Dictatorships and tyrannies may be casual about spilling their people's blood, but not democracies. When the people get to decide whether to go to war, they rarely do so willingly. This was why Immanuel Kant said the spread of democracy was the best guarantee of world peace. As he wrote in 1795, "if the consent of the citizens is required in order to decide that war should be declared nothing is more natural than that they would be very cautious in commencing such a poor game".
独裁政权和专制政府也许会肆意杀害本国人民，但民主国家不会。当人们要决定是否参战时，他们很少愿意这样做。正因为如此，伊曼努尔•康德(Immanuel Kant)才说，民主的普及是世界和平最好的保障。他在1795年时写道，"如果为了决定是否应该进行战争而需要由国家公民表示同意，那么最自然的事就莫过于他们必须非常深思熟虑地去开始一场如此之糟糕的游戏。"When contemporary thinkers such as Michael Doyle have tested Kant's intuition, they have had to add a significant caveat: democracies may not like fighting each other – which is why war has become unthinkable between EU and Nato countries – but they can be very warlike indeed towards tyrants and ethnic cleansers.
当现代思想家，如迈克尔•多伊尔(Michael Doyle)对康德的直觉进行检验时，他们不得不加上了一条重要的附加说明：民主国家之间或许不喜欢大动干戈——正因为此，欧盟(EU)和北约(Nato)国家之间爆发战争才成为一件无法想象之事——但对于专制统治者和实行种族灭绝的统治者，民主国家的确可以非常好战。Drones and cyberwarfare, the latest revolution in military technology, will force us to revise still further Kant's connection between democracy, peace and war. Virtual technologies make it easier for democracies to wage war because they eliminate the risk of blood sacrifice that once forced democratic peoples to be prudent.
军事技术领域的最新革命——无人机和网络战争——将迫使我们对康德有关民主、和平与战争三者之间关系的看法，作出进一步修正。虚拟技术会使得民主国家更加轻易地发动战争，因为他们无需再承担流血牺牲的风险，而以往，这种风险会让民主国家的人民在决定发动战争时慎之又慎。
Virtual war in Kosovo meant piloted F-18s and precision air strikes. In Afghanistan, too, the Taliban was routed initially with precision air strikes guided by forward air controllers. Libya was the same story. Now democracies do not even have to put their pilots in harm's way. Cyberwar and drones offer Nato democracies enticing prospects of cheap, risk-free warfare – and not just democracies. A new arms race is already under way.
在科索沃，虚拟战争采取了有人驾驶的F-18战斗机和精确空袭的形式。在阿富汗，由于北约军队在精确空袭中配备了前进空中控制员(forward air controller)，塔利班(Taliban)在战争初期被打得溃不成军。利比亚的情况也差不多。如今，民主国家甚至都不用让它们的飞行员承受危险。网络战和无人机让北约的民主国家看到了一种极富吸引力的战争前景：这种战争不仅有着较低的经济成本，而且毫无危险。但看到这种前景的不仅只有民主国家。一场新的军备竞赛已经展开。Before succumbing to these technologies, leaders should remember how little virtual war has actually accomplished. Kosovo is still a corrupt ethnic tyranny; Libya will take years to put itself back together; and no one can see a stable state in sight in Afghanistan. Virtual war turned out to be the easy part. Democracies have little staying power for the hard part.
在向这些高科技"俯首称臣"之前，领导人们别忘了，虚拟战争在实际中取得的效果是何等有限。科索沃仍然是一个腐败滋生的民族专制政权；利比亚恢复元气还需要若干年时间；在阿富汗，人们在短期内无法看到局势稳定的迹象。事实证明，赢得虚拟战争只是相对容易的一面。而在应对更难的问题时，民主国家则缺乏持久力。Looking at the options in Syria, drone attacks on regime tank formations and a cybercampaign to immobilise Bashar al-Assad's command and control would be the easy part. Creating a Syria free of sectarian warfare and ethnic political domination would be very hard.
看看叙利亚的情况，出动无人机对政府军坦克编队实施轰炸，以及发动网络战令巴沙尔•阿萨德(Bashar al-Assad)的指挥及控制系统陷入瘫痪，这并非难事。但要想建立一个没有派系纷争的叙利亚，让各民族、各派系能够共同分享政治权利，这又是何等之难事。If war is the continuation of politics by other means, the chief factor limiting the use of these new weapons will be whether they help leaders to attain their political ends. Where these ends seem unattainable or futile, as in Syria, the weapons will remain unused.
如果战争是政治在某种形式上的延续，那么限制使用这些新式武器的首要因素就在于，它们是否能帮助领导人达到他们的政治目的。但凡是在这些目的看似无法实现，或是徒劳无益的地方，比如叙利亚，这些武器就不会动用。The larger problem is that these new weapons are bound to escape political, and therefore democratic, control. Previous revolutions in military affairs, such as the coming of nuclear weapons, strengthened the hand of presidents and prime ministers. Drones and cyberwar technologies are so cheap that it will be impossible to keep them under the lock and key of the sovereign. The age of the super-empowered, and therefore super-dangerous, individual has arrived.
更重要的问题在于，这些新型武器必定会脱离政治和民主的控制。以往军事领域中的重大变革，比如核武器的诞生，增强了政治领导人的控制力。无人机和网络战技术掌握起来是如此容易，主权国家不可能将它们完全封锁起来。有些个人将会因为拥有超强力量而变得极端危险，这种时代已经来临。In deciding how to control drone and cybertechnologies, it is worth remembering that democracies are resilient because they are free. Our cybersystems are now under constant attack and it is in responding to these attacks that they become more secure. States will have to allow the global community of coders and engineers who built and maintain the internet the freedom to keep the malware at bay and keep the system open for the rest of us.
在决定如何控制无人机和网络技术的问题上，有一点值得我们牢记：民主国家之所以具备较强的适应力，因为它们是自由的。如今，我们的网络系统频频遭到攻击，而随之采取的应对措施使得我们的网络系统变得更加安全。各国将必须让构建及维护互联网的全球程序员和工程师们享有自由，在阻隔恶意软件的同时，向其他人开放网络。The new technologies are so easy and cheap to produce that the best international law and state action can hope for is to generate a limited set of shared norms to prohibit their most harmful uses. Even with these in place, drones and malware will fight our wars for us and serve our eternal human desire to inflict harm without consequences. They will be the mercenaries of the 21st century.
这些新技术开发起来是如此便捷，且成本是如此之低，以至于我们对于国际法和国家行动的最乐观期待莫过于是，它们能够促成一批数量有限的共同的行为准则，从而阻止这些技术被应用于最具危害性的用途。即便有了这样的行为准则，无人机和恶意软件还是会被用于战争，并服务于我们永恒的人性欲望——伤害他人，却不用承担后果。它们将成为21世纪的雇佣兵。In thinking about what can keep these technologies under control, we need to remember Kant's original bet on human prudence. Kant's insight was that human beings who can freely choose and reason know full well that if you inflict harm, it will come back to hurt you. Everything must be paid for. If you hit Iran with Stuxnet, you render your own nuclear systems vulnerable to the next hacker, individual or state. If you perfect the killing of individuals with drones, you had better confine your acts to bona fide enemies of your state; otherwise you expose your population as a whole to the same heaven-sent vengeance.
在思考如何才能有效地控制这些技术时，我们需要记住康德关于"审慎"(prudence)的最初观点。康德认为，那些能够自由选择并作出思考的人清楚地知道，如果你伤害了别人，你就会遭到报应。所有事情都是有代价的。如果你用蠕虫病毒Stuxnet攻击伊朗，你自身的核系统将面临黑客报复的危险，无论这种报复是出自个人还是国家。如果你利用无人机发动了一次"堪称完美"的袭击，夺走了平民的性命，接下来，你最好集中精力应对你们国家真正的敌人；否则，你会将你们国家的所有人民暴露在对手的复仇风险之中，这种复仇同样也是天赐的。These new technologies promise harm without consequence. Kant tells us there is no such thing. In this shared human understanding, even between adversaries, lies prudence, and in prudence – caution, care and restraint – lies hope.
这些新式技术似乎让你可以在无须承担后果的情况下，实施破坏。康德告诉我们，天底下没有这样的事。在人类的这种共识之中（即便是在敌手之间）有着一种审慎，在审慎——谨慎、顾虑和克制——之中透露着一种希望。The writer teaches human rights at the University of Toronto and is author of "Virtual War"
本文作者在多伦多大学(University of Toronto)教授人权学科，并著有《虚拟战争》(Virtual War)一书。