How to actually share America’s defense burden with allies
The Trump administration’s National Defense Strategy, released with little fanfare earlier this year, makes an easy-to-grasp argument: America is stretched, simultaneous threats are real, and the United States cannot carry every burden alone.
特朗普政府今年早些时候低调发布的国防战略提出了一个易于理解的论点：美国已经捉襟见肘，同时存在的威胁是真实存在的，美国无法独自承担所有负担。
It calls for allies and partners to spend more, field more, and take greater responsibility in their regions.
它呼吁盟友和合作伙伴在各自地区投入更多资金、投入更多资源并承担更大责任。
The logic is enticing: Defense and deterrence become more credible when coalitions can generate meaningful combat power quickly and sustain it over time.
这个逻辑很诱人：当联盟能够迅速产生有意义的战斗力并随着时间的推移维持它时，防御和威慑就会变得更加可信。
Here’s the problem.
问题就在这里。
You can’t “do more” if you don’t have the underlying capacity and resilience to take a punch and still function under duress.
如果你没有潜在的能力和韧性来承受打击并在压力下仍然发挥作用，你就无法“做得更多”。
In modern conflict, the critical question is not only how much capability exists on paper, but whether militaries and societies can continue to operate through disruption , regenerate after damage, and keep fighting when key systems degrade.
在现代冲突中，关键问题不仅在于纸面上有多少能力，还在于军队和社会是否能够在破坏中继续运作，在受损后恢复活力，并在关键系统退化时继续战斗。
Burden-sharing will fail as a strategy if allied power is not actually usable under attack.
如果盟军的力量在受到攻击时实际上无法使用，那么负担分担战略就会失败。
This is the enabling layer of deterrence itself.
这是威慑本身的赋能层。
Strategies that ask allies to do more are only credible if they address how allies—and coalitions—will function when adversaries attack the connective tissue of war: energy, logistics, communications, and the digital systems that orchestrate them.
要求盟友采取更多行动的战略只有在对手攻击战争的结缔组织（能源、后勤、通信以及协调它们的数字系统）时解决盟友和联盟如何运作的问题时才可信。
This idea of staying power under pressure is deterrence by resilience .
这种在压力下保持力量的想法就是韧性威慑。
Contemporary U.S. adversaries like China, Russia, and Iran prefer hybrid campaigns against U.S. allies because they can all-too-often achieve strategic objectives without the traditional costs and risks of immediate conventional escalation.
中国、俄罗斯和伊朗等美国当代对手更喜欢针对美国盟友采取混合行动，因为它们通常可以实现战略目标，而无需承担常规升级的传统成本和风险。
Rather than opening with large-scale conventional military actions, adversaries aim to interrupt what makes allied militaries (and societies) function: power, fuel, ports, rail lines, bridges, communications networks, and the information systems that coordinate logistics and command.
对手的目的不是采取大规模常规军事行动，而是旨在中断盟军（和社会）的运作：电力、燃料、港口、铁路、桥梁、通信网络以及协调后勤和指挥的信息系统。
The purpose is not simply to cause discomfort or create headlines.
其目的不仅仅是引起不适或制造头条新闻。
It is to slow mobilization, fracture alliance cohesion, and create windows of opportunity in which a rapid fait accompli becomes possible.
它的目的是减缓动员速度，破坏联盟凝聚力，并创造机会之窗，使快速的既成事实成为可能。
Cyber operations are central to this hybrid approach of U.S. adversaries.
网络行动是美国对手这种混合策略的核心。
Offensive cyber can disable or manipulate the digital systems that underpin transportation, energy distribution, port operations, fuel accounting, satellite and terrestrial communications, and the industrial base.
攻击性网络可以禁用或操纵支撑交通、能源分配、港口运营、燃料核算、卫星和地面通信以及工业基础的数字系统。
Just as importantly, cyber can obscure attribution, complicate proportional response, and generate a fog of uncertainty that benefits the attacker.
同样重要的是，网络可能会掩盖归因，使比例响应复杂化，并产生对攻击者有利的不确定性迷雾。
A coalition does not have to be defeated in the field if it can be delayed, paralyzed, or forced into indecision while its critical systems are degraded.
如果一个联盟可以在关键系统退化的同时被拖延、瘫痪或被迫优柔寡断，那么它不一定会在战场上被击败。
The reality should change how policymakers interpret burden-sharing.
现实应该改变政策制定者对负担分担的解释。
“Spend more” and “buy more” will not be enough.
“花更多”和“买更多”是不够的。
What matters is whether allied forces can move, communicate, fuel, repair, and fight through a sustained, cyber-enabled disruption campaign.
重要的是盟军是否能够通过持续的、网络支持的破坏活动来移动、通信、提供燃料、维修和战斗。
The credibility of deterrence on Europe’s eastern flank depends on speed and continuity of reinforcement.
欧洲东翼威慑的可信度取决于增援的速度和连续性。
Forward presence matters, but the decisive variable is whether the alliance can surge forces and keep them moving after disruption.
前沿存在很重要，但决定性的变量是联盟能否在中断后调动兵力并保持其前进。
Rail chokepoints, bridges, tunnels, port cranes, fuel distribution nodes, and telecom networks are not civilian side notes; they are the operating system of reinforcement.
铁路阻塞点、桥梁、隧道、港口起重机、燃料分配节点和电信网络不是民用旁注；它们是强化的操作系统。
An adversary does not need to destroy Europe and NATO’s combat power to undermine deterrence.
对手不需要摧毁欧洲和北约的战斗力来削弱威慑力。
It can target the systems that turn available combat power into arriving combat power.
它可以瞄准将可用战斗力转化为到达战斗力的系统。
A cyber-enabled sabotage campaign against rail dispatch systems, logistics software, port operations, or regional substations could delay movement long enough to present NATO with a stark choice: escalate quickly into a broader war under unfavorable conditions, or accept a slower, riskier response while facts on the ground harden.
针对铁路调度系统、物流软件、港口运营或区域变电站的网络破坏活动可能会拖延行动足够长的时间，从而给北约带来一个严峻的选择：在不利条件下迅速升级为更广泛的战争，或者在事实变得更加严峻的情况下接受更缓慢、风险更高的反应。
Deterrence becomes brittle when it depends on a rapid timeline but rests on fragile infrastructure and untested cross-border procedures.
当威慑依赖于快速的时间表但依赖于脆弱的基础设施和未经测试的跨境程序时，它就会变得脆弱。
A few days of delay can be strategically decisive—not because it ends the war, but because it changes the decision space.
几天的延迟可能具有战略决定性——不是因为它结束了战争，而是因为它改变了决策空间。
Now consider the Indo-Pacific.
现在考虑印度-太平洋地区。
In this region, distance is the structural constraint.
在这个区域，距离是结构性约束。
Ports and runways are scarce and obvious targets.
港口和跑道是稀缺且明显的目标。
Logistics chains are long, complex, and heavily dependent on information systems.
物流链条长、复杂，严重依赖信息系统。
Cyber operations can disrupt shipping schedules, port throughput, fuel distribution, and maintenance pipelines without firing a shot.
网络操作可以不费一枪一弹地扰乱航运时间表、港口吞吐量、燃料分配和维护管道。
A partner can acquire high-end platforms and still see their effective value collapse early if bases lose power, fuel storage becomes inaccessible, port operations pause, or command-and-control becomes unreliable.
合作伙伴可以购买高端平台，但如果基地断电、燃料储存无法访问、港口运营暂停或指挥和控制变得不可靠，他们仍然会提前看到其有效价值崩溃。
In that environment, the decisive advantage is not only who possesses more ships and missiles.
在这种环境下，决定性的优势不仅仅是谁拥有更多的舰艇和导弹。
It is who can keep operating, repairing, and resupplying when key nodes are contested and when networks are degraded.
当关键节点争夺、网络降级时，谁能继续运行、修复和补给。
Deterrence rests on the coalition’s ability to sustain operations under stress and regenerate capability faster than an adversary can destroy or disable it.
威慑取决于联盟在压力下维持行动的能力，以及比对手摧毁或瘫痪其能力更快地恢复能力的能力。
If the federal government wants allies genuinely to carry more weight, it must prioritize and support allied resilience.
如果联邦政府真正希望盟友发挥更大的影响力，就必须优先考虑并支持盟友的韧性。
Doing so will require a focused U.S. program of security cooperation and foreign assistance that helps allies and partners build the resilience needed to operate under attack.
要做到这一点，美国需要制定一个有针对性的安全合作和对外援助计划，帮助盟国和合作伙伴建立在攻击下运作所需的弹性。
This would include increased funding, advise-and-assist, joint planning, exercises, and cyber cooperation.
这将包括增加资金、建议和协助、联合规划、演习和网络合作。
Such a shift does not require an open-ended commitment or a permanent subsidy, but it does require a time-bound and significant ramp up of U.S. support tied to clear priorities and allied co-investment.
这种转变不需要无限期的承诺或永久性补贴，但确实需要美国在明确的优先事项和盟国共同投资的基础上提供有时限的、大幅增加的支持。
U.S. support should treat cyber and resilience as a single integrated problem.
美国的支持应将网络和复原力视为一个单一的综合问题。
Hardening physical infrastructure without hardening the digital systems that run it is insufficient.
仅强化物理基础设施而不强化运行它的数字系统是不够的。
Building cyber defenses without addressing power, fuel, and repair capacity is equally insufficient.
在不解决电力、燃料和维修能力的情况下建立网络防御同样是不够的。
The objective is operational continuity: the ability to fight through disruption and recover quickly.
目标是运营连续性：抵御干扰并快速恢复的能力。
What would U.S. support for allied resilience look like in practice?
美国对盟军复原力的支持在实践中会是什么样子？
The United States should help partners identify the handful of corridors and nodes that matter most for reinforcement and sustainment, then prioritize support to harden them, add redundancy, and pre-position repair capacity.
美国应该帮助合作伙伴确定对加固和维持最重要的少数走廊和节点，然后优先提供支持以加固它们，增加冗余并预先部署修复能力。
This would include physical measures—bridge repair kits, runway patching materials, port-clearing equipment, spare transformers, and standing contracts and trained teams to use them quickly.
这将包括物理措施——桥梁维修套件、跑道修补材料、港口清理设备、备用变压器以及长期合同和训练有素的团队来快速使用它们。
But in a cyber-enabled conflict, it also includes the digital systems that make logistics function: port management software, rail dispatch and signaling, fuel inventory and distribution systems, and the enterprise tools that coordinate movement and sustainment.
但在网络驱动的冲突中，它还包括发挥物流功能的数字系统：港口管理软件、铁路调度和信号、燃料库存和分配系统，以及协调移动和保障的企业工具。
Resilience planning should assume these systems will be targeted and should build graceful degradation into operations: segmented networks for operational technology, offline restoration pathways, audited backups, and manual procedures that are practiced rather than merely documented.
弹性规划应该假设这些系统将成为目标，并且应该在操作中构建优雅的降级：用于操作技术的分段网络、离线恢复路径、经过审计的备份以及经过实践而不是仅仅记录的手动程序。
U.S. support here can combine planning assistance, technical standards support, joint assessments, and targeted co-funding for the highest-value nodes rather than diffuse spending across every vulnerability.
美国在这里的支持可以结合规划援助、技术标准支持、联合评估和针对最高价值节点的有针对性的联合资助，而不是在每个漏洞上分散支出。
Bases and critical transport nodes need backup power that works under pressure: microgrids, protected generation, prioritized restoration, and redundancy in fuel distribution.
基地和关键运输节点需要在压力下工作的备用电源：微电网、受保护的发电、优先恢复和燃料分配的冗余。
Energy resilience is the difference between moving forces and halting, between maintaining a functioning medical system and a cascading failure.
能源弹性是移动力量和停止力量之间、维持正常运转的医疗系统和连锁故障之间的区别。
Cyber considerations must be built into energy resilience from the start.
从一开始就必须将网络考虑纳入能源弹性之中。
Many of the systems that control generation and distribution are vulnerable precisely because they were designed for efficiency, connectivity, and centralized management—attributes that become liabilities during conflict.
许多控制发电和配电的系统之所以容易受到攻击，正是因为它们是为效率、连通性和集中管理而设计的，而这些属性在冲突期间会成为负债。
Resilience means reducing single points of failure, limiting unnecessary connectivity, and ensuring restoration can occur even when normal digital control pathways are disrupted.
弹性意味着减少单点故障，限制不必要的连接，并确保即使在正常的数字控制路径中断时也能进行恢复。
Targeted U.S. support should help on all these fronts through joint planning, technical assistance, and selective financing for the installations and transport nodes that matter most to coalition operations.
美国的有针对性的支持应该通过联合规划、技术援助以及对对联军行动最重要的设施和运输节点的选择性融资来在所有这些方面提供帮助。
Allies should assume communications will be contested.
盟友应该假设通信将会受到争议。
The requirement is not perfect connectivity; it is a reliable function under degraded conditions.
要求不是完美的连接；在退化条件下它是一个可靠的功能。
That means redundant pathways, prioritized traffic, and the ability to operate when high-end networks are down or untrusted.
这意味着冗余路径、优先流量以及在高端网络出现故障或不受信任时运行的能力。
It also means joint restoration playbooks that cut across military and civilian providers, because the same fiber line or satellite link that supports civilian life often supports the base down the road.
它还意味着跨越军事和民用提供商的联合恢复行动手册，因为支持平民生活的同一条光纤线路或卫星链路通常会支持未来的基地。
This is also where offensive and defensive cyber integration matters.
这也是进攻性和防御性网络整合的重要性所在。
A coalition that expects to fight through disruption should also be prepared to impose costs on the adversary’s disruption campaign: disrupting malicious infrastructure, degrading reconnaissance and access pathways, and limiting an adversary’s ability to scale effects.
期望通过破坏进行战斗的联盟还应该准备好对对手的破坏活动施加成本：破坏恶意基础设施，削弱侦察和访问路径，并限制对手扩大影响的能力。
The point is not escalation for its own sake.
重点不是为了升级而升级。
The point is to reduce the attacker’s confidence that cyber-enabled paralysis will succeed.
关键是要降低攻击者对网络瘫痪成功的信心。
U.S. support can accelerate this by helping allies build degraded-operations procedures, joint restoration playbooks, and integrated cyber planning that connects defensive continuity with options to disrupt an adversary’s disruption campaign.
美国的支持可以通过帮助盟国建立降级作战程序、联合恢复行动手册以及将防御连续性与破坏对手破坏活动的选项联系起来的综合网络规划来加速这一进程。
Burden-sharing collapses if every damaged platform or compromised system must wait on a transoceanic supply chain and a centralized response team.
如果每个受损平台或受损系统都必须等待跨洋供应链和集中响应团队，那么责任分担就会崩溃。
Coalitions need forward repair hubs, shared stocks of critical spares, and standardization where feasible.
联盟需要前沿维修中心、共享关键备件库存以及可行的标准化。
They also need shared cyber incident response capacity—particularly for operational technology and critical infrastructure—because cyber disruptions will target the same nodes that sustain combat operations.
他们还需要共享的网络事件响应能力，尤其是作战技术和关键基础设施，因为网络中断将针对维持作战行动的相同节点。
In practice, this means joint cyber defense teams that can deploy quickly, shared playbooks for restoration, and routine “hunt and harden” efforts on the systems that matter most for reinforcement and sustainment.
在实践中，这意味着联合网络防御团队可以快速部署、共享恢复手册，并对对加固和维持最重要的系统进行例行的“搜寻和强化”工作。
Done well, this does not replace sovereign responsibility—it multiplies it by ensuring that allied investments translate into operational continuity.
如果做得好，这并不能取代主权责任，而是通过确保联合投资转化为运营连续性来使主权责任倍增。
This is also the right place to expand U.S. Cyber Command hunt forward operations , where U.S. forces are invited to work in tandem with partners to address cyber threats, and related partner-facing cyber support teams.
这也是扩大美国网络司令部搜寻行动的合适场所，邀请美国军队与合作伙伴以及面向合作伙伴的相关网络支持团队合作应对网络威胁。
These efforts directly strengthen shared detection, incident response, and pre-crisis hardening on the systems most likely to be targeted first.
这些努力直接加强了对最有可能首先成为目标的系统的共享检测、事件响应和危机前强化。
Continuity of government, mass-casualty capacity, population movement, and realistic national exercises are not domestic trivia.
政府的连续性、大规模伤亡能力、人口流动和现实的国家演习都不是国内琐事。
They are part of the deterrence bargain because panic, paralysis, and political fracture are weapons in hybrid conflict.
它们是威慑交易的一部分，因为恐慌、瘫痪和政治分裂是混合冲突中的武器。
If adversaries believe a society will freeze under sustained disruption—especially cyber-enabled disruption of basic services—then military capability alone will not restore deterrence.
如果对手认为社会将在持续的破坏下冻结——特别是网络对基本服务的破坏——那么单靠军事能力将无法恢复威慑力。
Exercises should reflect the likely opening conditions of modern conflict: degraded communications, disrupted energy distribution, compromised logistics systems, and contested information environments.
演习应反映现代冲突可能出现的条件：通信退化、能源分配中断、后勤系统受损以及有争议的信息环境。
U.S. and partner military and civilian responders should train together because the response chain is inherently interdependent.
美国和合作伙伴的军事和民事响应人员应该一起训练，因为响应链本质上是相互依赖的。
Washington can support this through combined exercises, planning cells, scenario design, and after-action processes that help allies turn lessons into funded readiness improvements.
华盛顿可以通过联合演习、规划小组、情景设计和行动后流程来支持这一目标，帮助盟友将经验教训转化为资助的战备改进。
A surge in U.S. resilience support to allies and partners, structured as targeted burden-sharing assistance, will strengthen deterrence in two main ways.
美国对盟友和合作伙伴的弹性支持激增，以有针对性的负担分担援助为架构，将从两个主要方面加强威慑。
Operationally, it reduces the attacker’s ability to create decisive delays and paralysis, making coalition power more likely to arrive and persist.
从操作上来说，它降低了攻击者造成决定性拖延和瘫痪的能力，使联军更有可能到达并持续存在。
Politically, it increases alliance confidence by demonstrating that deterrence is not a rhetorical commitment but a practical capacity: the capacity to function under attack.
从政治上讲，它通过证明威慑不是口头承诺而是实际能力（在攻击下发挥作用的能力）来增强联盟信心。
This approach is also cost-effective relative to the combat power it preserves.
相对于其保留的战斗力而言，这种方法也具有成本效益。
A hardened corridor, a credible restoration plan for key substations and port systems, pre-positioned repair stocks, and routine cyber hardening of logistics nodes can prevent the rapid loss of combat power that would otherwise occur in the first days of conflict.
加固的走廊、关键变电站和港口系统的可靠恢复计划、预先部署的维修库存以及后勤节点的例行网络加固可以防止战斗力的迅速损失，否则在冲突的第一天就会发生这种情况。
These investments do not replace high-end platforms.
这些投资不会取代高端平台。
They make high-end platforms usable.
它们使高端平台变得可用。
If the Trump administration is serious about actually shifting burdens, it needs to drastically ramp up U.S. support for allied resilience in the short term, with a laser focus on the systems that determine whether coalition combat power can actually be employed.
如果特朗普政府真的想真正转移负担，那么它需要在短期内大幅增加美国对盟军复原力的支持，重点关注决定联军战斗力能否真正发挥作用的系统。
Otherwise, we are asking allies to buy capability while leaving them vulnerable to the very methods adversaries will use to neutralize it.
否则，我们会要求盟友购买能力，同时让他们很容易受到对手用来压制能力的方法的影响。