations for building a truly powerful 21st century military.
亚伯拉罕.林肯曾有句鞭辟入里的评论即如果他有6小时时间砍倒一棵树，他会花4个小时先把斧子磨锋利。显然解放军没有汲取这句谚语的智慧，努力去磨自己的斧子。解放军不但不去这么做，反而选择去造一把更大的斧子，只不过这把依然不甚锋利。具有讽刺意味的是，这种情况本身已经妨碍到了北京实现打造一支真正面向21世纪的强大军队的抱负。
Yet none of this should be comforting to China’s potential military adversaries. It is precisely China’s military weakness that makes it so dangerous. Take the PLA’s lack of combat experience, for example. A few minor border scraps aside, the PLA hasn’t seen real combat since the Korean War. This appears to be a major factor leading it to act so brazenly in the East and South China Seas. Indeed, China’s navy now appears to be itching for a fight anywhere it can find one. Experienced combat veterans almost never act this way. Indeed, history shows that military commanders that have gone to war are significantly less hawkish than their inexperienced counterparts. Lacking the somber wisdom that comes from combat experience, today’s PLA is all hawk and no dove.
然而这种状况对于中国的潜在军事对手来说绝对算不上什么值得欣慰的消息。正是中国军队的羸弱不堪才使得形势变得极其危险。以解放军缺乏战斗经验为例。自从朝鲜战争以后，解放军除开经历过几次边境争端的小打小闹以外再也没有经历任何真正的战斗。这看起来是导致其当前在东海与南海地区表现如此嚣张地一个主要因素。目前中国海军似乎是求战心切，伺机一试身手。但是久经沙场的老兵们几乎就不会有如此的表现。历史经验表明，经历过战争的指挥官们的态度往往不像那些毫无经验的军官们那么鹰派，要温和的多。而今天的解放军因为缺少由残酷战斗经历而凝结成的智慧，显得鹰派十足，毫无鸽派的风度。
The Chinese military is dangerous in another way as well. Recognizing that it will never be able to compete with the U.S. and its allies using traditional methods of war fighting, the PLA has turned to unconventional “asymmetric” first-strike weapons and capabilities to make up for its lack of conventional firepower, professionalism and experience. These weapons include more than 1,600 offensive ballistic and cruise missiles, whose very nature is so strategically destabilizing that the U.S. and Russia decided to outlaw them with the INF Treaty some 25 years ago.
中国军队在另外一方面看来也是充满了危险性。解放军深知自己依靠传统的作战方法永远都无法与美国及其盟友较量，于是便将注意力移向了用于先发制人的“不对称力量”的非常规武器与相应能力以弥补自身在常规武器威力，专业知识与经验方面的不足。这些武器中就包括1600多枚攻击性弹道导弹与巡航导弹（由于这类装备破坏了战略局势的稳定，美俄两国早在25年前就签署了中导条约禁止它们的发展）。

In concert with its strategic missile forces, China has also developed a broad array of space weapons designed to destroy satellites used to verify arms control treaties, provide military communications, and warn of enemy attacks. China has also built the world’s largest army of cyber warriors, and the planet’s second largest fleet of drones, to exploit areas where the U.S. and its allies are under-defended. All of these capabilities make it more likely that China could one day be tempted to start a war, and none come with any built in escalation control.
中国在发展战略导弹部队的同时，也研发了多种多样的太空武器，它们的目的在于摧毁用于监督军控条约执行，军事通信以及预警的卫星。此外中国还组建了世界上最大规模的网络部队，世界第二大的无人机机队，以利用美国及其盟友防御薄弱的环节。而中国具备的这些能力不但加大了其发动战争的可能性，而且也无益于缓解紧张的局势。
Yet while there is ample and growing evidence to suggest China could, through malice or mistake, start a devastating war in the Pacific, it is highly improbable that the PLA’s strategy could actually win a war. Take a Taiwan invasion scenario, which is the PLA’s top operational planning priority. While much hand-wringing has been done in recent years about the shifting military balance in the Taiwan Strait, so far no one has been able to explain how any invading PLA force would be able to cross over 100 nautical miles of exceedingly rough water and successfully land on the world’s most inhospitable beaches, let alone capture the capital and pacify the rest of the rugged island.
有越来越充分的证据表明中国无论是出于邪恶的企图或是因为错误的决策，如果在太平洋地区发动一场毁灭性的战争的话，解放军凭借自身策略获胜的可能性都微乎其微。以解放军入侵台湾的情况(这是解放军第一作战要务）为例。尽管近些年来关于台湾海峡军事力量天平发生的变化已经得到多方的广泛论述，但是到目前为止还没有哪位研究人士能够回答这一问题，即入侵的解放军到底如何能够先跨过100多海里波涛汹涌的海域，再成功在世界上最险峻的沙滩登陆？更不用指望解放军能占领首都并镇压地形崎岖的剩余岛屿地区了。

The PLA simply does not have enough transport ships to make the crossing, and those it does have are remarkably vulnerable to Taiwanese anti-ship cruise missiles, guided rockets, smart cluster munitions, mobile artillery and advanced sea mines – not to mention its elite corps of American-trained fighter and helicopter pilots. Even if some lucky PLA units could survive the trip (not at all a safe assumption), they would be rapidly overwhelmed by a small but professional Taiwan military that has been thinking about and preparing for this fight for decades.
因为解放军根本就没有数量充足且具备跨海峡能力的登陆舰，而那些有这样能力的舰艇在台湾反舰巡航导弹，制导火箭，灵巧集束炸弹，自行火炮以及先进水雷的打击下又显得极其脆弱-更别提有由受过美式训练的战斗机与直升机飞行员说、所组成的精英部队在等着它们。即便就是有某些解放军部队比较幸运地挺过了渡海之旅（这种假设的可能性极其小），他们也会迅速被小巧而精干且数十年来都在不断谋划与准备这类战斗的台湾军队所消灭。


Going forward it will be important for the U.S. and its allies to recognize that China’s military is in many ways much weaker than it looks. However, it is also growing more capable of inflicting destruction on its enemies through the use of first-strike weapons. To mitigate the destabilizing effects of the PLA’s strategy, the U.S. and its allies should try harder to maintain their current (if eroding) leads in military hardware. But more importantly, they must continue investing in the training that makes them true professionals. While manpower numbers are likely to come down in the years ahead due to defense budget cuts, regional democracies will have less to fear from China’s weak but dangerous military if their axes stay sharp.
因此中国军队在很多方面不像其外表看起来那般强大，从长远看来，美国及其盟友意识到这一点至关重要。然而解放军利用先发制人武器对敌人实施毁灭性打击的能力也在不断增强。为了抵消解放军战略给局势所带来的不稳定影响，美国及其盟友应该加大力度保持目前在军事硬件方面的领先优势。更为重要的是，他们一定要持续加强训练投入，以将士兵们塑造成真正的职业军人。虽然亚太地区民主国家在未来的几年来可能因为削减国防预算而面临军队人数减少的问题，但是如果他们能保持斧子的锋利程度不减的话，就无需过度畏惧中国那支羸弱而危险的军队。

Ian Easton is a research fellow at the Project 2049 Institute in Arlington, VA. He was also a recent visiting fellow at the Japan Institute of International Affairs in Tokyo. Previously, he was a China analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses.

我看了前半部分实在忍不住了，此君估计是战忽局高级特工，把PLA贬得一文不值，文中充满了对我兔军队的不屑于讽刺。满篇感觉都是在胡说八道，给我感觉是外国版的张菊在黑我PLA啊。翻译上来供大家讨论，感觉外交学者网站上大部分文章实在是乏善可陈，观点大多都很荒谬，甚至很牵强，又举不出很多有信服力的例子。尽请些quacks 和charlatans来写文章。真心还不如去看《经济学人》和《纽约时报》人家文章写得逻辑性更强，也更有文采。。。

文章链接http://thediplomat.com/2014/01/c ... dangerous-military/
China’s Deceptively Weak (and Dangerous) Military
意思是说 外表是欺骗性的，中国军队看似强大，其实很羸弱（因此就显得很危险）

-In many ways, the PLA is weaker than it looks – and more dangerous.
解放军在诸多方面并不如外表表现出那般强大-因此更加危险。



In April 2003, the Chinese Navy decided to put a large group of its best submarine talent on the same boat as part of an experiment to synergize its naval elite. The result? Within hours of leaving port, the Type 035 Ming III class submarine sank with all hands lost. Never having fully recovered from this maritime disaster, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is still the only permanent member of the United Nations Security Council never to have conducted an operational patrol with a nuclear missile submarine.
2003年4月中国海军决定汇聚各路精兵强将，并安排大批海军最优秀人才登上同一艘潜艇进行试验。结果呢？这艘035级（明级III型）潜艇在离港数小时之后就沉入了海底，艇上人员全部遇难。此后中华人民共和国再也没有从这次海难的阴影中彻底走出来，而且至今仍是联合国安理会中唯一一个还未能遂行战略弹道导弹核潜艇战备巡逻任务的常任理事国。

China is also the only member of the UN’s “Big Five” never to have built and operated an aircraft carrier. While it launched a refurbished Ukrainian built carrier amidst much fanfare in September 2012 – then-President Hu Jintao and all the top brass showed up – soon afterward the big ship had to return to the docks for extensive overhauls because of suspected engine failure; not the most auspicious of starts for China’s fledgling “blue water” navy, and not the least example of a modernizing military that has yet to master last century’s technology.
中国还是联合国五大巨头中唯一一个从未建造并使用过航母的成员。尽管2012年9月中国大张旗鼓地服役了一艘改装过的乌克兰航母———当时的国家主席HJT以及全部海军高级将领纷纷列席入役仪式———但是这之后不久，因为工程人员怀疑这艘大船的引擎出现了故障，不得不将其开回船坞进行全面检修；这样的开局对于羽翼未丰的中国“蓝水”海军来说不但显得很不吉利，而且还印证了这么一个尴尬事实：这支正经历现代化的海军连上个世纪的技术都还未掌握。

Indeed, today the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) still conducts long-distance maneuver training at speeds measured by how fast the next available cargo train can transport its tanks and guns forward. And if mobilizing and moving armies around on railway tracks sounds a bit antiquated in an era of global airlift, it should – that was how it was done in the First World War.
事实却确实如此，因为今日的中国人民解放军居然还以货运列车运输坦克和大炮的快慢来衡量远距离机动演习的行进速度。在这个以空中输送力量进行全球到达的时代，靠铁轨来调动部队听起来实在是有点古老，毕竟---这种做法还停留在第一次世界大战的时代。
Not to be outdone by the conventional army, China’s powerful strategic rocket troops, the Second Artillery Force, still uses cavalry units to patrol its sprawling missile bases deep within China’s vast interior. Why? Because it doesn’t have any helicopters. Equally scarce in China are modern fixed-wing military aircraft. So the Air Force continues to use a 1950s Soviet designed airframe, the Tupolev Tu-16, as a bomber (its original intended mission), a battlefield reconnaissance aircraft, an electronic warfare aircraft, a target spotting aircraft, and an aerial refueling tanker. Likewise, the PLA uses the Soviet designed Antonov An-12 military cargo aircraft for ELINT (electronic intelligence) missions, ASW (anti-submarine warfare) missions, geological survey missions, and airborne early warning missions. It also has an An-12 variant specially modified for transporting livestock, allowing sheep and goats access to remote seasonal pastures.
中国强大的战略火箭部队也就是第二炮兵部队跟其常规力量落后的状态相比也好不到哪里去，目前它仍然靠骑兵部队来对分散布置在中国广袤内陆深处的各个导弹基地进行巡逻。为什么会出现这种情况？因为二炮连一架直升机都没有。中国同样也缺乏现代化的军用固定翼飞机。因此解放军空军只能继续依靠20世纪五十年代苏联图波列夫设计局设计的TU-16飞机，来履行轰炸机（TU-16的老本行），战场侦察机，电子战飞机，目标指示飞机，空中加油机等角色。另外解放军还使用苏制AN-12军用运输机来进行电子情报搜集，反潜战，地质勘探，以及空中早期预警等任务。其还专门对AN-12进行了改装，研发出了一种专用于运输牲口的飞机，以将羊群输送到偏远季节性草原的地区。（最后突然来这句是来讽刺我兔人畜无害么）

But if China’s lack of decent hardware is somewhat surprising given all the hype surrounding Beijing’s massive military modernization program, the state of “software” (military training and readiness) is truly astounding. At one military exercise in the summer of 2012, a strategic PLA unit, stressed out by the hard work of handling warheads in an underground bunker complex, actually had to take time out of a 15-day wartime simulation for movie nights and karaoke parties. In fact, by day nine of the exercise, a “cultural performance troupe” (common PLA euphemism for song-and-dance girls) had to be brought into the otherwise sealed facility to entertain the homesick soldiers.
鉴于媒体们都在大肆渲染北京进行的大规模军事现代化计划，如果说中国连像样的硬件设备都匮乏让人感到有些意外之外，那么其“软件”方面的情况则真是让人惊掉大牙。在2012年夏季进行的一场军事演习中，解放军某战略部队由于长期在地下工事中与弹头打交道而不堪重压，不得不从十五天的模拟演练期间中专门抽出时间来晚上看电影，唱卡拉OK。实际上到了演习的第九天，部队甚至得把文工团（就是一群搞歌舞表演的女生，只不过这是PLA对她们的文雅叫法）请到封闭的战备设施内来犒劳这些患思乡病的士兵们。
Apparently becoming suspicious that men might not have the emotional fortitude to hack it in high-pressure situations, an experimental all-female unit was then brought in for the 2013 iteration of the war games, held in May, for an abbreviated 72-hour trial run. Unfortunately for the PLA, the results were even worse. By the end of the second day of the exercise, the hardened tunnel facility’s psychological counseling office was overrun with patients, many reportedly too upset to eat and one even suffering with severe nausea because of the unpleasant conditions.
解放军高层显然是对这些军人在高压环境下执行任务的精神意志产生了怀疑，于是在2013年的五月军事演习计划中，建立了一支全部由女性官兵组成的试验性部队，并进行了一次为期72小时（这个数字跟正常标准已经有所缩短）的可行性验证演练。不幸的是，这次试验的结果更加糟糕。到了演练的第二天，加固地道设施中的心理治疗室已经是人满为患，据报道，很多官兵心理压抑地连饭都吃不下，还有一人甚至因为恶劣的环境而感到极度恶心与不适。


While recent years have witnessed a tremendous Chinese propaganda effort aimed at convincing the world that the PRC is a serious military player that is owed respect, outsiders often forget that China does not even have a professional military. The PLA, unlike the armed forces of the United States, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and other regional heavyweights, is by definition not a professional fighting force. Rather, it is a “party army,” the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Indeed, all career officers in the PLA are members of the CCP and all units at the company level and above have political officers assigned to enforce party control. Likewise, all important decisions in the PLA are made by Communist Party committees that are dominated by political officers, not by operators. This system ensures that the interests of the party’s civilian and military leaders are merged, and for this reason new Chinese soldiers entering into the PLA swear their allegiance to the CCP, not to the PRC constitution or the people of China.
虽然近些年来中国煞费苦心地宣扬自己的军力建设，一心想让全世界相信中华人民共和国是一个值得尊敬且实力不容小觑的军事大国，但外界人士常常忽视这么一个事实，即中国甚至连支职业化的军队都没有。解放军不像美国，日本，韩国，台湾以及其他亚太地区强国的军队，按照严格的定义，并不能算是一支专业的战斗力量。它更像是一支“党的军队”即CCP组织下的武装分支。实际上解放军内所有的职业军官都是CCP党员，所有部队连级以及连级以上的单位都配备有政委以对部队进行党的管控。同样解放军的所有重大决策都是由政委占主导的党委确定，而非军事主官来一锤定音。这种体制能保证将文官和武官上下一心，因此中国的新兵们在加入解放军时宣誓效忠的是CCP，而不是中华人民共和国宪法。
This may be one reason why China’s marines (or “naval infantry” in PLA parlance) and other  amphibious warfare units train by landing on big white sandy beaches that look nothing like the west coast of Taiwan (or for that matter anyplace else they could conceivably be sent in the East China Sea or South China Sea). It could also be why PLA Air Force pilots still typically get less than ten hours of flight time a month (well below regional standards), and only in 2012 began to have the ability to submit their own flight plans (previously, overbearing staff officers assigned pilots their flight plans and would not even allow them to taxi and take-off on the runways by themselves).
或许这也是为什么中国陆战队士兵们（解放军术语称为陆军海战队）以及其它两栖作战单位在跟台湾西海岸风马牛不相及的宽阔白色沙滩上进行登陆训练（或者这样做是为了以后将他们派往东海或者南海地区）的原因。解放军空军飞行员的每月飞行训练时间依旧低于10小时（远低于东亚地区其他国家标准），而且直到2012年才开始具备自主提交飞行计划的原因也在于此吧。在此之前，飞行员的飞行计划都是由那些飞扬跋扈的参谋军官们来分配，这些人甚至都不允许他们自主在跑道上滑跑起飞。

Intense and realistic training is dangerous business, and the American maxim that the more you bleed during training the less you bleed during combat doesn’t translate well in a Leninist military system. Just the opposite. China’s military is intentionally organized to bureaucratically enforce risk-averse behavior, because an army that spends too much time training is an army that is not engaging in enough political indoctrination. Beijing’s worst nightmare is that the PLA could one day forget that its number one mission is protecting the Communist Party’s civilian leaders against all its enemies – especially when the CCP’s “enemies” are domestic student or religious groups campaigning for democratic rights, as happened in 1989 and 1999, respectively.
大强度且贴近真实战场环境的训练充满了危险，而美国人信奉的那句箴言——训练中多流血，战斗中就能少流血在奉行列宁主义的军队体制中是无法得到忠实地贯彻与执行的。实际情况只会恰恰相反。中国有意将军队设置成官僚化的组织就是为了避免下属们做出些冒险行为，因为一支将太多时间用于训练的军队就没有充足的精力去参与思想灌输式的政治教育。北京最大的心病就在于害怕解放军哪天会忘记自己的使命是捍卫党的文官领袖，抗击一切敌人。特别是当党的“敌人们”是那些国内的students或是为争取民主权利而发动运动的宗教团体时（后面的时间大家都了解的，就不点明了），解放军更是要一马当先。

For that reason, the PLA has to engage in constant “political work” at the expense of training for combat. This means that 30 to 40 percent of an officer’s career (or roughly 15 hours per 40-hour work week) is wasted studying CCP propaganda, singing patriotic songs, and conducting small group discussions on Marxist-Leninist theory. And when PLA officers do train, it is almost always a cautious affair that rarely involves risky (i.e., realistic) training scenarios.
因此，解放军不得不以牺牲战斗训练时间的代价来持续参与“政治工作”。这就意味着一名军官的职业生涯中有百分之30到百分之40的时间（按每周工作40小时计算，大约为15小时）都浪费在了学习CCP宣传材料，学唱爱国歌曲，参加马列主义理论学习小组讨论等方面。而且解放军军官在进行训练时，他们往往会采取小心谨慎的态度，不会冒险去真刀真枪地演练。
Abraham Lincoln once observed that if he had six hours to chop down a tree he would spend the first four hours sharpening his axe. Clearly the PLA is not sharpening its proverbial axe. Nor can it. Rather, it has opted to invest in a bigger axe, albeit one that is still dull. Ironically, this undermines Beijing’s own aspirations for building a truly powerful 21st century military.
亚伯拉罕.林肯曾有句鞭辟入里的评论即如果他有6小时时间砍倒一棵树，他会花4个小时先把斧子磨锋利。显然解放军没有汲取这句谚语的智慧，努力去磨自己的斧子。解放军不但不去这么做，反而选择去造一把更大的斧子，只不过这把依然不甚锋利。具有讽刺意味的是，这种情况本身已经妨碍到了北京实现打造一支真正面向21世纪的强大军队的抱负。
Yet none of this should be comforting to China’s potential military adversaries. It is precisely China’s military weakness that makes it so dangerous. Take the PLA’s lack of combat experience, for example. A few minor border scraps aside, the PLA hasn’t seen real combat since the Korean War. This appears to be a major factor leading it to act so brazenly in the East and South China Seas. Indeed, China’s navy now appears to be itching for a fight anywhere it can find one. Experienced combat veterans almost never act this way. Indeed, history shows that military commanders that have gone to war are significantly less hawkish than their inexperienced counterparts. Lacking the somber wisdom that comes from combat experience, today’s PLA is all hawk and no dove.
然而这种状况对于中国的潜在军事对手来说绝对算不上什么值得欣慰的消息。正是中国军队的羸弱不堪才使得形势变得极其危险。以解放军缺乏战斗经验为例。自从朝鲜战争以后，解放军除开经历过几次边境争端的小打小闹以外再也没有经历任何真正的战斗。这看起来是导致其当前在东海与南海地区表现如此嚣张地一个主要因素。目前中国海军似乎是求战心切，伺机一试身手。但是久经沙场的老兵们几乎就不会有如此的表现。历史经验表明，经历过战争的指挥官们的态度往往不像那些毫无经验的军官们那么鹰派，要温和的多。而今天的解放军因为缺少由残酷战斗经历而凝结成的智慧，显得鹰派十足，毫无鸽派的风度。
The Chinese military is dangerous in another way as well. Recognizing that it will never be able to compete with the U.S. and its allies using traditional methods of war fighting, the PLA has turned to unconventional “asymmetric” first-strike weapons and capabilities to make up for its lack of conventional firepower, professionalism and experience. These weapons include more than 1,600 offensive ballistic and cruise missiles, whose very nature is so strategically destabilizing that the U.S. and Russia decided to outlaw them with the INF Treaty some 25 years ago.
中国军队在另外一方面看来也是充满了危险性。解放军深知自己依靠传统的作战方法永远都无法与美国及其盟友较量，于是便将注意力移向了用于先发制人的“不对称力量”的非常规武器与相应能力以弥补自身在常规武器威力，专业知识与经验方面的不足。这些武器中就包括1600多枚攻击性弹道导弹与巡航导弹（由于这类装备破坏了战略局势的稳定，美俄两国早在25年前就签署了中导条约禁止它们的发展）。

In concert with its strategic missile forces, China has also developed a broad array of space weapons designed to destroy satellites used to verify arms control treaties, provide military communications, and warn of enemy attacks. China has also built the world’s largest army of cyber warriors, and the planet’s second largest fleet of drones, to exploit areas where the U.S. and its allies are under-defended. All of these capabilities make it more likely that China could one day be tempted to start a war, and none come with any built in escalation control.
中国在发展战略导弹部队的同时，也研发了多种多样的太空武器，它们的目的在于摧毁用于监督军控条约执行，军事通信以及预警的卫星。此外中国还组建了世界上最大规模的网络部队，世界第二大的无人机机队，以利用美国及其盟友防御薄弱的环节。而中国具备的这些能力不但加大了其发动战争的可能性，而且也无益于缓解紧张的局势。
Yet while there is ample and growing evidence to suggest China could, through malice or mistake, start a devastating war in the Pacific, it is highly improbable that the PLA’s strategy could actually win a war. Take a Taiwan invasion scenario, which is the PLA’s top operational planning priority. While much hand-wringing has been done in recent years about the shifting military balance in the Taiwan Strait, so far no one has been able to explain how any invading PLA force would be able to cross over 100 nautical miles of exceedingly rough water and successfully land on the world’s most inhospitable beaches, let alone capture the capital and pacify the rest of the rugged island.
有越来越充分的证据表明中国无论是出于邪恶的企图或是因为错误的决策，如果在太平洋地区发动一场毁灭性的战争的话，解放军凭借自身策略获胜的可能性都微乎其微。以解放军入侵台湾的情况(这是解放军第一作战要务）为例。尽管近些年来关于台湾海峡军事力量天平发生的变化已经得到多方的广泛论述，但是到目前为止还没有哪位研究人士能够回答这一问题，即入侵的解放军到底如何能够先跨过100多海里波涛汹涌的海域，再成功在世界上最险峻的沙滩登陆？更不用指望解放军能占领首都并镇压地形崎岖的剩余岛屿地区了。

The PLA simply does not have enough transport ships to make the crossing, and those it does have are remarkably vulnerable to Taiwanese anti-ship cruise missiles, guided rockets, smart cluster munitions, mobile artillery and advanced sea mines – not to mention its elite corps of American-trained fighter and helicopter pilots. Even if some lucky PLA units could survive the trip (not at all a safe assumption), they would be rapidly overwhelmed by a small but professional Taiwan military that has been thinking about and preparing for this fight for decades.
因为解放军根本就没有数量充足且具备跨海峡能力的登陆舰，而那些有这样能力的舰艇在台湾反舰巡航导弹，制导火箭，灵巧集束炸弹，自行火炮以及先进水雷的打击下又显得极其脆弱-更别提有由受过美式训练的战斗机与直升机飞行员说、所组成的精英部队在等着它们。即便就是有某些解放军部队比较幸运地挺过了渡海之旅（这种假设的可能性极其小），他们也会迅速被小巧而精干且数十年来都在不断谋划与准备这类战斗的台湾军队所消灭。


Going forward it will be important for the U.S. and its allies to recognize that China’s military is in many ways much weaker than it looks. However, it is also growing more capable of inflicting destruction on its enemies through the use of first-strike weapons. To mitigate the destabilizing effects of the PLA’s strategy, the U.S. and its allies should try harder to maintain their current (if eroding) leads in military hardware. But more importantly, they must continue investing in the training that makes them true professionals. While manpower numbers are likely to come down in the years ahead due to defense budget cuts, regional democracies will have less to fear from China’s weak but dangerous military if their axes stay sharp.
因此中国军队在很多方面不像其外表看起来那般强大，从长远看来，美国及其盟友意识到这一点至关重要。然而解放军利用先发制人武器对敌人实施毁灭性打击的能力也在不断增强。为了抵消解放军战略给局势所带来的不稳定影响，美国及其盟友应该加大力度保持目前在军事硬件方面的领先优势。更为重要的是，他们一定要持续加强训练投入，以将士兵们塑造成真正的职业军人。虽然亚太地区民主国家在未来的几年来可能因为削减国防预算而面临军队人数减少的问题，但是如果他们能保持斧子的锋利程度不减的话，就无需过度畏惧中国那支羸弱而危险的军队。

Ian Easton is a research fellow at the Project 2049 Institute in Arlington, VA. He was also a recent visiting fellow at the Japan Institute of International Affairs in Tokyo. Previously, he was a China analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses.