昂貴核武競賽可能再次上演

After the recent death of the treaty covering intermediate-range missiles, a new arms race appears to be taking shape, drawing in more players, more money and more weapons at a time of increased global instability and anxiety about nuclear proliferation.

節制中程飛彈的條約日前告終，一場新的武器競賽似乎正在成形，於此全球不穩定與世人對核擴散的焦慮皆在加深之際，吸引著更多參賽者、金錢及武器投入。

The arms control architecture of the Cold War, involving tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, was laboriously designed over years of hard-fought negotiations between two superpowers — the United States and the Soviet Union. The elaborate treaties helped keep the world from nuclear annihilation.

冷戰時期的武器管制架構涵蓋數萬件核武，是兩大超強美國和蘇聯歷經多年艱辛談判規畫而成。這些精心設計的條約使世界得以免於核子毀滅。

Today, those treaties are being abandoned by the United States and Russia just as new strategic competitors not covered by the Cold War accords — like China, North Korea and Iran — are asserting themselves as regional powers and challenging U.S. hegemony.

今日，這些條約被美國和俄羅斯捨棄，而此際未受這些冷戰條約規範的新興戰略競爭者，例如中國、北韓和伊朗，正在宣示它們的區域強權地位，並挑戰美國的霸權。

The dismantling of “arms control,” a Cold War mantra, is now heightening the risks of a new era when nuclear powers like India and Pakistan are clashing over Kashmir, and when nuclear Israel feels threatened by Iran, North Korea is testing new missiles, and other countries like Saudi Arabia are thought to have access to nuclear weapons or be capable of building them.

「武器管制」這冷戰時期重要訴求的瓦解，如今正使新時代的風險升高，當下印度和巴基斯坦兩核武國正因喀什米爾問題而起衝突，擁有核武的以色列感覺受到伊朗威脅，北韓測試新飛彈，沙烏地阿拉伯等另一些國家據推測可取得核武，或有能力製造核武。

The consequence, experts say, is likely to be a more dangerous and unstable environment, even in the near term, that could precipitate unwanted conflicts and demand vast new military spending among the world’s biggest powers, including the United States.

專家說，結果很可能會出現一個更危險且更不穩定的環境，甚至就在近期內，使得我們不樂見的衝突因而發生，包括美國在內的世界最大強權大幅增加軍事支出。

“If there’s not nuclear disarmament, there will be proliferation,” said Joseph Cirincione, a nuclear analyst and president of the Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation. “If big powers race to build up their arsenals, smaller powers will follow.”

全球安全事務基金會「犁頭基金」總裁兼核武分析家奇林喬內說：「如果不裁減核武，它就會擴散。如果大國競相增加核武儲備，小國就會跟進。」

“As long as the big boys cling to their toys, others will want them,” he added, quoting the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei.

「只要大男孩緊抓著玩具不放，其他人就會想要。」他引用國際原子能總署前秘書長艾爾巴拉岱的話補充道。

Not only are the big boys clinging to them, there are more big boys now, and they want more toys.

不只是這些大男孩緊抓不放，現在大男孩更多了，他們要更多玩具。

For Washington, China is seen as a rising strategic rival and competitor. And the United States is moving to increase its military presence and missile deployments in Asia, as a deterrent against a more aggressive Beijing, which has vastly expanded and modernized its stock of medium-range missiles that can hit U.S. ships, as well as Taiwan.

華府視中國為新興的戰略對手及競爭者。美國正採取行動增加在亞洲的軍事活動和飛彈部署，作為對更具侵略性的北京當局的威嚇，北京已大舉增加並更新其中程飛彈，可用以攻擊美國船艦及台灣。

At the same time, President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, John R. Bolton, has talked about letting the last strategic-arms control treaty, New START, die in February 2021, without extending it another five years, as foreseen in the accord, which was signed under President Barack Obama.

同時，美國總統川普的國家安全顧問波頓曾提到，要讓「新戰略武器裁減條約」在2021年2月終止，不會依條約記載的延展五年，這項條約簽署於歐巴馬總統任內。

武器自主殺人 你敢想像嗎？

Early in the Afghanistan War, Army Rangers hunting Taliban fighters along the Pakistan border saw a goatherd with a radio, probably reporting their position to the Taliban. Under the rules of war, soldiers can shoot someone informing enemy forces of their location, but these men saw that the goatherd was just a girl.

在阿富汗戰爭早期，美國陸軍遊騎兵沿著巴基斯坦邊界尋找神學士民兵時，發現一個牧羊人帶著無線電收發設備，很可能在向神學士通報他們的位置。根據戰爭法則，軍人可以射殺向敵軍通報自己位置的人，不過這些男人看到，這牧羊人只是個小女孩。

If she had come into the sights of the kind of autonomous robot or drone now under development, rather than of trained snipers, it might not have made the distinction between target and child, and killed her, according to Paul Scharre, who was leading the Rangers that day.

當天率領這群遊騎兵的夏爾說，如果發現小女孩的不是訓練有素的狙擊手，而是目前正在研發、能自行做決定的機器人或無人機，後二者就不會辨別軍事目標和小孩，直接殺了她。

Scharre, author of “Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War,” recounted this episode in a speech this year at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, laying out the stakes as the artificial intelligence revolution spreads further onto the battlefield.

夏爾著有「無人的軍隊：自主武器與戰爭的未來」一書，今年稍早在史丹福大學國際安全與合作中心演講時，回顧這段經歷，闡明人工智慧革命進一步擴展到戰爭領域的風險。

“How would you design a robot to know the difference between what is legal and what is right?” he asked. “And how would you even begin to write down those rules ahead of time? What if you didn’t have a human there, to interpret these, to bring that whole set of human values to those decisions?”

夏爾問道：「你要怎麼設計機器人，讓它知道合法與正義的差別？還有，你要怎麼事先在程式裡寫好這些規則？假如現場根本沒有人可以詮釋這些，並用整套人類價值觀做決定，那會如何？」

For now, these are hypothetical questions. Two senior Pentagon officials, who spoke to The Times on background because much of their work on artificial intelligence is classified, say the United States is “not even close” to fielding a completely autonomous weapon.

目前這些都只是假設性問題。美國國防部兩位高級官員對紐約時報說，美國離部署全自主武器「還遠得很呢」。這兩位官員不願具名，因為他們發展人工智慧的工作多半屬於機密。

But three years ago, Azerbaijani forces used what appeared to be an Israeli-made kamikaze drone called a Harop to blow up a bus carrying Armenian soldiers. The drone can automatically fly to a site, find a target, dive down and detonate, according to the manufacturer. For now, it is designed to have human controllers who can stop it.

不過，三年前，亞塞拜然軍隊用了一架似乎是以色列製造的自殺攻擊無人機「哈洛普」，去炸毀一輛載著亞美尼亞軍人的巴士。製造商資料顯示，這款無人機能自動飛到一個地點，找到目標，迅速下降並爆炸。目前這款無人機設計成由人類操控，人類能阻止它。

Not long after that in California, the Pentagon’s Strategic Capabilities Office tested 103 unarmed Perdix drones which, on their own, were able to swarm around a target. “They are a collective organism, sharing one distributed brain for decision-making and adapting to each other like swarms in nature,” the office’s director at the time, William Roper, said in a Defense Department statement.

這件事發生後不久，美國國防部戰略能力辦公室在加州測試103架無武裝「山鶉」無人機，這款無人機能自行成群結隊飛到目標周圍。時任該辦公室主任的羅培爾在一份國防部聲明中說：「這些無人機是共同組成的有機體，共同享有一個分散式的決策大腦，並且互相配合，就像大自然中成群結隊移動的昆蟲一樣。」

As the ability of systems to act autonomously increases, those who study the dangers of such weapons, including the U.N. Group of Governmental Experts, fear that military planners may be tempted to eliminate human controls altogether.

由於武器系統自主行動的能力增強，對自主武器危險有研究的人（包括聯合國政府專家小組）擔心，規劃軍事任務者可能會想完全去除人類對機器的控制力。

說文解字看新聞

這篇文章談的是，讓武器具備自主攻擊能力會導致的風險。

call the shots原意是（長官）下令（士兵）開槍，引申為下令、作主，和be in charge、be in control意思一樣。

autonomous是不受外力控制的，用在政治上指自治的，不受其他政府法律管轄。用在機械上指機械具有人工智慧，能自行根據情況判斷該如何做，如autonomous car自駕車，autonomous weapon自主武器。semi-autonomous則是部分自治的，尤其是關於內部事務，譬如紐約時報說，香港就是semi-autonomous region。

在本文中，autonomous與automatic有何不同？automatic是指能夠在沒有外力控制或介入下運作，autonomous則是自行作主、覺察情況、思考、感覺，而且自己管理自己。

semi-automatic rifle半自動步槍又稱自動裝填步槍，每發子彈擊發後，槍械利用子彈擊發時的氣體與後座力，自動完成退彈殼與下一發子彈的進彈動作，射手每扣下一次扳機，就會擊發一發子彈。automatic rifle只要射手持續扣著扳機，自動步槍將如機槍般連續射擊，直到子彈打光。